The Superfluous Man

I had a thought recently.  “Why do most IT people make the technology aspect the most prevalent part of their job?”  I know it is a blanket statement, but seriously…

I had this image of the IT person throwing around large amounts of acronyms, and technobabbel virtually assaulting the poor defenceless business owner with things (s)he cannot understand.

I then thought, “Wait…. the business owner does not even need to know most of the acronyms and tech talk.

I feel that a lot of web developers put business owners off by focusing on technology too much. The business owner gets frustrated, and walks away with a migraine, and he does not have any of the information he needs to make a decision. He then submits to the will of the web designer because he thinks (s)he is a good person, and would not lead them astray.

I would like to see more of a focus on the information side of the spectrum. Instead of telling a business owner they need a 128 bit secure form, with a data encryption algorithm; ask them if customer privacy is important. Then if they say yes, tell them there are a few ways we could do the privacy solution with differing costs. Tell them the truth; the more you spend the more secure we can make this puppy, and if you are taking credit card data, we need a minimum of this security level.

You can sell technical products / services to people without confusing them. It just takes a better understanding of your customer, not your craft.

So help your customers and put the information back where it belongs, before the technology!