“I have to write about this,” She said to Perry. “It’s part of the story.”

–Makers, 81, Doctorow

Why do we tell others about what we’re working on? In the classroom, students would tell other students about their designs. There’s a method of debugging called “rubber ducking” in which a coder explains coding to a rubber duck, because coding is so logical a process that going through it allows the mind to pick up the errors. When we talk to others, explain to others, show our work to others, it’s part of thinking. It’s outsourcing our mental processes, and extending our mind into those we interact with, in order to think more efficiently and effectively.