On the subject of triviality, I've made some discoveries about demoing software to non-programmers. Of course a pretty appearance is very important, but even in just describing features, how hard they were to implement is of zero interest. And what you can sell people on is stuff that is absolutely trivial, or even stuff that is commonplace and every competitor out there does just as well. You feel like you're going to be found out when you brag on the fact that your bike design features a foot activated swing-down ground support to hold it in a vertical position when not in use. But people eat it up.
That's a really good point that I've begun realizing more frequently in my work. People are blown away by most things, and there is almost no correlation between how difficult the problem was and how amazed they are. In fact, I frequently find that the easy stuff tends to impress more (simple UI tweaks, small jQuery animation).
I try to get my highly technical kudos from my technical friends, because my non-technical co-workers begin to glaze over when when I really want to talk about something tricky and fun I did.
