I know more than you…

I’ve spent some time over the last few weeks diving back into the underbelly of the Internet. By that I mean that I’ve been hanging out in Internet IRC chat rooms listening to the other geeks there.

I’ve been reminded of what sets me apart from other “geeks” out there.

In my experience, Geeks tend to define themselves by what they know. They know HTML, IRC, what a DOS attack is, how to get the most out of the computer they own etc. To that end, Geeks hate to be wrong – or proven wrong. They love to prove their Geek ‘Cred by spouting off buzzwords and irrelevant facts so that you (the listener) don’t understand what they are saying, therefore proving that they know more than you do.

I play in the other sand-box. I love to share, explain, and help people. Even if that means not knowing everything or having to look up the answers. I’m not looking to be a Geek among Geeks – I just want to be someone you trust to help.

Computers and technology change daily. Something that didn’t work yesterday with “product X” just got fixed today. Some new product that solved a new problem came out yesterday – there is just so much going on and so many things changing that it is impossible to know everything all the time. At best, you can say that any technology solution is a very educated GUESS based on the data available at that moment.

So to all the Geeks out there – try to do more listening than talking. Accept that you know what you know and that there is a lot out there you don’t know. We’re all here to do the same thing – help everyone else.

/soapbox <Thats geek lingo for end soapbox. The character / is used in HTML code to mean that you are closing or ending a tag> heh