Web 2.0, Second Life, blogs, wikis, APIs, social networks, SEO, SEM, SMS, widgets, microblogs…if you find any of these confusing or think that if you hear another geeky-acronym that your head will explode know that you’re not alone. For those of us in the tech industry this is all shop talk. It’s easy for someone like me, an expert on emerging technologies and an uber-nerd, to think that everyone knows what all of these technologies are. But the bottom line is that the great majority of folks don’t. So how does a company who believes that these technologies are the future of communication, human interaction, marketing and advertising, and entertainment ensure that the groups we talk to understand our message?

Education.

Now, this is not education in the whole “We will tell you what to think” vein. This is “We know about this great exciting thing and we want to tell you all about it so you’ll know about it too! And then we can talk about it!” This is education that is more about evangelism than dogmatism. I break the approach down to Magicians and Jugglers.

Magicians:

As per tradition, a magician’s living is reliant on mystery, on the audience wondering “How’d he do that?” To give away his secrets is to give away his livelihood. He can’t afford to let you in how it’s all done and he doesn’t want to.

Too many people in the technology world treat their know-how as a trick, a world of proprietary knowledge that would be diminished if shared.

Jugglers:

If you know a juggler you’ll no doubt chuckle at the next line. Jugglers have an undeniable impulse to teach the whole world to juggle. Compliment a juggler on their skills and you’ll immediately get a “Come here! I’ll teach you. It’s easy” in response. A good juggler finds satisfaction and pride in teaching others to toss things about. Now, he may not teach you to juggle as well as he does (he does have to make a living after all) but he’ll teach you enough to feel that you’re part of his world and certainly enough to know how much work goes into juggling as well as he does.

This is the approach that I believe in. I’m a technology juggler. I find my greatest enjoyment in teaching someone else to use a form of media that I find exciting, seeing how they put it to use, how it changes their lives, and watching them teach others. I can take comfort in knowing that they’ll probably come back to me the next time they need to understand a technology and thus I’m secure in my position in this whole geeky circus.

So ask yourself. Are you a juggler or a magician? Would you rather sit back and let others work their magic or do you want to take a chance and learn something new for yourself?

I know which one I am. Where are my bowling pins?

**special thanks to my friend Eric Ballenger, who years ago taught me to juggle**

Sarah “Intellagirl” Robbins is the Director of Emerging Technologies for MediaSauce.com

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008 at 7:03 pm and is filed under web 2.0. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.