Friday’s community day was all geared towards collaboration. What I found fascinating was the "speed dating". Not real dating, mind. The format was the same, but the outcome was to encourage all the different disciplines that make up Conchango to get to know each other better.
So I had 3 minutes apiece to talk to five or six people from the tech team. The most interesting part was the languages we used. I struggled with “.net”, and “jaytwo-ee” (J2EE) and “sequel servers” (I know it’s SQL but everyone says “sequel”) … only this time I got the chance to ask what that really meant. I got to ask what shape these strange words give someone’s working day; what they produce with these acronyms; what they do with “data”.
And whilst I still struggle with “data” as an abstract concept (I always need to turn it in to something tangible in my head – a photo, an account number, a description, a code), someone drew me a useful diagram on the tablecloth to explain how it’s cleaned, transformed and loaded.
Of course, everyone had a different idea of what I do, strange creative-type that I am. So I deal with content – but it’s not about choosing the Content Management System. I’m a copywriter – but no, I don’t deal only in legal matters.
I do deal in communication, language, dialogue. It would be great to build on what happened on Friday and develop better, more accessible ways to talk about the ever-growing array of amazing things we do – creative, business and technical. Fancy a chat?