Life is better when it’s in layman’s terms. I learned that in college, in a macroeconomics class. My professor (who probably never wanted to be a teacher anyway) would lecture straight from the textbook, and, in between bites of soft pretzel and nips of Diet Coke, prattle on about the conceptual and empirical linkages between mass-market foodstuffs and taxable intoxicants.
Think about the last time you called the help desk. Did you need two hands to count the number of acronyms used?
I was in danger of failing the class. Plus, he made me feel stupid.
It’s only when he began to teach theory using everyday examples, like pizza and beer, that I began to grasp the concepts. (Not that I am a fan of either.)
The very thing that inspired (or didn’t inspire) the aforementioned Temple University economics professor’s pedagogy is alive and well in some of the folks who staff your corporate IT department.
In a recent post, TechRepublic head blogs editor Toni Bowers explains that knowing how to explain jargony subjects without jargon encourages IT/business alignment, which, she writes, is becoming increasingly important with the growing reliance on fewer workers for the same amount of work, social networking and Web 2.0.
Think about the last time you called the help desk. Did you need two hands to count the number of acronyms used? Did you walk away feeling empowered? Will you be so quick to call back when your Excel formulas rebel?
I doubt it. And that’s the point: Alienating the rest of your company is not alignment. To paraphrase Bowers, understanding how technical tools and practices relate to the business as a whole, now that’s an idea.
And regarding that macroeconomics class – I passed with a perfect grade.
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[...] a post I wrote last week, I talked about the importance of help desk staff knowing how to explain technical terms in plain [...]