Any Key

My job (and I know I said I would not talk about work but this is harmless) often involves having to explain to people "technology." And it reminds me of an adage someone I worked with (Well it was a client but whatever) said..

"All it takes to be an expert is knowing more than your audience"

So then I'm the specialist albeit internally I am "Huh!?"

One thing is that the word "technology" as short hand for anything "computer" irks me. A spear used to hit a wooly mammoth is technology. But most people also aren't maniacs who blog so I get it. Its also trifling and petty. Like those people who say "Well we are not really a democracy. We are a republic." Yes, I get it John Birch Society person! You know what I mean.

Anyway this often finds me having to describe things in an easy to understand way. For example, my father in law (and no I don't work with/for him. I know I started with the work thing but bear with me) asked me to explain what "Twitter" is. And that is a tricky one. He once asked me to explain what a podcast was and I said it was like  pay per view radio show. And that worked!

For Twitter I stuck with the radio motif and said "It is like hitting scan on the radio console. You get a tiny taste of everything. But you can set your scan to hear only those stations you want and those stations sometimes play music other stations played. Like station 1 says 'Hey check out what station 3 played!' so they play it also. And its always going"

And damn that seemed to work!
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