I am not by nature a technical person. So I was very surprised when I was offered a job with what was then possibly Vancouver’s most high profile tech company, one which provided high end post production and visual effects services to producers of film and television commercials. What were they thinking?
This: as the technology of the business became ever more intricate, the company owners felt that a communications gap was opening up between its employees and its customers. The intention was that I – a long time customer with very limited technical knowledge but pretty good communications skills – should serve as a sort of intermediary, translating customer needs into the geeky terminology my colleagues could understand and act upon. All well and good, provided I could actually learn to speak geek. But it was a worthy challenge, and I set out to learn.
It was an interesting journey.
One of the first lessons I learned was that in the tech world, learning never stops. Every six months or so, the business shifted to a new operating level: we acquired new machines, adapted to new technical standards, developed new operating procedures. I remember telling myself, again and again: as soon as x/y/z is up and running, we can relax, coast for a bit, and get back to SOP. That didn’t happen. After a couple of years I finally clued in that in the tech world, SOP was a state of constant assimilation, adaptation and adjustment. There were no plateaus.
The second big lesson I learned was how valuable it was to have a sympathetic translator. Moving into this job was not unlike moving to a foreign country in which I knew a few random words of the language but was hopelessly lost during most intra-company discussions. And there I met Bill and Ben, the vernacular men.
Bill and Ben were both long time employees with significant technical knowledge and industry profile. But in the way they treated me and my fledgling technical questions, they could not have been more different.
Ben treated most questions as both an imposition and an insult – I’m really too busy to deal with this and anyway how could you not know that? He delighted in speaking his own private code, using as many obscure acronyms and insider terms as possible, all in an effort to discombobulate his audience, however small. He worked hard to ensure his conversations were richly embroidered with words no one listening would comprehend. I guess he thought this would make him appear intelligent, informed and on the cutting edge of industry activity. Unfortunately for him, it did none of the above.
Bill, on the other hand, welcomed any question that was sincerely asked and always responded in way that was respectful of his audience. In this, he possessed a skill that was rare in his field. Bill had an amazing ability to translate complex technical explanations into everyday prose, making it accessible to non-geeks, like me. I recognised this talent of Bill’s quite early in my tenure with the company, and valued it more and more as time went on. He became my ‘go to’ guy whenever I needed a technical explanation for something.
Years later, my ability to assimilate technical information has improved a lot, largely through working with folks like Bill, and also through working with a number of technical companies, translating their corporate messages into digestible, comprehensible stories that their chosen audience could both understand and appreciate.
But I will always carry a special debt of gratitude to Bill and his patient, sensible explanations. If I’d only listened to Ben, I’d have assumed the tech world was a foreign land which I’d never be qualified or welcome to visit. Bill, however, was always a gracious and tolerant host, believing that information is a treasure to be shared, not hoarded. And I am the richer for his generosity.