The intermediaries: Talking geekspeak to non-geeks

One of the highlights of this past week was a chance to sit down with Rastin and Teresa. Rastin is a programmer and most definitely, a full-blown geek, he describes himself as a Web Application Architect. We were having a really fun conversation on the geekification process, a conversation that I am sure I have previously had with Rebecca. Sometimes I need stuff to be translated from geek-speak to plain English.

This reminds me from the Fantastic Four movie line (Sue Storm, The Thing and Mr. Fantastic).

Mr. Fantastic - “Ben, we need to analyze how the radiation changed your molecular structure”
The Thing - “Huh?”
Sue Storm – “We need to check you out to know what got zapped”
The Thing – “Ahhh!”

There are a couple of interesting insights I gained from this conversation. First, writing your own HTML is not exactly coding. I want to be able to understand the platform (I use WordPress, which is written in PHP and backed in MySQL). I don’t want to learn PHP, although I do know SQL to some extent. Teresa really wants to learn more programming and coding, and be able to control and manage the content on her blog. And while we are having these exchanges, Rastin indicated that coding and programming was much more than just knowing how to use the tags and HTML. This is most definitely true.

Nowhere did this statement ring more true than at DrupalCamp ‘08. I *really* wanted to go, because I want to be able to know all the geeks and coders and social media folks on a first name basis, hang out, share ideas, etc. But the thing is, even if I had had the time to go (which I don’t) it would have been a waste of my time to some extent. Why? Because I am not fully educated yet. I don’t speak geekspeak *just* yet. I’m *learning*, however.

I was very proud of myself when I could start writing my own HTML tags. I was also proud when I bought my own domain and cleaned the URLs (which I wouldn’t have been able to do without JT and the outstanding and patient step-by-step guidance of Rebecca Bollwitt). However, I am not yet fully geekspeak-educated. Why do I think it is important? I’ll tell you why… that’s the second insight I gained from my recent conversation with Rastin and Teresa.

A little bit of background – amongst my academic qualifications, I have the equivalent of an MBA, and I’m also an engineer. The reason why I did the Masters degree that I did is to be able to “speak business to engineers” and viceversa. Well, just the same… there *needs* to be someone to speak geekspeak with the developers AND speek plain-English to non-geeks. That’s why I see the role of people who work in social media AND are good writers/communicators as key. Those of you (and you know who you am referring to) that are able to translate the needs of users into geekspeak AND viceversa, will be VERY successful, that’s my prognosis.

Now, these insights may look insignificant to many of you who have been fully immersed in social media. However, for me, realizing this was a really big deal! It has taken me many months, lots of writing and the help of numerous bloggers to be able to manipulate the platforms (first Blogger now WordPress) to make my blog what it is now. And I’ve also come to the realization that, whether for a career or just to improve my own blogging, I DO want to be able to speak geek. So, the next opportunity I have, I will FOR SURE go to DrupalCamp. Or whatever event where I can learn more about Drupal. And WordPress. And PHP. And MySQL. Geekification, FTW!

Related posts:

1. The Tazzu networking event – Dec 1, 2008
2. Bloggers and geeks as superheroes
3. Over 3000 Tweets? What am I talking about?
4. Yay for academic geeks!
5. Thursday link love – Post Tazzu WordCamp :)