Have noticed some trends developing over the last year or so – and it might be part of the current economic slump while tied into modern tech-etiquette…
Tech-etiquette: A bit of an oxymoron.
I have been doing IT and web stuff since World Wide Web day 1 (as a side thing…) – which takes us to the mid nineties. That is long long ago in internet time. Try explaining to a young person, a time before smart phones and personal devices… texting and social media, etc.
“Please, Tell me more grandpa.”
Well, it seems that technology has become so advanced and so accessible to everyone and so “point and click…” than anyone can do it.
Which on the surface would seem great and all – and very convenient, but it does not underline the actual complexity of the underlying technologies.
Websites for instance: On my islandnet account I can actually log in, click one button, make a few selection of some plugins, give my blog a name, and within a minute have a very pretty blog – which I can then keep auto-updated with the additional clicks of a mouse.
A monkey could do this.
But wait: There is still the issue of access. Of content. Of media. Of SEO. Of security and so on. To this day I still need to explain (to lay internet users) very carefully that “The Web” has evolved beyond HTML editors, FTP clients and a desktop cluttered with tools… into a largely “server-side” World – where everything is “out there” “in the clouds” as it were.
We are a generation of instant deployment and remote content managed online entities… and most people do not know it yet.
Which brings us to the issue of effectively valuing and marketing your talents in an environment that sees everything as instant and cryptic at the same time.
Instant in that your cousin or nephews girlfriends kid brother can create a blog or web presence for you in minutes. They cannot tell you what you can do with it beyond the initial rush of launch moment or what is under the hood…
that is the cryptic part. Nor can they create actual content or understanding marketing or connect you with the right match for you product or ideas. Nope. They cannot. Because they understand the surface technology like their understand the face of their iPhone of the dashboard of their Honda Civic. Under the hood? Haven’t a clue. Aren’t there people for that?
Thrice in the last couple of months I have had 3 separate scenarios play out:
a.) A web site (I have been maintaining) and a company that I have been working with for almost a decade, all hands on, all regularly updated and checked announced to me one day while I was brainstorming an important update… “We have a new developer and our new site, being beta tested, is over here…”
Uhm. Hello? How about a word to your loyal web guy who has been doing this all this time? Oops, says the company owner. “Yea, I guess we could have let you know…”
b.) Was planning a major build to a media company for almost 2 years – with promises from the owner, “Yup, Colin… you are the guy.” We spent many, many e-mail working out the details and as we approached the day we would finally tackle the bricks and mortar of the site… “Oh… My son-in-law… a real web whiz kid with this sort of thing… you know family… they come first… I will call you if the work he does goes South…”
c.) Same as in b.) but a different project. This time it was the daughters BF or something… “Struggling young people making their way…”
OK – so I get and appreciate that. I do.
When your car breaks, do you take it to the factory trained mechanic or to your Uncles girlfriend because she likes the feeling of grease under her fingers? When your Air Canada flight is blasting down the runway, hope and pray that the avionics were tested by someone that knows what they are doing and not someones jack-of-all nephew. They are geeks too.
Point is: It is hard to come across as a professional when nobody understands what the heck it is that you do… beyond the surface sheen that is. And yet results vary between professions.
Sigh. Apparently it is World Pancake Day today. Ironic that it is not World Syrup Day for another couple of weeks…
And too bad people do not take the time to remember a little common courtesy when engaging technical professionals (like a lot of people that are reading this right now…)
Geeks are people. Learn a bit about us. And treat us like people. And thanks!