The Curse of the IT Writer

I don’t pretend to be a computer expert by any means. Okay, I know some html, have built a couple of (very) basic websites for fun and know how to plug USB cables in. But it isn’t like I am a qualified technical engineer.

To be perfectly honest, I still use Google every day to find out what half the words I’m reading actually mean. The IT and online industries are so rife with acronyms and arbitrary naming practices that it becomes a challenge to communicate basic concepts to the novice. Because, in many ways, I am one.

RSSing About

For example; I can advise each and every one of you to subscribe to this blog through the ‘rss feed’. Now those of you who’ve been around the block a few times and know their RSS from their elbow will know that I mean the little orange icon in my sidebar and that it automatically updates your chosen RSS reader (or your bookmark bar) with the latest headlines from the blog so you don’t need to keep revisiting the website to see if it has been updated. A few of you may even understand the details of xml, the code used to format present the information contained in the feed.

To the uninitiated, the conversation deteriorates thusly.

“Subscribe to my RSS feed.”

“A what feed?”

“The RSS feed. The orange thingy.”

“What’s RSS?”

“Ummm… you know, I have no idea.”

It’s at this point that I realize that I am passing on acronyms of which I have no clear understanding. I know what RSS does, but how it does it and why it is called RSS are a mystery to me in much the same way that I can switch on a television without understanding the components inside.

And then reality dawns. As I ask around the IT gurus of my office, the truth becomes plain.

“RSS – I think that means ‘Really Simple Syndication’.”

“No, don’t you mean ‘Rich Site Summary?”

“Don’t be daft. I’m pretty sure it’s ‘RDF Site Summary’.”

That’s right. Even the experts are divided on the issue.

With so many layers of complexity and technology in today’s modern online world, we tend to specialise in only one area. Although we may use and understand technology from other areas, we only understand it insofar as how it works with what we’re already doing. I don’t need to understand how RSS works or even what RSS stands for to know how it works within my day-to-day routine. I can adapt RSS to my needs – including dynamic and changing content on my website for example – without needing to pick apart the undoubtedly complex coding and concepts behind it.

Keep it in the Family

Now try and explain this to my family, who have decided to elect me as the IT help desk of choice for all their software and hardware needs. With some family members feeling ecstatic because they’ve worked out how to send an email without wondering where to put the stamp, the revelation that one of their own was working with computers was akin to having the first born win a Nobel Prize.

In much the same way that the family became excited when my brother became an optometrist (cheap glasses and eye-checks), the potential for am IT gadget geek was leapt on straight away.

Suddenly, instruction manuals sit unread in drawers for I must somehow know how to operate any device they come home with with an inate natural gift. If it doesn't work, it is easier to plonk the offending device in front of me rather than open the troubleshooting guide the damn thing came with.

I have tried to explain this idea that I’m not a technical genius by pointing out that my brother can’t class himself as a mechanic just because he drives a car. I know how to use some of the tools, but even I would call a man in rather than dismantle the motherboard.

Yet the mere fact I know the difference between Firefox and IE and can drop phrases like ‘blog’ and ‘social network platform’ into casual conversation means I am expected to debug family PCs, understand every button, USB lead and switch, make the internet somehow ‘work better’ and inexplicably force Google to provide information it was never designed to. “What do you mean it can’t do that?” I catch the look of frustrated annoyance when I can't immediately fix the problem on my girlfriend's PC.

Yup, it is the curse of the internet writer. People assume we’re cleverer than we really are ‘cause we write about these topics. I’ll give you a hint – it’s called research – and it stays in my brain for about as long as it takes to finish the article.