Learning
Is Info. Tech Sexy Enough for Dinner Conversation? (Part 2)
The other night, I went to a wine and cheese party. I thought this would be a good chance to experiment with how to make IT more sexy and interesting. That night, I had two encounters with people I had never met before that quickly got into the ubiquitous “So, what do you do?
The first person, let’s call her Helen, was a graduate student studying ecology. We talked about animal population characteristics for a few minutes. Then I told her I worked in IT for a large mortgage bank. Shockingly, she asked for more detail. So I explained a little bit about what I did in the most introductory way I could: I build computer systems that handle mortgage fraud and risk. With the mortgage crisis dominating the news, I figured framing my job that way might elicit a strong response. Instead, she smiled a very genuine “Ah, cool” combination and we proceeded onto the next topic.
Second shot. Another graduate student, Dan. He studies mathematical models that describe how plants propagate. (Related to emergence theory.) A highly technical person, Dan would certainly be interested in the cooler aspects of IT. I spent a good 10 minutes (significant at a party) probing him about his work, which he was more than willing to talk about. I made sure I did the Covey’esque-thing of making deposits into his emotional bank account so that when it was my turn to talk, he would oblige me with the same attention. He finished his rundown with some admittedly interesting anecdotes about plant propagation patterns, then inquired about what I was doing.
I hit him with the best story I had (even though it wasn’t exactly what I did).
“Do you know what the number one item that men, aged between 30 and 35, buy on Thursdays after work with a bag of diapers?”
“No, what?”
“A six pack of beer. So, grocery stores put diapers and beer on opposite sides of the store so you have to walk past all the other stuff. The work I do on mortgages is similar to that.”
“Oh, wow.”
At this point I expected him to ask how IT systems figure that stuff out. But he didn’t. He made eye contact with some other friends and politely moved on.
Was it something I said?
I’m not sure if it was a failure or just a lack of success, but what I got out of it was that my big guns didn’t work on a technically savvy person who, theoretically, should have been receptive to my work. So either my big gun wasn’t big enough, or something else was awry.
Do you think I could have done something differently? Got any tips for next time?
(Wine picture from oodora.com.)
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Discussion
6 comments for “Is Info. Tech Sexy Enough for Dinner Conversation? (Part 2)”
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A friend of mine, Kenny, posed the very interesting question: Can IT people even describe their jobs to themselves?
I have to admit that I have a hard time describing exactly what it is I do - even though I do it every day and obviously someone thinks its useful enough to hand me a paycheck for it.
How about you? Can you describe your job, IT or otherwise?
I guess I am lucky that I can describe my job fairly easily and most people totally get what I do. I am the help desk for a local government. Every IT help call, from any of our 700 users, that comes into our office goes through me. I am tech support for your computer.
As for making IT work sound sexy, I would settle for someone actually having a clue about what I’m talking about without having to explain it. Again, I’m lucky that my job is to explain to people what their IT problem is in layman’s terms, but it gets old.
I was with a friend who is a cop and we both had very busy days at work. He told me about his day and when it was my turn, what took up my entire day at work took less than 5 minutes because I had to over simplify it to someone who doesn’t really use a computer much.
Good luck in your quest!
Thanks for your comment, Barbara. You are quite lucky; most everyone has had interaction with some form of tech support or another. Especially in an increasingly technology-dependent life, that will probably occur for more and more people.
Do you find that, because you are interacting with people for much your time, that you can collect good stories? I remember once reading about stories Yahoo’s help desk posted: “Hi, tech support, I keep trying to put my credit card into my computer, but it’s not taking it.”
You’re right, for those who are far removed from computer usage probably won’t find my interest in what we do… But, over time, I wonder if everyone won’t be using computers in one way or another — even first responders like your police-person friend.
Well, I wouldn’t have mentioned the nappies.. :-)…
I just say that I’m a programmer working in Business Intelligence, recently right sized my life, and talk about art…Especially pre-raphaelites… At dinner parties I was taught not to talk about work Most of my colleagues don’t understand what I do, and I don’t understand what they do either….
Thanks for your comment, Derek.
Does anyone ever ask you what “business intelligence” is, or what a BI specialist does?
Which topics are considered appropriate dinner conversation seems to have changed in the last few decades. I suppose that idea warrants its own discussion…
I find it amazing that IT people are so specialized they know very little about what their colleagues do. That in itself I think is telling…
Helen sounded interesting you should have stuck with her