Featured Article

A Load of IT Jabberwocky

Do your colleagues outside of the IT corridors ever wear a distant look of utter confusion when you begin to explain projects, problems or strategies? If it's happening often, you may have a severe case of the IT Jabberwocky.

By Alistair Behenna, CIO, Harvey Nash

There may be a quasi-scientific explanation behind a key handicap to successful IT/business integration. I, along with many of my compatriots in the IT arena, am victim of an obsessive compulsion to respond to very ordinary and everyday business requests or conversations with a stream of jargon and technical patois.

I’ve just done it again today during a review meeting, but hopefully recovered in time to get my point across in a useful way. In complete fairness, every unit/division in a business has created a jargon of its own, but we in IT do it best - call it flair if you will.

If the real disorder wasn’t so vivid and unpleasant for its victims, I’d be inclined to label this compulsion Techie-Tourette’s as the IT "phonic tic" is mostly quite involuntary and potentially disabling to relationships; both business and personal.

Why we have developed this compulsion is beyond my limited comprehension, but suffice it to say there is a cure and it’s painless. Just a little willpower and a pause for thought is all we need before we segue into a Captain Haddock-like "blistering Cat 5e &@*!" and "sea gherkin SQL load balancing odd-toed ungulates" when faced with a simple request like improving database performance on the LAN is all it takes.

Have we learned to "tic" like this as a purely learned response to the constraints imposed by cost center mentality or is it to maintain the "black art" of IT with its secret and inclusive jargon? Answers on a postcard, please.

And so… "Beware the Jabberwock," my friends. Don’t let it come whiffling through your tulgey wood. Even if your borogoves are all mimsy and the finance director looks a little like a frumious Bandersnatch.