Terms Articles

As geeks we want to learn all of the latest shiny technologies. I find myself sometimes thinking, "Wow I know how to use Ajax, RSS, Dom Scripting, etc and now anyone would want to hire me". Well, thats true if the target audience knows what you are talking about and is looking specifically for those skills. But frankly, business people don't care and they only care if they understand that these technologies add value to their business. And honestly most business owners have no idea what I am talking about unless I put it in terms they can understand.

I put together this list of ways to describe my inner geek to business people.

Geek-to-business translation

• RSS - An orange button people can click on so they know when your website is updated with fresh content.
• Ajax - Faster because the page doesn't flicker when you click on things.
• SEO - The website is written in a clean way that people searching for your site can find you.
• Link Building - Get more people to link to you that have a similar topic to your site.
• Server Side Coding - You need this to create logins, store customer information and anything that invo.
• CSS - Makes your page look pretty. It speeds up making design changes.
• Blog - You can write your own articles without needing my help.

Presenting your inner geek in a simple, almost child-like way makes people much happier with you. They think better of you and appreciate your work more. You become worth more to employers because they understand you.

If you can communicate your inner geek clearly, your chances of success are much higher. After all, why should they care that you know these things? You have to explain to them that you are excited about using your inner geek to add value to their company.

The video, "Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us" does a great representation of what the term, "Web 2.0" means. I picked this video up from Digg and Tech Crunch - it is popular for a reason.

Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us

It has nothing to do with big pretty buttons and everything to do with stripping content down to its most basic form and then customizing how we view this massive amount of content.

Web 2.0 is a collaborative effort by all of us to create something much more than static web pages. Its contributing your world to the internet and getting information you want the way you want it.

Screenshot of Go Web 2.0

Companies like Go2Web20.net are capitalizing on this revolution by creating a gallery of websites that use these "Web 2.0" features.

Although I don't necessarily love the phrase "Web 2.0", it certainly does serve its purpose of putting a name to such a mysterious face of a more customizable and rich web experience.