[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Technical guys (Page 1 of 2)
Posted: 4/10/2012 3:07:08 PM EDT
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Do you ever find yourself having to struggle to come up with analogies to explain what's going on to people who don't understand technology and shit? |
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I have a very basic understanding of what the stuff we make at work does. Very basic. And I don't really care. On the other hand, the engineers that design this stuff think there is some magical process involved to ship it out of the country. I avoid telling them how simple it really is. |
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Do you ever find yourself having to struggle to come up with analogies to explain what's going on to people who don't understand technology and shit? Yes. I try to use automotive analogies whenever possible - seems very effective, for some reason. Failing that, I have a white board in my office - I find pictures help 
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I'm pretty good at it, which is something my clients appreciate. I pick a regular subject they're very familiar with and tie it together. It doesn't have to be perfect, it doesn't even have to be good, it just has to make them comfortable with using the technology and a basic guide to it's use. But I reserve that for people who write me checks, everyone else gets "Damifino".
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| The fact is that people really dont give two shits about what's wrong they're just trying to make small talk and not look stupid doing it. I've been this line of work for going on 9yrs and I've found it's just easier to say I fixed it and dont do this ever agian. You'd think Satellite TV/Internet would be pretty straight forward but you'd be wrong, people are lazy and only want someone esle to it all for them so they dont have to understand it. |
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Some days I'm pretty good at it. Other days I fail miserably. I'm pretty good at a lot of what I do. I'm no expert but I know those who are. That has been the saving grace of my career. If something is over my head I set aside my ego and do not hesitate calling someone for help to resolving a problem as quickly as possible. When there is a problem at work, it seems I am the one who has to boil it down so mgt & supervision can understand and so they can fill out some stupid report to someone higher in the food chain. |
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Like Southhoof, sometimes I nail it and the audience is clearly getting my drift.
Other times it's just me saying magic words. I've gotten much better at this over the years. ETA: it seems to work better if I think through the analogies to anticipate what kind of questions I might be asked. For example, if I'm talking about metal fatigue and use the paper clip bending analogy, I like to compare that to a spring or say a piano spring. If I compare voltage to water pressure then I need to have some analogies to inductors (long lines of pipe with inertia) and capacitors (pressure accumulators). But I need to find examples of those items that the listeners can relate to (they may not know how water behaves)/ |
| Pretty much every day, some days I'm more effective/efficient at it then others, though some of it has been cut down after several of the more common culprits realized that half the time I was doing research on it anyway(thought that should've been a giveway when I said "I'll get back with you") then explaining it to them later for those things I couldn't explain on the spot. I've also had the strong desire to go off on some explanations with confidently stated B.S. and see how long till it comes back to me....people's ability to discern B.S. from truth seems to be lacking more often......maybe that explains the current resident of the house with the big fenced in yard with the helipad in the back at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave..... |
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Do you ever find yourself having to struggle to come up with analogies to explain what's going on to people who don't understand technology and shit? Everyone thinks boilers are magic heat makers. I really simplify the description of complicated controls. |
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Sure, try explaining nuclear magnetic resonance and spin precession to people - or all the parts of an MRI scanner and what's required to make everything work. But then again, the people who usually control the purse strings are about as sharp as a marble, so you better figure out a way to explain it to them so that they can understand it. |
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Sure, try explaining nuclear magnetic resonance and spin precession to people - or all the parts of an MRI scanner and what's required to make everything work. But then again, the people who usually control the purse strings are about as sharp as a marble, so you better figure out a way to explain it to them so that they can understand it. The part in bold is the scary and sad truth. BTW, I thought that the 'nuclear' part of NMRI was verboten? Only "MRI" is allowed terminology? |
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Sure, try explaining nuclear magnetic resonance and spin precession to people - or all the parts of an MRI scanner and what's required to make everything work. But then again, the people who usually control the purse strings are about as sharp as a marble, so you better figure out a way to explain it to them so that they can understand it. Depends on where you work. The boss of my 150+ man sub-company started in this company as a programmer. The boss of the 300+ year old global company also started as a programmer. We do software. They ain't dumb. 
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Sure, try explaining nuclear magnetic resonance and spin precession to people - or all the parts of an MRI scanner and what's required to make everything work. But then again, the people who usually control the purse strings are about as sharp as a marble, so you better figure out a way to explain it to them so that they can understand it. Depends on where you work. The boss of my 150+ man sub-company started in this company as a programmer. The boss of the 300+ year old global company also started as a programmer. We do software. They ain't dumb. He did say usually....I have found he's right though....when you're in that situation you need to explain it just enough to sell them on cutting the check for the next big bad toy that will do process X 40% faster then currently and just happens to be the coolest thing out there at the moment... However if I had to pick I'd prefer the top guys to be technical guys who know whats going on and will call people on their B.S excuses about stuff, however as the company gets larger the amount of people with good skills in technicals roles making it to upper level mangt seems to decrease.....probably cause they're smarter and realize it's not worth it. In which case as long as the managers up top manage/direct a bit then get the hell of the do-ers way I'm good with it. |
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Do you ever find yourself having to struggle to come up with analogies to explain what's going on to people who don't understand technology and shit? Everyday. Especially with managers. They want explainations about why this or that is happening and when I tell them the real reason I usually get the ? look. |
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Do you ever find yourself having to struggle to come up with analogies to explain what's going on to people who don't understand technology and shit? All the time. My favorite from my old job was... User: "How come this says it came from So-And-So but it's spam? How is that possible? Me: "Well I can write whatever the hell I want in the top left corner of an envelope before I drop it in the mailbox, can't I?" |
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i've gotten sick of trying to explain to people who ask why. i now simply respond with "it just does" or, "it just doesn't".
this started because of 1 guy i work with. he demanded to know why a digital communicator he installed wouldn't connect and report correctly. i told him how to fix it. he asked why it didnt work, i explained. he said "i don't understand, why doesn't it work?" we did this dance for 15 min before i blew up screaming "are you fucking with me?" unfortunatly he was not. i told him it was magic and to get the fuck out of my office. the company president had a talk with me later that day.
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i've gotten sick of trying to explain to people who ask why. i now simply respond with "it just does" or, "it just doesn't". this started because of 1 guy i work with. he demanded to know why a digital communicator he installed wouldn't connect and report correctly. i told him how to fix it. he asked why it didnt work, i explained. he said "i don't understand, why doesn't it work?" we did this dance for 15 min before i blew up screaming "are you fucking with me?" unfortunatly he was not. i told him it was magic and to get the fuck out of my office. the company president had a talk with me later that day. 
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I'm actually very good at explaining concepts in ways people can understand, I just choose not to in the vast majority of cases because it's a waste of everyone's time, even if they grasp it.
I have a canned response when I fix something technical and a client says "so .... what was the problem?" I say "If I told what the problem was and explained to you how I fixed it and you understood everything I said, you wouldn't have called me in the first place." Surprisingly, not only does the virtually always work, I have yet to actually insult anyone with that answer. I'm still trying, though. |
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When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Arthur C. Clarke |
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My wife asked the other day: "Nick, what's the internet? Like what exactly is it? How does it work?" *insert 10 minute, exceedingly basic explanation* "I'm totally lost." I don't explain shit to people often. It ends in the same result, generally. This. ETA: Quoted:
When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Arthur C. Clarke And the comedic corollary, sufficiently complicated magic is indistinguishable from technology.
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They teach graduate students that an important form of communication is the "Elevator Talk."
What would do to explain the relevance of your research if you stepped into an elevator with (insert organizational bigwig here), and had the duration of the ride to explain in a manner he can understand. Analogies can be very useful in doing this, assuming they're good analogies. |
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“If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself.” - Albert Einstein eta: And, no, I don't. It's probably my favorite part of my job. One's ability to explain is not directly correlated to the listener's ability to comprehend what's being explained. |
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I'm actually very good at explaining concepts in ways people can understand, I just choose not to in the vast majority of cases because it's a waste of everyone's time, even if they grasp it. I have a canned response when I fix something technical and a client says "so .... what was the problem?" I say "If I told what the problem was and explained to you how I fixed it and you understood everything I said, you wouldn't have called me in the first place." Surprisingly, not only does the virtually always work, I have yet to actually insult anyone with that answer. I'm still trying, though. I am stealing this. |
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I'm actually very good at explaining concepts in ways people can understand, I just choose not to in the vast majority of cases because it's a waste of everyone's time, even if they grasp it. I have a canned response when I fix something technical and a client says "so .... what was the problem?" I say "If I told what the problem was and explained to you how I fixed it and you understood everything I said, you wouldn't have called me in the first place." Surprisingly, not only does the virtually always work, I have yet to actually insult anyone with that answer. I'm still trying, though. I am stealing this. I WOULDN'T. i've used it before with a negative outcome. |
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Ever had a teacher that exlained something and was qestioned about it, then exokained it a second time in the exact same way? That's why some people can't graps some things... the people passing the information (or trying to pass the information on aren't able to...)
I don't usually have a problem passing IT information on to people that don't grasp it... I'll try to relate it to something they're more familiar with... football, basketball, baseball, automotive concepts... if that fails, then they're screwed and stupid.
I've taught parachute packers and carpenters how to troubleshoot switched networks and perform tcpdumps across multiple firewalls while watching the proxies operate... all the time being able to understand what they're seeing. It didn't happen over night, but it did happen several times. |
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I'm actually very good at explaining concepts in ways people can understand, I just choose not to in the vast majority of cases because it's a waste of everyone's time, even if they grasp it. I have a canned response when I fix something technical and a client says "so .... what was the problem?" I say "If I told what the problem was and explained to you how I fixed it and you understood everything I said, you wouldn't have called me in the first place." Surprisingly, not only does the virtually always work, I have yet to actually insult anyone with that answer. I'm still trying, though. I am stealing this. I WOULDN'T. i've used it before with a negative outcome. Delivery is 90 percent of communication. When I tell my dog he's the stupidest mother-fucker in the world in a baby-talk, sing-song voice, he licks my face and wags his tail. When I tell my clients they are idiots in a jovial and easy-going manner, they do EXACTLY the same thing, which is a little awkward, frankly. Grown men and women wagging their asses and trying to lick me is ..... off-putting. |