Empathy is a Technical Skill

Speaker: Andrea Goulet

Empathy is a technical skill. Don’t worry. You read that correctly. While empathy is often cited as a critical “soft skill,” it doesn’t stop there. Empathy is also an incredibly technical topic that is more accessible to analytical engineers and more vital to building software than you might think. In this engaging presentation, Andrea Goulet, a noted expert on communication in the software industry, will debunk several myths around empathy. Empathy is just a feeling? Nope. Technicians can’t access empathy? Nope. Empathy is just a high-level, touchy-feely fad? Nope. Andrea will demonstrate how empathy is a crucial skill for developing software and will focus on giving you practical and immediately actionable advice for making empathy a central focus of your daily development practice. You’ll walk away with a solid understanding of what empathy is, what it isn’t, how you can build your empathy skills, and a framework for using empathy while coding. If you’ve ever thought that you’re “good with machines” but have struggled to understand people, this is a talk you won’t want to miss. 

By exploring empathy through a lens of detail and nuance, attendees will learn specific ways to: 

• Recognize how recent empathy research often doesn’t support colloquial understanding

• Look for specific opportunities in day-to-day development practices to apply empathy

• Uncover how cultural messages have impacted individual identity around empathy skills

• Use systems engineering principles to operationalize empathy effectively

• Hone specific skills through practice in order to refine applied empathy techniques