I’m in the midst of trying to plan and set new column-writing enterprise. My brain is hurting with the amount of thinking done in order to compromise good title with an available domain (mainly because bloody godaddy is squatting on the one I wanted). And so I discuss possible ideas with two probes of target readers: my housemates watching TV in the living room and my friends all over the shop, who I consult via jaiku. Take one – the living room:
Me: I was thinking about binary…
Ema: ee?
Me: you know, as in digital.. no? you wouldn’t make that connection?
Ema: yhm, yeah, maybe if I thought about it. I know binary has something to do with programming..
Me: well all stuff digital is binary data, right? Zeros and ones, that’s why it’s called digital.
And dude, that girl is working on her macbook as we speak, doing things in PhotoShop 3 that I couldn’t even imagine doing. It’s not technological illiteracy, it’s different kind of language.
Which in itself obviously isn’t any new or original observation, however
Ema: Well I wouldn’t have thought. But your people will know.
Me: Ema?? You are my people!
It’s indeed my-Ema-people that I would want to write that column for. There’s no point me chewing geeky topics for other geeks, who notably always know more than me. In the geek world, I’m not a geek. Maybe slightly. But more of a representative of the universe outside, who is occasionally capable of speaking the geek language.
Now here’s the thing. Modern geeks are not what they used to be. The pictures of unshaved men in their too long jumpers and too short trousers, sitting around on the floor of some Silicone Valley building made out of cupboard, surrounded by laptops and packages of ready made food while their bank accounts’ balances multiply by millions – that is long but gone. Now there’s the digital boheme, guys and gals sat around fancy sushi brunches, typing away on their flashy phones, eeePC and other sparkly, wifi enabled gadgets. They wear outfits from some designer online shop that you wouldn’t even dream to find on the high street. They travel a lot, they blog on the trains, they make videos at their geeky parties and award ceremonies, which involve a lot of champagne and pink drinks. And they have power over everybody, because their lifestyle is two steps ahead in the direction where pretty much every one else (in the northern hemisphere) is going. You’ll all use these phones in 2 years time and you’ll depend on your geeky friends to hack them for you.
There is a point in this (bear with me), which I made several times already in conversations with different people. The relation between the two groups is now very often the relation between the author and the reader/audience or the developer and the user. As an author you want to be ahead of your audiences to tech them something (except if you work for tabloid press in which case you might want to be a bit below, at the level of their toilet seat). But not too far, not out of the reach of their understanding, at which point you might well be talking to yourself. As a developer you need to understand that the people are not necessarily your people and if the idea of internet is now that it will revolve around the user, it has to apply nicely to their lifestyle, however you despise of simplicity of their mobile phone and inability to network on anything other than facebook. This is where it’s going, the apps made by geeks for geeks and geeks only are not the future.
This is what this column will more-less be about. So beware my people of all sorts. Watch this space.
