Hey everyone, it's Mukundan again. Welcome back
to Data and AI with Mukundan, where we explore
what it really takes to build, explain and grow
with your work in today's world of tech. This
episode is part two of a series that I started
recently and it's personal because I'm not just
talking about code today, I'm talking about being
seen. Understood, right? So, have you ever sent
your work to someone? Let's say your manager.
Maybe when you're interviewing, you sent it to
your hiring manager, right? Or coming back to
work, you're sending it to your teammate or your
friend and gotten nothing back. No feedback,
no comment, no sense that your work landed. Well,
at least in case of your friend, not right away.
Maybe you get it like a day later or something.
And this happened to me, particularly with my
friend. I think I sent him on like a Monday morning
or something. And I didn't get a response until
Wednesday. So no feedback, no comment. Nothing
that my work reached them. And this was even
after I'd sent my friend everything. clearly
explaining in a blog post not yeah so in my friend's
case it was a blog post in other cases that i've
seen it was just like to make life easier i just
write a long piece of document but try to explain
it clearly even at work and again with my manager
no response as well i think it would have been
a seven or eight minute read and even with that
it was just that you know i was waiting on this
person's response like my manager's response
i just didn't get it right away so i was just
you know distraught like i spent some time working
on it and uh you know i understand that people
are busy so that's when i thought like well maybe
the problem is me and and it is it was in this
case right i've been trying to send out this
big big reads not everybody has time to read
it um and so that made me think like what if
i could make it quicker so i built something
new so this what i built was a tool that turns
your code into a visual right like a diagram
something that people can understand at a glance
this episode is the story behind that tool and
what it taught me about being visible about having
clarity and why storytelling is just not optional
anymore. Well, without further ado, let's dive
in. So after I launched part one of the series
about five weeks ago, when I introduced the Code
to Story app, I thought I'd solved the problem.
Finally, I could explain what my code did. And
I mentioned during that time, it's like I even
wrote a blog post walking through. every part
of my tone detection app but when i sent it to
my friends i mean friend in this case i'll send
it to other friends as well it's just you know
managers check router hiring managers retiring
manager it's just something that i've seen as
a pattern over the years it's just not something
that has happened right now um whenever you send
something you think that you're summarizing that's
i mean this is something that i've been observing
over a period of time like you're sending a big
document you would think that's like a six or
seven minute read and people don't respond right
away when you're you know sending them maybe
in the middle of the week but then again that's
when they have time to read it they don't want
to be spending their weekends reading uh going
through that document but you have have you ever
experienced this it's basically complete silence
like you can hear the sound of crickets and the
response otherwise you would get would be too
busy didn't get to it yet school what does it
do it again so that's something usually a friend
would say and that's when it kind of stings and
it also got me thinking what I realized is time
is the new attention and here's the thing your
audience no matter how much they care and especially
your friend they are busy everybody has their
own life They don't want 10 minutes. I mean,
they don't want 10 minutes to read something
that you've sent. They don't want to be taking
that out of their time. Nobody does. Yes, they
want to be nice to you. They will, especially
your friend, they will try to do that for you.
But can you send it to them in a shorter format
as well? They want 5 seconds, right? 10 seconds
even. something really really quick they want
something visual something they can see immediate
understandable so i stopped for a brief moment
to write these longer explanations yeah i mean
sure like longer form content has its own value
it stays forever right and it's you will find
a lot of use for that long form content when
people have time but when they don't writing
longer explanations isn't really helping and
I'm just thinking to myself how can I get it
to them instantly the answer is visual storytelling
so what that means something that you can see
and here how the tool works so this is the tool
that I built which would help you to do some
visual storytelling it's a simple Python based
app that uses streamlit again from the uh i say
streamlit again because that's what i use for
code to story as well and i've been using that
for a ton of my applications streamlit is this
amazing if you're if you're joined in for the
first time streamlit is this amazing python based
uh front -end library basically it helps to show
your program helps to show your code that you've
written in the back end to other people It makes
it so like a web website application that you
see as a first -time user. I mean as a Someone
who's never understood code in their life. Let's
say you are On google .com what you see in front
of you. That's the front end. So basically what
this does is this streamlit app Which is the
front end I was telling you about it. It shows
you a nice front end it takes your python file
their backend code sends it to gpt4 gpt4 i'm
sure everybody knows by now is open ai's uh large
language model and it will ask basically it's
like a prompt in a way will tell you to like
summarize this code like a flow diagram like
a flow chart in a way should be an input process
and output and that's how a float flow chart
works right and so you give a piece of code you'll
get like a flow chart out of it not something
that you've had to build something that it does
for you the ai does for you so basically this
ai turns any code into a flow chart a flow diagram
right that's how it makes it visual and people
don't have time to read it so they will go through
the flow chart what this does this there you
go uh and that's that's how it is so basically
it renders that summary into a clean chart using
graph wiz so you paste your code click one button
and boom diagram and it's great to help visualize
things so you can drop that image into your blog
that you're writing for this your github readme
a linkedin post or a slide deck if when you're
sending it to your friend just send the um flow
flow diagram also right that'll be easy for them
to see in terms of real world use cases other
than the ones i just spoke about here are just
a few ways you can change this i mean here are
a few ways this can change how you do things
so let's say you're in an interview you walk
someone through your logic visually that will
help them your future hiring manager can understand
what's going on right away show them this this
this there you go and on linkedin if you want
to write a post you can show your project in
five slides or maybe your even for hiring manager
you can do that in five slides also a lot of
visuals again right and maybe you're showcasing
this in your portfolio each project gets a chart
right and so let's say you're also having call
with your manager and you want to show how the
code you have written works show them this diagram
they'll instantly see how it flows and sometimes
when you don't want to talk you're just tired
let's say you're burnt out from the day this
diagram speaks for you it's not just a dev tool
it's a storytelling shortcut and that's powerful
because helps you tell your story quickly people
don't have time to listen to long stories all
the time just to give you a sense of behind what
went in building this so it wasn't just like
some perfectly scoped side project it's just
messy it was messy at first and failed trying
to pass the logic myself try drag x pattern matching
static analysis but i think gpt4's ability to
summarize and interpret this code with context
i don't think anything could beat it could be
wrong but definitely beat what i was trying to
do and graphvis gave me that ability to draw
flowcharts simply and streamlit made a great
way to display this app on the made the ui part
easy basically and out of this you may be wondering
what was the hardest part hardest part i think
letting go of perfection just not because when
you're trying to build something you're trying
to create a flow chart also by yourself it can
take a while think through the logic and this
app really does it in in seconds so the goal
is not to build a perfect diagram just build
something that is understandable because just
like them like your friend your manager your
future hiring manager or whoever that is just
like they don't have time you know who else doesn't
have time you your time is valuable and building
something understandable sometimes does the job
so unless your future hiring manager wants to
know i mean wants to hire you based on just this
particular project side project that you did
i think building some understandable one also
can do the job and you should just build on if
it's something that you think that would work
you know building a perfect diagram yeah you
know you can obviously tell give a prompt to
gpt and it'll give you kind of a more perfect
diagram than what i'm currently showing but for
me the goal was to build an understandable one
because everybody's time is valuable. And just
like your hiring manager, your friend, your manager,
everyone needs to value their time, including
you. That's basically it. What I want to say,
the turning point for me here was when I uploaded
my tone detector app code and saw that like a
simple diagram was coming in place for what I
was trying to explain. Yes, my explanation was
clear. It's just, it was long. and this diagram
was quick just like it said load input analyze
compare export that was the moment four steps
load input analyze compare and export that was
when i was thinking this is when i can say basically
this is what i built and now you get it too and
i didn't even have to speak so if you ever felt
like your work was getting ignored like your
code was invisible like You had to explain yourself
over and over. I see you. That's why I built
this. First for me and now for you. Let your
work show itself. Let your project speak in one
glance. And you can find the code screenshots
and blog where I talk about all of this, including
the code in the show notes. And if this helped
you, let me know. Or better yet, just share your
first diagram. Until next time. This is Data
Nia with Mukundan. Keep building, keep showing
and stop over explaining. See you in the next
one.