Todd Johnston posted an outstanding summary of our informal session this past Saturday. He mentioned our first exercise, which was to have Todd, Gail Taylor, and Tiffany Von Emmel explain how email worked to Matthew O’Connor and myself, who had had sudden bouts of amnesia. Todd wrote, “This exercise, as you may imagine, did a lot to uncover assumptions, vantage points and metaphors we use to shape our understanding.” (LX9)
The point of the exercise was two-fold. First, we wanted the group to have a better understanding of how the Internet worked. Second, rather than tell them how it worked, we wanted them to figure it out by thinking through the problem. Most of us have the mental tools to understand technology; we just choose not to use them. We wanted to get them to use them. (LXA)
What was interesting about the exercise was that they did an excellent job of drawing a basic conceptual picture. However, when Matthew and I started asking probing questions to help fill in the gaps, they abandoned their mental models and started reverting to buzzwords. They mentioned things like packets and algorithms and server farms, all of which demonstrated knowledge of Internet lingo, but none of which was necessary to explain how email worked. (LXB)
Matthew pointed out that techies often do the same thing. When confronted with basic questions about technology, they often start throwing around concepts and language that aren’t critical to the core question. In these cases, they do this because they’re unaware of the other party’s mental models and are feeling around for context. (LXC)
Why would non-techies do the same thing? In this particular case, it was for the exact same reason. Even though Matthew and I were playing dumb, they knew that we knew the answers. When we started asking questions, they abandoned their model and started feeling around for the answers we might be looking for, hence the lingo. (LXD)
When one person has knowledge that the other person doesn’t have, that often results in a power relationship, and power relationships affect how people behave. What makes this relationship dangerous is when people assume that this knowledge is somehow sacred and unattainable. Many non-technical people are guilty of this. It’s evident when people preface their statements, “I’m not a techie,” as if that makes them incapable of understanding technology. It’s an attitude problem that stems from fear. (LXE)
The important thing is that everyone is capable of understanding technology. Don’t let those supposedly in the know bully you away from being confident in what you understand and what you don’t understand. (LXF)
On a separate note, Todd also describes Finding Your Hey, an exercise that the band, Phish often performs. Todd first told me this story two years ago, and I dutifully blogged about it, but I didn’t know what it was called, and I didn’t know the exact quote. It’s a wonderful story. (LXG)