To Be or Not to Be…Technical
I do not have acting aspirations...I promise
*inspired by constant conversations
What exactly does “technical” mean to you?
During my journey in taking courses, network, job interviewing, I’ve heard a variation of this question from time to time – “How technical are you?”
The answer is not very. Well not in terms of the essence of what I think most people mean – how many coding languages I know. I mean, I learned the fundamentals of Python. I’ve also done some independent work in JavaScript – online course, mini in person course, and an in-person coding meetup. However, I have yet to find my stride as a coder. It doesn’t come easy for me…but that doesn’t mean I’m not technically minded. I think I am extremely tech minded as I always try to break concepts and processes down into chunks in order to understand. This often includes applications and software that people use to do their day to day tasks – how do those systems work? What are the weaknesses? What is the bandwidth? Being a User Acceptance Tester in 1 of my early roles satisfied that curiosity. However, is that thought process enough?
When you do a search for “what does it mean to be technical?” or “what are technical skills?”, the overwhelming majority refers to programming languages, software, operating systems, debugging, general computing, electrical engineering, building etc. But then you start seeing references to project management, writing, research, data analysis, business intelligence…I have those skills!
September 2019 I attended a day long conference thrown by Women’s Technology Conference. One of the speakers was Edie Weiner from Future Hunters, a consulting company who aims “to identify emerging trends…before they become part of the cultural and business vernacular”. Something she said really resonated with me: some people need a physical/emotional/mental connection to a product (digital or physical) in order to thrive or participate. That was a lightbulb moment for me. What do I connect to?
I usually get curious about things pretty easily. From there I start my research (which I admit can be single minded) starting with Google, social media, news articles, Reddit. If something keeps my interest it’s either because I have a personal connection or the information I’m reading and learning about is compelling. While coding is compelling (using programming to break down a process or issue and creating solutions to make it work), at this point in time I’m not connected to it. The draw of analyzing interpersonal relationships and behavior in relation to application and platform usage fascinates me more.
So why do I consider myself technically minded?
From the time I was a precocious toddler, I wanted to know how things work. When I first watched my father play guitar, I wanted to know how that strange shaped thing made those noises. What were those strings and why were they so tight (meaning why couldn’t I play with them)? Why was there a hole in the middle of that thing? Why did he turn those weird knobs on the top? My father was very patient with me and let me not only explore his instrument, he let me sit in on his rehearsals (big mistake!). I eventually learned and played the piano myself a few years later – by memorizing the music and adjusting based on my ear…yeah, I can’t sight read and play at the same time.
Fast forward some years and personal desktops were becoming all the rage. Of course we did not have one at home. But school? YES. My high school had a partnership with a major fortune 500 company, so we were introduced to computers as part of the high school curriculum and got used to typing, using Microsoft Office, trading stocks (it was for class, promise!). I was also identified by one of the technology teachers as a potential convert (I was a business major). He sneakily used my curiosity to entice me to come to school early a couple of days a week to learn coding. I honestly don’t remember what language it was, but I took to it like water. And then promptly lost interest because I couldn’t see how it fit into my current life. I did love the concept and started looking at the different applications we were using as students to try to figure out how they worked on the backend. I’m sure I might have “broken” a couple of things and quickly figured out how to set them back to the regular profile set up. I cannot confirm or deny this.
Ready for what might seem like an out there example? Tetris. I play puzzle games to relax and the Tetris Blitz app got me with its nifty gamification techniques. Too bad it ended in April 2020!. Most people know what Tetris is, but have you ever played Blitz? Every week there were challenges where the goal was to get 15 completed to obtain coins, powerups, shards, finishers and tickets to get coins/powerups/shards/finishers! Every once in a while they would throw out challenges for people to make it to the top of a tournament by playing, winning, and accumulating points in various tournaments and assigning profiles to teams to play 1-on-1 battles.
So where did my process come in? Trying to figure out the best combination to win!
In a battle, I looked at the stars next to my opponent’s name to figure out which combination I should throw out. In tournaments, I looked at what the goal is and try to adjust my gameplay based on that. Sometimes I’m wrong, sometimes I blow the challenge out of the water. Before I took the data science course, I used to take losses personally. After the course, I realized a lot of the game makers MUST use a random library for every game and therefore the chances of you winning a battle is 50-50, a tournament is 1/25, and those combinations of powerups may not work together or work together too well for a challenge. There was a YouTube channel from EA that shows you how powerups and finishers can work together, but some players figure out better ways – I did and started noticing other people used that combination against me! I was also quite aware that sometimes the other “people” are computer generated – I tested this by going for a low score in some challenges and observing how the app changes what it presents to me (also looking at you Toy Blast and Toon Blast). I wish I could have broken this application open like an egg and see the inner workings, but alas - it wasn’t meant to be.
This is essentially my approach to understand every new application:
· Do I have a reference to this (usage)?
· Is there someone I can reach out to if I have questions (collaboration)?
· How is this application/software SUPPOSED to work (instructions)?
· How does this application/software ACTUALLY work (user behavior)?
· Does this application/software actually serve the needs of a majority of users?
· What weaknesses do I see from initial use?
· What weaknesses do I see from prolonged use?
· What really ROCKS about this application/software?
· Can this application/software be improved? Who do I have to convince?
· How much capital (money and person) does it cost to maintain this application/software? How much capital would it take to make some changes?
· …and many more questions
And then I aim to write everything in a language that most can understand!
So yes I am not a coder and therefore may not be considered “technical” by the traditional definition, but I do consider myself a technically sound…in the essence of the phrase. I just think about and approach things a little differently. Does that make sense? What do you think?