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< How often should you promote your blog? | Guest Posts | Woopra, Hemingway, and Web Content That Travels >
This is a guest post by Vincent Tan, a fellow technical person who writes about programming and mathematics at Polymath Programmer.
You've read Ben's beginner's guide to HTML. You've read his guide to FTP too. Maybe you've tried to wrap your head around the explanations. Perhaps you've even succeeded (I certainly hope so). Possibly you've tried to understand what you could, and just follow along.
But something's gnawing at your heart. Something insidious is eating away your sanity. Something is making you fling your hands up in despair. You just want to blog. Why is there so much technical jargon?
The Internet started off as a network for scientists to communicate and share ideas. Then the big companies wanted in too, and corporate sites and e-commerce sites were built. Then people like you wanted to build your own sites, but the barrier to entry was too high. You needed to learn HTML, CSS, and other weird technical terms.
Basically you needed to be a technical person, a programmer or web designer. And so the initial personal sites were mostly by people with technical knowledge. You just contented yourself with consuming information.
Then the tides turned. Those technical people decided if they're the only ones building sites and contributing information, it's going to be boring (not to mention tedious). So they wrote software so people with less technical knowledge can join too. TypePad, WordPress, Injader and other content management systems and blogging software were created.
Next came the ability to share music and audio files on sites such as Last.fm or start your own podcast. You can also upload videos on YouTube and Vimeo. Text, images, audio and video. You can now create all of them, without knowing a lot about the actual innards of site creation.
You're not just a consumer of information anymore; you're a publisher too.
Yet an uneasy feeling caresses your heart, teasing you, taunting you. And when you least expect it, it strikes fear into your very being. Face it, you're just plain scared of the computer sometimes.
Out of mankind's inventions, the computer is one of the most versatile and useful ones, yet it's seemingly arcane. I mean, you push a button and off goes an email. Or a movie ticket is bought. You can even talk to someone on the other side of the globe with it.
And the only people who really understand, are the technical people. And you're not one of them. And that scares you.
They've got years of experience working with computers and related technologies. They've probably had years of academic study too. That makes technical people smart, in the sense that they can figure out solutions for blogging, web design and one of them nifty widget thingies.
You're smart too and you've got your own jargon. You a chef? Julienning. You a doctor? Myocardial infarction. You a stock analyst? Bull market.
The reason why you're hip-deep in technical jargon even though you just want to blog is, you are hip-deep in the technological world. Remember the Internet scientists? You don't feel much of the technical stuff because those very same technical people are working very hard to create the perception that blogging is easy.
So why are there still so much technical jargon? Because...
New concepts get created. New gadgets get made. And the new technology needs to be named. Thus a new term is spawned, with much congratulations and back-patting amongst the techno people (yes, it's an embarrassing failing...). Poor you have to deal with the new jargon.
What can you do? Just ask. That's why there are people like Ben around. Sure, there are wicked, evil, rude and arrogant technical people. Just as there are impassive doctors or unfriendly waiters. You just have to know who to ask (here, click here).
Do you fear technology?
Are you scared of asking for technical help?
What's your niche? What are your jargon?
Just as words in our workplace are jargon, so then are words that tech savvy people use. When you have been around long enough you know to ask or you pick it up. People like Ben just make it easier for us dummies to get. I liked the post greatly.
@rjleaman I'd probably do better with dinner by gesticulating wildly and pointing to the menu items. Estonian diners do have menus, right?
ettarose - Thanks for your compliments! Now let's see what we can teach Ben... muaha muaha muahahahaha...
Yes, tech jargon seems to pervade all walks of life. I've been programming and around computers for 20+ years now so it's doesn't bother me. I took up sailing about 6 years ago, and you think computers geeks are bad with lingo, you should listen to a couple sailors talking for a while. Just when I thought I was getting the hang of it, I take up sail boat racing this summer. A whole new set of lingo. "Rail Meat" anyone?
This is fabulous:
I love the perspective.
Yes, every niche or "world" does have its own jargon, and there's no shame in any of us stepping into a strange world and not automatically knowing every idiom in the language, any more that there would be shame in travelling to Estonia with a phrase book in hand, struggling to piece together the words to order your dinner.
Great post, Vincent!
Edited: June 16, 2008 00:13