A brilliant piece of advice from the woman whose code put men on the moon
While visiting NASA in the early 60s, the then-president, JFK, asked a janitor what he did there. The janitor replied: “helping put a man on the moon”.
We love this story so much we named our company after it. It's a story about what can be achieved when you have a clearly articulated sense of mission that brings everyone along with you. A story about connecting the broom with the moon.
To celebrate Women’s History Month, today we want to salute one of that janitor’s colleagues: Margaret Hamilton, the lead software engineer of the Apollo Project.
Having written (by hand) the code that was used in the Apollo 11 mission, Hamilton was another NASA employee who was crucial to the realisation of JFK’s moonshot.
She’s also credited with coining the term “software engineering”, so she’s obviously a fellow wordsmith too (could we love her any more?).
In an interview with The Guardian, Hamilton was asked what advice she’d give young women who want a career in coding.
Her answer?
Don’t be afraid to say “I don’t know” or “I don’t understand” – no question is a dumb question.
Perhaps being a woman in a male-dominated world gave her an outsider status that allowed her to identify problems by asking the “stupid” questions?
Either way, this “no question is a dumb question” maxim is one we at Broom & Moon also live by.
In getting under the skin of our clients’ businesses, we often find ourselves asking the question no one else thought — or was brave enough — to ask.
If you want to engage people in your mission, it’s vital to be able to talk about that mission in terms anyone can understand.
And that means not taking it for granted that something’s obvious. It means seeing the blindspots that only a “stupid” question can reveal.
What stupid question will you ask today?
For help uncovering, articulating and achieving your moonshot, get in touch.
