Pelz-Sharpe Alan Pelz-Sharpe

Follow Alan on Twitter @alanpelzsharpe

Making sense of IT gibberish

12-Aug-2010

Tags: Component Content Management, Digital and Media Asset Management, Document Management (ECM), E-mail Archiving and Management, Enterprise Collaboration & Social Software, Enterprise Search, Evaluating SharePoint, Portals and Content Integration, SharePoint Ecosystem, Web Analytics, Web Content Management, Marketplace at Large, Selecting Technology

Explaining technical concepts -- which are often quite abstract -- can be quite a challenge. So at the Real Story Group we often try to be creative in how we go about explaining things. We did so on a grand scale with a client earlier this year when we invented a giant card game that when played, explained to end users why they were adopting a new content management system. It worked really well and clarified the urgency and benefits of the change in a deeper and more profound way than PowerPoint slides or documents could ever have done.

Similarly it is often easier to use analogies to get a point across. For example, when an organization complains that their information is no better managed after the implementation of a document management or ECM system than it was before, I might say something along the following lines " I bought the spade, hoe, rake and cutter but my garden is still a mess.  I blame the tools."  Actually I try to be a bit more diplomatic, but that can be hard at times.

We see it as our job to dig through the complicated, technical, geeky, jargon laden white noise that is IT, and distill down the important facts so that you can make sense and use of the information.  To use a metaphor this time "It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it". Hence all our advisory papers and product evaluations are written, we hope, in plain English and in a form that both technical and non-technical folk can understand. That being said, we are far from perfect and we rely on and encourage feedback from our readers to keep us in line.

But this has me wondering if maybe you have come across examples of techno-gibberish and maybe you might like to share some of your favorites?  "Simplify" (the motto of the Shakers) is one the IT world would do well to adopt.

    Now Get the Complete Real Story

    ECM Vendor Evaluations

    Learn the real strengths and weaknesses of major ECM vendors from around the world, in our Document Management (ECM) research stream.