Academia and Acronyms

By Doug Nichols November 7th, 2011, under Academia, Rants

 One thing that I have discovered since being hired to work here at Marshall University is that faculty and administrators just love acronyms. Even more so than what you would expect in a business world filled with marketers and communication gurus, and slightly less than your average idiot politician (USA PATRIOT act anybody?).

A couple favorite acronyms I've discovered just recently in this sphere are FAVE (Faculty Against Virtually Everything) and (courtesy of my friends at RecoVend) HiPPO (Highest Paid Person's Opinion). They work on multiple levels because the verbiage makes sense and the spelled out initials are effective in evoking imagery that works (imagining the highest paid person giving their opinion as a lumbering hippopotamus is genius)

One of the reasons I think those in the academic world are so drawn to acronyms is because they just happen to have a decent size assortment of words that have nearly no use outside of the academic world. Words such as "experiential" and "pedagogy" which just scream out to be thrown together into a mishmash of nonsense so that a cute acronym can be created.

As an example, when tasked with coming up with an identity for a still-under-development student/faculty portal, instead of coming up with something that makes sense, the decision came down to embrace the insanity:

(E)xperiential (L)earning (V)ia (I)nternet (S)ervices

That's right...ELVIS. 

Doesn't make a lick of sense when you examine each letter, but damn it everybody knows ELVIS, and on the bright side...it has given hours of giggle fits already to John Cummings.

So unless your primary objective is either

A) Confusing Students
B) Amusing John

Please think your acronymification all the way through. If it doesn't make sense on both levels (such as FAVE and HiPPO), then it probably isn't a good idea. Either try something else or go in a completely different (read: non acronym-based) direction.

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The secret to being a good developer has nothing to do with your technical skills…

By Doug Nichols November 3rd, 2011, under Business, Development

The secret to being a good developer (at least in my experience) lies solely in your ability to effectively communicate with all of the non-technical people you work with and encounter on a day-to-day basis.

The fact is non-techies are going to be your primary clients and they are going to be the primary stakeholders in almost every project you ever complete. It is going to be their opinions on your work and on your ability to work with them that is going to ultimately decide your success as a developer out in the wild.

What I have found through my time in the professional world is that even more important than delivering a great finished product to my stakeholders is the need to deliver a great overall work experience to those who I have to go back and forth with multiple times a day/week to make sure everything works the way it needs to. 

Let's face it, fellow developers and techies. We can be a very intimidating bunch of people. We can strike fear into the hearts of almost anybody by the mere mention of PHP, SQL, and AJAX. When we start talking jargon, eyes glaze over and this no longer becomes a partnership and turns more into a lecture, and nobody wants that. It is important to remember that while we may know the difference between JSON and XML, they are the experts in their field and it would be in our best interest to not only remember that, but to make sure THEY know that we remember that. As soon as you make it clear to your client/colleague that the development process is a two way street between equal partners each bringing important skills and information to the table, you'll notice an immediate uplift in confidence and cooperation which very well may be the deciding factor between success and failure.

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