Why is government just now figuring this out?

[Blues]

CIOs Can Add Translator to their Growing List of Skills

Maybe it is common of CIOs in the private sector but for me any time you must deal with non-technical people you need this skill to speak it in a more common understandable way and try and think like them. I have had that thought and approach for over a decade of doing tech work seems really obvious and that an article highlighting it is decades late. I expect I am not alone in thinking this but maybe I am.

Subject is rhetorical we know Gov is always way behind on Tech and while I understand they don't move fast to adopt or accept it business practices around interacting with and communicating about tech should not lag so far behind.

 

[britechguy]

If you think this is limited to government, I have some oceanfront property in Omaha I'd like you to take a look at.

I've worked for the public sector and the private sector, and in the private sector in companies of less than 250 employees up through multinationals.

Any "large enough" entity is a bureaucracy and, most often, the IT department (or anything affiliated with it) is considered to practice "the black arts that no one outside can understand." There's little or no desire to bridge that gap, particularly from the "geek side" of the equation.

I'm not saying this is a good thing, but it is a thing, and it's in no way limited to governmental entities. Not even close.

The technically proficient that can make it all accessible to those who are not so are rare birds and worth their weight in platinum.

 

[Blues]

It honestly just makes it tougher when you don't try and this seems like such a basic principle. I do understands that sometimes we intentionally might be vague or confusing because even when you explain it they won't understand why it needs to be done.

 

[britechguy]

@Blues

You're completely right in all respects. But being completely right and getting recognition of that "in the industry" are two different things.

And, lets face it, the "tech geek" stereotype (like all stereotypes) has a very strong basis in reality or it would cease to exist. All stereotypes are caricatures, but caricatures don't work if what the exaggerations are built on do not, in fact, exist. Verbal dexterity, sociability, and ability to "pitch correctly for your audience" when that audience is not composed of your own are NOT hallmarks of technicians in computing (or elsewhere, for that matter). Those that can are rare, and valuable.