iDunno

By Ed Avella
Campus Director & Dean of IT Programs

iPad, iBook, iCloud, iDock – all words we’ve seen or even used recently, sometimes without even knowing exactly what they are. You hear this stuff over morning coffee with the IT department folks throwing acronyms and technical jargon around seamlessly in what was supposed to be a basic chat about how their week is going.

I drive home and have my daily “how was your day” phone conversation with my daughter and am forced to try to decipher her use of “text-speak” in a simple conversation. For perspective’s sake, I’ll say that in addition to my duties as campus Director for University of the Potomac’s Vienna Campus, I am also the Dean of IT Programs; part of my job is to stay abreast of emerging technologies and understand the vernacular. I can tell you, they change like the weather. It really does come down to some kind of education.

For many of us it sounds like they are speaking another language, and to some degree, this is pretty accurate. The trouble is, IT professionals (and my daughter) are fully immersed in “technology-speak” and are fluent where many struggle to be communicative at the most basic level!

So how do we bridge this language barrier that exists in our workplace and sometimes our own homes? The big piece is overcoming our inherent fear of the unknown. I have embraced the reality that even though I consider myself reasonably well versed in “tech-speak,” I struggle to carry on my chats with my daughter’s use of a more slang (but still quite technically oriented) “text-talk.” It can feel pride-swallowing at times, but I have learned to force myself to ask, “What does that mean?” For the guys out there, it’s as difficult as asking for directions!

So my question is this: do you find there is a bit of a communications gap between the tech folks in your office and the rest of the staff (including yourself)? What are you doing to overcome this if it exists?