Why Geeks are Freaks
We are different to other people. So very different. And why is this? What is it that makes us different? And why is this dangerous?
The keynote speech at tech.ed this year was by a microsoft anthropologist named Anne Kirah and she highlighted a simple, yet major difference.
How do you respond to a technical problem? When something goes wrong... how do you react?
This is how normal people react:
"Stupid thing is broken! I don't need this! I've got important things I'm trying to achieve!"
This is how a geek reacts:
"Ah! A challenge! Lucky me! Forget all my other priorities! Let me dig a little deeper!"
Here's a snippet from Sam Gentile's blog, as a tiny example:
"Small problem installing RC of .NET FW 3 Windows SDK. Install program from root of directory will not run, even as Administrator, was able to go down to setup subdirectory and run SDKSetup.exe"
This is an example of a problem that is tiny to geeks like you and me. And yet it's an insurmountable obstacle to people who are not geeky: that is, to the majority of people.
Similarly: today at work I had a misbehaving laptop. It took me over an hour to work out that a particular service was responsible, and to find a way to disable this particular service (it was locked in a 'starting' state and wouldn't respond to any commands). Although the experience was frustrating, I also found it just a tiny bit thrilling, and I was quite happy once the problem was solved. A non-geek should've given up immediately.
Look at the way Scott Hanselman solved this seemingly insurmountable problem Rick Strahl had getting his laptop onto a projector:
"Fire up another machine and remote desktop into my machine then run the presentation over Remote Desktop. Link the two machines together with a network cable ... assign two local IP addresses... ...5 minutes later the two machines are connected and talking."
I don't expect my elderly aunt Agatha to engage in this kind of activity.
But why is this dangerous?
This is dangerous if your software is tested by geeks.
Geeks will overcome almost every problem, without ever telling you about it.
Geeks generally report bugs when something is impossible, not when it's just incredibly hard.
A product is boring from a geek's point of view when it simply fulfills a purpose. The same product might be thrilling to a non-geek, for exactly the same reason.
Down the scary end of this line of thinking: geeks will derive the most pleasure from flaky tools that behave only when you nurse them properly (e.g. beta software, hello web 2.0) and tools that let you dig much deeper (e.g. linux), while non-geeks derive the most frustration from such tools.
[note: i edited the above paragraph to remove an unintentional dissing of linux. linux ain't flaky as i originally described.]
I enjoyed that little revelation. Here's some articles mentioning Anne Kirah and her observations (can you believe she, like, doesn't have a blog??)
'Chip Crary' on Wed, 06 Sep 2006 14:43:24 GMT, sez: I must be a geek.
I was trying to use a Toshiba recovery CD to pave a friends laptop. We booted and went through the standard gyrations until we got to Ghost writing the image onto the hard drive. And then after a few minutes the machine rebooted itself.
We tried again and it rebooted itself even more quickly.
After sleeping on it I realized that the Ghost wasn't running the software to throttle the CPU when things got too hot. I added a fan and a couple of Hot Wheels cars to lift the case to give it some air circulation underneath to the mix and the Ghost finished without further complaint.
Must have been tested by a geek.
'aaron' on Thu, 07 Sep 2006 12:41:54 GMT, sez: Ahh...yes.
Like 2 days ago. When the homework site for my brother-in-law's math class displayed find on my home PC, but wouldn't on his laptop. (page had funky lines, no text)
As he chugged away on my system, I diagnosed.
Was it the security settings? Nope.
Browser problem? Proper version of IE.
Java?! Lessee...four FOUR versions of java installed on the laptop. Removed all four, updated to the latest. Still wasn't it.
Read the site's FAQ. Nothing.
Uhhh...check the security settings again. Nope.
Reinstall all the custom activex controls.
Uh-uh.
..laptop...laptop...display...dis...hey! Checked the display settings. Sure enough, they were set to 120dpi for larger fonts. I'd done this on my laptop a while back, yet switched back because (you guessed it) too much wierdness with applications and/or websites that rendered improperly @ that setting.
Set it back, rebooted, and badda-bing badda-boom we were back in business. Did the "who's ya dadday!" victory dance around the kitchen, with expected geekish coordination.
Not to mention mispronounciation of "badda-boom badda-bing.
'Jacob Proffitt' on Thu, 07 Sep 2006 13:01:48 GMT, sez: That's an important insight with practical application for software testing. Thanks for pointing it out.
'Eric D. Burdo' on Thu, 07 Sep 2006 14:00:57 GMT, sez: >> A product is boring from a geek's point of view when it simply fulfills a purpose. The same product might be thrilling to a non-geek, for exactly the same reason.
I am an automation geek. I like to automate everything.
So, this gives me great pleasure (because I can solve the problem) and it gives the end-user a thrill because now their work gets done quicker.
And your right about testing. Not only do geeks not report bugs, because we did get things to work, we also know *HOW* something is to behave and we test the software knowing what it should do. We don't find the edge cases.
'Sergio Pereira' on Thu, 07 Sep 2006 20:52:15 GMT, sez: I beg to disagree. All the examples describe software or at least information technology problems. I think this shows how a field professional would react to a situation comparing to a "normal person." Being a software developer and technology enthusiat, I consider myself a geek, with all the good and bad conotations that such labeling bears. Nonetheless, if my car decides to not start on a cold morning I do not know where the system error log is! I'll have to put the shoes of the normal people and call the mechaninc, which will probably open the hood, blur a bunch o buzzwords and thing-ma-bob-babbles, and easily fix the problem. In the meantime I'm still clueless.
'lb' on Thu, 07 Sep 2006 21:01:00 GMT, sez: good point sergio. you're probably right.
but tell me this: once the mechanic has given you those buzzwords, isn't there a higher chance that you'll look then them up on google, read about them on howstuffworks or wikipedia ?
sure you're not going to get your hands dirty working on an *actual* car, but you're still intrigued as to cause and effect. or maybe not.
personally i hate hardware debugging (such as car maintenance, human surgery etc.) because often there is no answer -- it starts to work again, but you can't work out why. you can't break and unbreak the problem over and over, scientifically ruling out possibilities, like you can with software.
i love software, because although there is no silver bullet, there is always a smoking gun.
'al' on Fri, 08 Sep 2006 05:58:13 GMT, sez: Great analogy!
hmmm... so I guess the lesson here is to test like a user... give up at the first sign of trouble?
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