How does one do so many technologies? really?

gorebrush

Having been on said conference calls (and luckily being the one who know's his stuff) then it isn't a problem I've experienced first hand, but there are many engineers out there that are just that, engineers. They can be excellent and I've seen a few - they just cannot communicate to non-engineers and it can be taken badly by non-techies.

atorven

I’ve got to admit, I’ve always struggled to explain stuff to less/non-technical people, how do you guys in the highly technical positions do it?
I try and not dumb things down to much as I don’t want to come across as patronizing but on the other hand I can sometimes tell that what I’m explaining is going over someone’s head, how do you achieve the middle ground?

Jackace

atorven wrote: »

I’ve got to admit, I’ve always struggled to explain stuff to less/non-technical people, how do you guys in the highly technical positions do it?
I try and not dumb things down to much as I don’t want to come across as patronizing but on the other hand I can sometimes tell that what I’m explaining is going over someone’s head, how do you achieve the middle ground?

You have to talk to people in a language they can understand. Usually that is $$ and time. Those are the ways I usually talk to people that are not technical. Trying to tell the CFO exactly why we need a new router or switch is a lost cause, but if I can tell him it will save us $$ money or allow us to support X number more customers at a lower cost per customer then he can understand and get behind the change. He still has no clue what we are actually going to do, but in his mind he knows it's going to save money/time and that is all he needs/wants to know.

Edit- This is not a one size fit all explanation though. Some people are somewhat technical and understand high level concepts and they want to know more than just time and money for those people I can give them a high level explanation of what we are doing. In my experience though most non-technical managers don't want that kind of explanation. They just want to understand how my change is going to impact what they do or how it's going to help the company.

xnx

Whilst I have no proper experience, I can say that if you understand something well enough and have basic people skills then you should be able to dumb something down into a concise summary for non-technology people

chrisone

I could only go so far with so many vendors/technologies. Companies that dont have standardized equipment must not have many experts working there and just need the basics configured on their many branded equipment. There is just no way you can be an expert in 5 major brands with 5 different technologies. Every time I see a job ad like this, that screams warning!

Solid place could be something like an all Juniper shop for R/S/FW or an all Cisco shop for R/S/FW. Then you will see F5 or A10 for load balancers. Checkpoint or palo alto for firewalls instead of juniper/cisco at these places as well.

That sounds solid to me

rsutton

You could always take the easy way out and become a manager

MickQ

atorven wrote: »

I try and not dumb things down to much as I don’t want to come across as patronizing but on the other hand I can sometimes tell that what I’m explaining is going over someone’s head, how do you achieve the middle ground?

Nothing wrong with "dumbing it down". Remember, you're the expert in your field and you're talking to experts in their own different fields. Acknowledge that and respect it.
Plain English is the common language with no acronyms and the minimum level of jargon.
If you have someone spouting jargon excessively in conversations then the chances are that they are:
a. Nervous.
b. Bullshitting and they don't know as much as they pretend to.
c. A mix of the above.

Remember, you might be in IT/IS/whatever-we're-called-today but as with life, it's all a sales job. As Jackace said, you need a new router? Don't give the specs to the CFO, just tell them how much it'll improve profitability. Talk in their language. Keep it simple. The easier the message is to understand, the less confusion and distrust there is, and you're far more likely to get what you need.

itdaddy

wow you guys have added some great stuff here thank you for your wisdom and experience. you guys rock!
and thanks Chrisone for that tip, kind of thought so on that...hhha