 All right, and you are officially at our non-profit tech club meeting for March 1st We're just a week after the big snowmageddon or whatever you have it But we are in business and thank goodness it didn't hit this week So I today get the honor of hosting this meeting normally that falls to Carolyn Appleton our fearless leader But no, we're just a part of a network as Eli was telling you about of tech clubs around this like this around the world We work together with tech soup net squared and a number of other Organizations and 10 and all of our programming it is free for everybody. So thank you for being here. Please do help spread the word We're happy to be part of just helping nonprofits up their game and with when it comes to technology We have a lot of events already planned for this year as you can see we Get to see Dallas Emerson who I'll be introducing in just a moment But we also have good events coming up in future months. So please do stay tuned for those And of course, we are not just grateful to Eli for helping us like manage all this technology To kind of be the backbone support for these presentations, but also the capital factory who's been a generous multi-year supporter ATB the capital factory up already mentioned them and trying on coffee. These are all Multi-year supporters of ours and we're really grateful them also grateful to ATB for keeping us fed during these crisis against it within a crisis that we're living we've been living through and Of course really this couldn't happen without the different volunteers that we have with this group and as I mentioned earlier Kylton Kellen Appleton she would normally be hosting introducing everything. She wasn't able to make it tonight But she really is the glue that holds this group together and does so much work for it But we're also very grateful to Susanna earlier for her work. Nevin K. Muth, Carly Martin, Dale Thompson, and Carl Webb all of whom Help us to make this group what it is. So thank you all for being here with us And of course if you need to follow up with us later, it does want more information You know, we have a bunch of different places. You can follow up TechSoup, NetSquared, the N10 page Hopefully you found us through the Facebook page today, but if you didn't you know just send me a little private note in the chat tonight and I'll get you the any of these links that you might need and With that, let me tell you a little bit about our presenter tonight Dallas Emerson So I'm gonna stop the share and you know, I got to meet Dallas. It was I think four years ago when I was still working over at Mission Capital and he was up there getting to meet some people and things like that and Dallas he's been with the IT guys for six or six seven years now He's their leader of business development, which means he goes out and he helps Non-profits get connected to what IT guys does and what do they do? They help non-profits really make sure that they're they're back office IT infrastructure It's all working well so that your staff can really focus on doing their jobs, right? And so for small and medium non-profits and associations You probably do not have a staffer on hand who gets to focus their time on understanding how all the technology works and Keeping up to date and all that and just being able to do that and that's what makes Service like IT guys so great And it's the kind of service that I've really gone to go under appreciate as a professional over the last 10 years Because for small and medium non-profits, we can't afford a full-time person who understands all the tech much less somebody who can understand servers versus phones versus The internet or interfaces and all that kind of stuff and that's where a service like IT guys comes in is they Help make sure that you have all your security and all your other pieces working correctly So if you don't have something like that, you should really look into it What else can I tell you about Dallis? He's a graduate of Texas Lutheran University and Yeah, with that, you know, I don't want to get in the way of Dallas helping us to understand some of this crazy tech jargon Because there is a lot of it out there and that's why we've brought them here to you guys today So that you can kind of help cut through all the this stuff and really get a better sense of what's going on in the IT world and how does that relate to us at nonprofits? So with that, I'll shut up and Turn the table the floor over to you Dallas. Thank you. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it Let me share my screen here real quick And let's bring this up. So, you know, I'm I'm happy to be here. I'm excited to be here Oh here. I'm in the office the same home office. I have been in For the last year since our first two-week lockdown a year ago almost exactly a year ago but I'm excited to be talking to all of you and I'm honored because Austin has been through a lot and don't let my name deceive you I am in Austin Austin has been through a lot in the last year and in the last month, especially the last week as Sean pointed out So it's great to be here talking to people who Are working to make Austin a better place to live a better place to work. I really do mean that it's one of the advantages to Working in this Environment in this universe of nonprofits, you know, Sean made clear I am not in a nonprofit Occasionally we are not profitable, but that's not by design But you know, there's a certain benefit to knowing, okay, I worked with somebody who Helped a Child find a forever home or who helped, you know, fix up a fix up a house for somebody something along those lines versus saying well I helped somebody sue their competition slightly more effectively. So I really do mean it. I love nonprofits I love working with nonprofits. I Want to take a moment before I dig into this and just apologize up front If my voice begins to get crackly or if I seem somewhat Distracted I have been sick for about four straight days. So This session is brought to you by cold and flu medicine So let's just dive into it How to talk tech translating the jargon and BS of it, you know When I first talked about the session with Sean with Carolyn months and months and months and months ago I kind of had this ambitious goal but I wanted to of trying to turn people into Ad hoc IT experts. So what I wound up doing is I had a number of conversations with people People in the nonprofit universe to kind of figure out what kinds of things are on your mind And as Sean just pointed out interestingly enough one of the things that was on their mind was not becoming an IT expert Which took me a back a little bit because I thought oh, no, what am I supposed to be talking about if I'm supposed to be talking about jargon and BS Translating this for people. What is the real problem here? But you see there was a problem And let's think about this basically in terms of a language course if you will The problem isn't necessarily that Non-profit ears want to learn the vocabulary of IT. It's that they struggle with the way that that vocabulary is delivered I have found You see in my ambitious goal, I've you know brought up a number of topics There's about 7,000 different things we could talk about from you know cloud computing to different kinds of computers that you could use But the thing that I encountered the most what most people really seem to bring to the table was I Don't get how IT people think or I think my IT person might kind of be a jerk or am I just Bad at talking to this person because every time we start talking I get either confused or frustrated And so what I found was time and again I was in this conversation where people said yeah, I don't have time to become an expert I don't have time or the inclination, you know I didn't get into the nonprofit world because I wanted to fix a printer or to make sure that my network was running perfectly I Got into the nonprofit world because you know, I wanted to help somebody or help an institution or build something And so I was left in this position where I realized that the problem when people talk about jargon See when I when I use the term jargon and BS everybody has an idea of What they think that means But what it really means at the end of the day is communicating with this guy your average IT person and we're going to stop for a moment here and note a couple of things I'm going to use the term tack a lot or tech expert or IT person and I am going to be using that in kind of a general fashion But you know, Sean had said I've been with the IT guys for six or seven years I've been working on the nonprofit aspect of the IT guys for six and seven for six or seven years now I've actually been working with the IT guys Since I was 12 So that is 13 years I guess going on 14 now And so I've been around tax essentially my entire life. I know these people I myself am techie, but not necessarily a tech And so when I talk about tax it may sound like I'm using gross oversimplifications or Stereotypes, but there is a basic type of IT person And it's in talking with those experts those technology experts that we really see The trouble come forward where this language barrier becomes very clear, you know We interact with all kinds of experts every day A lot of us are having to interact with plumbers right now because our pipes are burst because it's Austin and it froze over What I've noticed is people don't tend to complain about jargon from From plumbers or from electricians the complaints about jargon come when we talk about technology And the complaints about BS if you will come when we're in these technology situations And so what I want to do is is when we're talking about this language this What's the word I'm looking for this dialect of English tech that I want to help understand how it's communicated. You know, I took language courses in high school and in college At high school I took Latin in college I took Spanish I can say for sure that it's much more effective to learn a language that people speak Rather than a dead language But you know in these Spanish language courses I would learn about maybe the Cuban culture or some festival in Guatemala and I thought why are we doing this? I need to know the vocabulary I need to know how to ask for help or you know how to tell somebody I need to use the bathroom or something like that But there is something really essential about understanding the mindset behind a language And that's really what we're going to dig into here because you don't have the time or the inclination Sean pointed out to become experts oftentimes we need to rely on somebody whether it's a full-time person on staff a Part-time person a contractor or somebody you just turn to for advice. We all have to have these conversations And so it's in that, you know turning to somebody and for the for these conversations that we find the difficulty, right? because That's where the gap begins and so my objective here as a person who kind of lives half in the non-profit world half in the tech world Is to help fill that gap and stop this from being the end result of these conversations You know, one of the first things I want to say is Occasionally people will say that why can't tech people just speak English? Well, maybe they're trying their best Which is a terrifying thought Maybe they're trying their best to speak English to to to try to communicate a series of complex ideas And they may just not be very good at it. So what I want to help you to do is understand the frustration that can build there In this jargon to help translate. Okay. What is the diff or to help understand? What is the difference between jargon being just a set of of terms That are pretty much exclusive to one industry, right and bs, which is lies And to do that I have to kind of help you understand the mindset there So what we can get better results we can get fixed problems so that you as a non-profit leader can get back to working on your mission Now I want to stop for a moment and address something that you know, there's kind of a an idea there's a lot of Not very nice people in the tech world And I'm here to tell you that is somewhat true I would say there's probably more jerky people per capita in the tech world than just that anywhere else and certainly A lot more jerky people per capita in the tech world than in the non-profit world So you might be wondering why am I talking to the non-profit people who have already identified as the salt of the earth Rather than talking to the tech people about how to change their ways Now like I said, I've worked with techs pretty much my whole life and it's a lot easier to talk to non-profit leaders On how to communicate with techs than talking with techs to try to change how they communicate In a general sense there's some specifics we can work on but Also, they don't have a club and you do so One of the first things I want to talk about is this have you tried turning it off and on again I bring this up because it's the classic example A it is a stereotype that is 100 true. We do ask that techs do ask that You know at first every single time and be a lot of times it seems like It BS Why are they making you ask that? Well first things first it works But what you have to understand is that a tech when you're speaking with them This is almost a test To see if you have invested the time of turning your computer off and on or whatever piece of equipment it is To make sure that you've invested that time before you came to them It's kind of a way of figuring out how is this conversation going to go? Um, so this is an example of something that occasionally feels like BS and I believe it or not This is one of the most common complaints I get to somebody say. Why do I always get that question? Well, a it works be it's a tech checking to see if you respect their time enough To invest that little bit of time upfront but you know while we're on the subject of of of stereotypes or of of Things that just you know, we can't seem to get away from the most The largest pop culture image of a tech of an IT person is this man Dennis Nedry From Jurassic Park now spoiler alert for a near 30 year old movie He's not a great guy Dennis Nedry feels overworked underpaid and underappreciated He's the sole IT person for a massive park in which they claim they spared no expense um And Dennis Nedry is 90 percent of techs Many of them feel overworked Undervalued underpaid whether they are or not So there's a kind of an immediate resentment built into the Mindset of a tech and that's made worse by the fact that in the nonprofit world techs might as well be aliens You've seen the nonprofit world. You don't need me to tell you this, but I'll just say it You tend to be people people not necessarily that you're that you're extroverts But nonprofit people if you get into nonprofits, you're probably not there for the money You're there because you want to help somebody well tax Aren't necessarily people people and I don't mean that they're all introverts But they tend to think about things and systems as opposed to people So in this sub industry or in this industry of non-profiting or non-profiteering they are alien. They're weird They stand out and they can feel that As I'm sure you can feel that too. So on top of this kind of feeling of I'm not, you know, I'm overworked They also have a hard time connecting Now as bad as our image of techs is as I've just laid out here I got bad news for you techs at least the jerk the jerky kind of techs have an image of users of people who use technology They often view users as unsophisticated and I can use this image. I come from a long proud line of Rednecks, so I get to use this But there is the very easy ability for a tech to feel A sense of superiority we're going to get into that if you ever feel like a tech is talking down to you And that's what I tend to come across the most right is complaints of of condescension There's a chance that they really are there's also a chance that they aren't and that's what I want to help Clarify is when is a tech? Being problematic. I don't want to be just having a miscommunication You know, I'd mentioned that techs think about things and systems. It's partly a result of just their Their job But it's also because of their personality type again Speaking in broad terms some techs are very people oriented, but their job dictates. They think about things and systems Whereas most nonprofits are dedicated to getting through today Making sure you've got enough funding to survive the year making sure your programs Are successful and making sure that you know your overhead ratio, which we all know doesn't matter but is still evaluated is you know Looks correct from a technical perspective though a tech can set up something that is perfect, right There is a way that they can actually create a system that has no flaws, right? Because you can theoretically create a computer system that is perfect Well, obviously that's never going to happen in the tech world or I mean in the nonprofit world. So there's that But in their process of trying to of creating perfection, you know, there's there's kind of a It's not apocryphal. It is a real story. I actually know who said this There's a a joke that goes around that a tech is asked by And an executive. What can we do to make our systems run better? What can we do to to you know, be a little bit quicker to to kind of work some of the problems out? and the tech responds Get rid of the users Because in the tech world, it's generally speaking People that are the problem, right? The computers didn't break themselves. Somebody had to from the tech's perspective So there's already the the knowledge that they're never going to achieve perfection And it's going to be worse because in the nonprofit world so often they're working without data or a very least stretched equipment So for a moment when we're thinking about these miscommunications these struggles In leadership to connect with the person that you need to connect with to make an informed decision Put yourself in their shoes for a moment and realize that you know It's short. Yes, you as a nonprofit leader are very stressed trying to make sure that everything is Going to come through okay at the end of the year, but from their perspective They have this goal that they'll probably never achieve That builds in a certain amount of stress right away and that stress is going to be carried forward into communication I say this because Techs as not very strong people people Also tend to not have very much empathy, which means they don't necessarily know how they come across Which means their tone can be Hostile when they don't intend it to be hostile And they often have poor filters and those poor filters often come about as a result of Kind of the expertise spectrum There's a an odd thing in the human psyche the more Expertise you gain in a given subject kind of the worse your people skills become Think about artists for example, you know Vincent Van Gogh was not known for his people skills. He was plagued with mental health issues, but he was a genius artist Steve Jobs Brilliant very difficult man to get along with and in just the same way you're The techs who spend their lives trying to hone their skills to become As good as they can at their task oftentimes wind up actually worsening their people skills over time So this creates a problem We live in a nonprofit world where people Generally speaking are at the center It's populated by people who care deeply and who are deeply empathetic Which is probably why they got into the nonprofit world and you need to connect with these Other alien beings over here or who are aliens in their own environment, right if they're working in the nonprofit world They don't fit in And their profession draws them further and further along this expertise spectrum That can cause even greater conflict This is made worse by the fact that the only real way for techs to Gauge their expertise Is to compare themselves to other people Which is inherently competitive whether they know it or not. They're looking around and going Okay, do I have this skill? Do I have this skill or how good am I at this thing and they turn around and they go Wait a minute Okay, he doesn't know this. She doesn't know this. They don't know this Okay, I must be pretty good at what I'm doing Now you'll notice here what I'm talking about talking tech To just slow down for a moment This is all about psychology This is entirely about understanding the mindset behind it to try to get a smoother technical conversation because If you have a better relationship a better understanding with this it expert that you were eventually all going to have to turn to A you'll be more willing to turn to them. I can't tell you how many people I know who say well I know this IT person or I pay this IT person, but I don't want to work with them because I can't stand talking to them Well, I want to bring you I want to help bring you to the point where you have enough knowledge To be confident either saying, okay, that relationship is just fundamentally unhealthy. It may be or to say Okay, we've been miscommunicating. I understand what he's trying to do or understand that maybe She isn't meaning to say this right understand that they aren't intending to do these things So I want to try to arm you with that knowledge So again an IT person here has to kind of look around and go, okay How am I doing compared to my peers? Creates an inherently competitive mindset. So let's just take a moment to kind of again Kind of rip that open and peer into the brain Of a technical person because that's what again I've found to be the most important thing in this conversation They're very thing oriented rather than people oriented in a people oriented industry They Want to have processes and perfection That they can't necessarily well they almost certainly won't achieve unless you're very blessed and you get an enormous grant And they get to just spend money on whatever they want So there's going to be built-in frustration They have a natural competitiveness based around their knowledge because that's how they have to gauge what they're doing Oh, and by the way almost every time you talk to them. It's not because you're wanting to tell them. Hey You did a great job or oh, you know, we kind of have this long-term project It's usually because there's an immediate problem adding a new layer of stress on top of whatever is going on So let's combine all those elements and what do we get a recipe for condescension and that is where the communication breaks down Rarely do I find that somebody says well my it person just doesn't communicate clearly You know, so or I don't understand what they're talking about so I can't make a decision It's almost always I didn't understand what this person was talking about I tried to get clarification and then they started talking down to me and I got frustrated Or I didn't understand so I kept asking and the IT person got frustrated with me and so things broke down Again nine times out of ten When a nonprofit leader is looking for expertise in the tech world They're not turning to try to become an expert themselves. You probably want to go on to finding your next big program So how do we avoid this given that we have this toxic brew or potentially toxic brew? Well, one of the first things that we need to do is kind of turn the cat around and look at it from the tech's perspective you know, I talked about there sort of being a spectrum of expertise Well you as a user or any user falls somewhere on that spectrum too and a tech Has to gauge where you are at any given time They may not know your level of expertise on any given subject much less your overall technical comfort Which can breed a complication right away furthermore Then this is something that we can use to kind of figure out If somebody is healthy or not if a tech treats you poorly because you've come to them and professed ignorance Well, that kind of tells you right away That that is not a you know a healthy relationship if you come to them and say I don't know anything about this Can you please help me and at least something say something along the along the lines of you're done, right? You don't know anything about it or You know, they roll their eyes. Well, it's very basic very easy something like that That person is Not somebody who you should continue working with if you come to that person and they tell you as they should Well, yeah, you don't know anything about it. I spent years doing this and you have it. So let me help you Boom, you've got something good there but I digress Tech's have to look at every person they interact with and and try to understand that They don't know where this person is in the technical world Which leads very easily to feeling condescended to if they bring it down to the most basic level One of the problems that I hear people say is well, you know The first question this tech asked me was is it plugged in like I'm that dumb to not have a plugged in two things One the tech has almost certainly encountered somebody who did not realize that the thing was not plugged in So they have to go to that basic level thing two The tech doesn't know what you don't know and they're probably going through a mental checklist The first thing they have to do is go is it plugged in If a tech actually comes to you and assumes that you know everything and they just start, you know at 60 They don't take you from zero to 60. They just start at 60 And they just plow through and leave you behind if you don't understand what they're talking about That's actually a sign This person is again has has toxic traits Not going to work well So when it comes to talking tech when a tech is reducing things to the most basic level That's actually a sign. They're probably a decent person from their perspective. They're doing their best Because from their perspective people fall into three basic categories You know, there's the first category, which is total ignorance of computers or near total ignorance of computers These are people who oftentimes would describe themselves as being dangerous with computers or having bad tech luck Now maybe you fall into that bucket and that's why you're in a session about how to talk tech And maybe you're a little bit disappointed that I wasn't here giving you a computer science course I'm sorry, but the course that most people need is a better course on how to understand the help that we can get Because from a tech's perspective, there's basically two kinds of people that fall into this bucket Of a of technical ignorance and by the way, there's nothing wrong with ignorance Again, if you're in the nonprofit world, you probably don't have time money or inclination to learn these things But you know, there's very kind people who don't know anything about computers The kind of person who when we all know one of them you might be one of them You press a button and somehow your computer catches on fire You don't know what happened. So you bring that fiery computer to your tech and say I'm so sorry. I don't know what happened And if the tech is again a good person somebody who you want to work with the tech should respond It's okay what happened And this is where we're going to start to get into some of the jargon versus bs and kind of clear clear things up You never should accept a tech asking the question. What did you do? What did you do is very demeaning very hostile questions not helpful An appropriate question for a tech to ask should be what happened or and then what did you do next or What were you doing when this happened? You know, if you're in a position of leadership and you're the person that you work with on technical things regularly says well, what did you do? It's usually a sign that that person has a closed mindset and that person is They're probably the jerk in that situation if they're saying what did you do next or how did this happen? They're trying to figure out what's going on. But what did you do if they're putting the blame on you right away? I gotta say, you know, if we're trying to figure out if they're a jerk or not, they might be a jerk So anyhow, if you're let's just say that this is, you know, a tech ignorant person who brings it in the tech says well, how did this happen? That's fine But there's another kind of person who's very ignorant of tech and we particularly see this among older men and I hate to be stereotypical here, but Having lived in this world As long as I have I've seen it time and again of people who get aggressive about their ignorance who feel maybe embarrassed by their ignorance who come across and say Who come across and say, you know It shouldn't It broke and it shouldn't be this way or it should work this way. So they get mean about it. The tech has to now write away I'm I'm sorry that leaves them in a position where they have to say It doesn't work that way and it shouldn't work that way. It immediately creates hostility so There's the potential that the tech is just trying to get to the bottom of the situation and that the The user is the one creating problems by not being okay with ignorance. So my biggest lesson to you is be okay with ignorance It's okay. Ask questions Because by asking questions, that's how we're going to learn The second group of people was, you know, the people in the middle they have some technology not necessarily tech experts Often described as no enough to be dangerous and I do mean enough to be dangerous Oftentimes these people will have a problem that happens and they go out to try to solve that problem And then find out that they've caused something else because they've changed the setting or something along those lines Because they had some competence in that You know in in the tech world and now the tech kind of has to go through The IT expert has to go through and figure out What went wrong and not just what went wrong, but what the person who had the problem did after that, right? Again creating a situation for deep interpersonal conflict because now the tech has to say now they do have to say What did you do because the the settings aren't right? You know the settings were all changed again Ideally they would say and what happened next or what were you doing when this happened or how did this happen? This creates the potential for serious conflict and again techs not being very empathetic in general Don't necessarily understand the potential for conflict here. They don't understand that Digging in and trying to figure out what happened can be embarrassing for somebody My number one piece of advice when it comes to talking tech is when you run into a problem If you're not sure what's happened and you do have a reliable tech person Reach out to them explain to them what happened Because when you try to take over that role if you're not a tech expert It does create the problem for serious miscommunications down the road But let's just say you were in that last bucket the smallest bucket of all Which is those people who are actually pretty darn good with computers Ironically enough this can create the most complicated and challenging relationship between a tech and The nonprofit leader You know in the case of an unhealthy tech this creates competition where they feel like they have to prove things If you feel like your tech is threatened by your knowledge or the person you're turned to is threatened by your knowledge That's not a great sign You know means you got to either work at that relationship or find a new person to rely on But again keeping it in the tech's perspective what oftentimes happens here is that when a fairly tech savvy Non-profit leader runs into a problem because you are not because you are nonprofit leaders you are problem solvers You immediately create a solution or you go out and find a solution bring it to the tech and say this is the solution I want Well the tech may not know there was a problem So from the tech's perspective you come in and go this is the solution I want the tech has to go What are we fixing here? Why are we fixing this? What's happened? Why are we making this change? Now This is really where we get into jargon versus bs because jargon might be okay. Well, let's just say the problem is we're changing email providers Jargon in this situation might be somebody saying well, there's a potential for x y and z problem with the new provider you want, you know, they're digging into some sort of problem That gives you the opportunity to ask what do you mean by that? How can we work around that? How serious of a problem is that? How do we tell the difference between just plain jargon that we know we need to work through and ask questions about and full on bs Well, if you clarify that and they say well, you know, there's this technical problem here and and Not sure it's gonna work. You say okay Well, I'm willing to take that risk because you know, we need to save the money over here And then they come out with a new unrelated issue and they go immediately after that Oh, well, not just that but also, you know, this this provider has got some shady reviews and also You know, we're really busy and also there's this problem over here Once you start to see a series of unrelated Things brought to the table That's when your little bs radar should be going off Because that's a sign of attack who's felt challenged You know, you've gotten in on their turf or something like that again naturally competitive people or maybe not necessarily naturally but competitive by the nature of their work Now are having to determine What is going on in some cases they may even Again, this is in the case of an of a toxic tech Try to defend the status quo is not needing to change If you know that the status quo needs to change and you continually you have the reasons that the tech just doesn't seem To want to change You might want to get a second opinion Because there's every possibility that tech is just sitting there and going well, I didn't Didn't come from me. So I don't like this idea Now there's a much better way of handling this again Because at the end of the day what we all want with both nonprofit leaders what tech experts want is a solved problem They want a better environment You know, I said before that techs are There's more jerks per capita among techs than among just about any other industry But not every tech is bad Uh, and not every tech is this robot. They do have feelings and they don't want to hurt yours It's not their objective They want to solve a problem. So how do we get from a problem to a solution? Right, that's really what this is about because as experts or as nonprofit leaders You don't want to go about solving your own problems. You want The text to solve your problems for you or at least work with you Again, the thing to understand is here. You have a problem. The tech doesn't necessarily know what that problem is You see the results you see let me go back real fast. You see the smoky or the broken computer But from the tech's perspective, they have to go through and go, well, wait a minute What happened first in this than this than this? Okay, and then if it's not this thing that it might be this thing over here understanding that relationship Is it is key to making sure That when it comes to talking tech you can be successful Because it is a relationship And like any relationship it's about communication and when it's about communication It's really about understanding that it people techs are their own breed of cat They're weird They don't necessarily fit in in the nonprofit world Fortunately or unfortunately They're needed in the nonprofit world So communicating with them translating between that jargon and that bs first comes about understanding That mindset of understanding Okay, this is what they're thinking understanding that they may not necessarily intend to be hostile It comes from asking questions. If you want to talk tech, you got to ask questions asking them to break it down for you And if you get resistance if you get hostility Let me tell you something especially if you're in the austin area There's a lot of other techs out there who would be much more polite and much more friendly and explaining these things to you It comes from asking questions and having confidence In knowing that it's okay to ask questions Like I said, most techs don't want to hurt your feelings Most techs are happy to talk about tech things And if you bring it if you bring to them a question and say, how do we do this? They'll be happy to do it. So, you know, I presented that issue before of where sometimes Particularly tech savvy nonprofit leader will bring a solution to a problem To attack and that that can create all kinds of problems The better way to go about that Is to bring your tech in and say, okay I know this is the problem Maybe even already have a solution of mine and say, I think we might do this But make sure you've communicated clearly why you want to make a change because from a tech's perspective, maybe everything is running just fine And if you have a tech that you feel like you've repeatedly repeatedly run into communication problems with When it comes to these technical conversations Sometimes just sitting them down and saying, hey, when you said this It came across like you were kind of sending or it came across as kind of short with me It could be very effective You know, when it comes to communicating on technical issues Telling a tech, you know, okay, I do understand this. I don't understand this very helpful You know how I said that techs like to have processes like to have systems for things Well in your organization as a tech gets to know You and the people in your organization, they can kind of create a system even a script For communicating. I have seen it where a tech has a script for saying, I'm so sorry. You're dealing with this problem That must be very frustrating I don't like that you have this problem either and I'd like to help you through that Sometimes telling a tech that that's what you or your staff needs to hear is all they need but They don't know that until you start walking through it with them So that's what I want to leave you with this evening is When it comes to talking tech You don't have time to become an expert. So we have to rely on experts Which means we have to understand those experts, which means we have to understand their mindset and so the mindset of a tech Can't be complicated But if you approach them and understand the stresses that they must be under just by existing in the nonprofit universe I think it can be a lot healthier and I know it can be a very productive And beneficial relationship All right. Thank you all very much Awesome. Dallas. Thank you very much. Um Been very helpful really helping us to get a sense of where it is that uh The tech people that we interact with might be coming from understanding their minds as the first step towards Building towards more productive relationships I have a bunch of my own questions. But uh before I do that I want to Open it up to see if there's anybody on the line who has a question that they would like to ask You either drop it in the chat or just hop in Tell us something out there. Hi there first time long time ilay in vancouver So I thought this is really interesting because it was not so much about a technical issue, but really almost like a sociographic exploration of How we can work well with our colleagues You know, and I think it goes both ways, you know, most of the things you described as like Oh things you can do to like disempower and threaten your techie Like oh, that's me every time I tried to be helpful. I like I come in and step on someone's toes so uh So I thought that was really really fasted and just to sort of open that that thinking and way of viewing this situation up Again, I don't want this to come across as a session for Telling people, you know, you just need to tolerate these prima donnas Which so often techs are but this is a way of understanding. Maybe okay. Is my tech actually a prima donna or are they Just really frustrated Because it is a naturally frustrating job So Dallis, I was reflecting as as you you spoke and uh, one of the things I kept on thinking about um, you know, I think that I understood the the case pretty well about how like if this is a you know, you're a a non-profit or an association and you have like one tech person on your staff and that It's thinking made a pretty good Kind of it was clearly like what your next steps might be with that person in terms of like giving them a script And testing to see if they're a jerk at heart and some of those things For those organizations or even outside of the non-profit specific thing But if you're like calling up a helpline or something like that where you know, it might be a random person a random tech person picking up the line or Responding or coming out to to help you or if you're working with a service or whatever That that's a little bit of a different situation And I was wondering if you could speak a little bit on what would you recommend for the kind of You know kind of how how can I or anybody any other non-profit leader kind of set up the first 30 60 90 seconds of that conversation for success. What can we do? to You know kind of take the benefit of the doubt And create the the situation where that tech is going to hopefully be able to interact with us in a positive constructive way Yeah, I think the first thing to do is when you're Communicating with this person is Don't tell them What you think the problem is or what you think the end result of the problem is tell them specifically what's happened So a lot of times what we see in the world is somebody will say word doesn't work Well, okay How does word not work? What is not working about word? Or they'll say something like well our internet is down You know maybe try to if if you were doing anything in the first you know leading up to the event Try to you know, bring them up to speed on that I was actually on a call where somebody was telling me. Yeah, our internet died. I said, oh my gosh I don't know what happened spent about half an hour trying to figure out what was going on with their wi-fi Only to find out. Well, they had been moving The routers around and then the wi-fi died and well sure enough it wasn't plugged in And so, you know in that case It created a lot of frustration. You know, we were trying we kept it civil But there's a certain degree of frustration like I don't understand what's going on here So starting off by by telling the person Exactly what the nature of the problem is not what you think the problem is but just you know Literally read the message if you need to telling them kind of what happened leading up to it and then Just being open, you know, maybe you can even tell them up front. I'm bad with computers um I don't necessarily know this If you feel comfortable just you know, starting off by saying if you can jump on my computer You know, if you have some sort of remote access system something like that Just kind of let them know your comfort level so that way they can know. Okay I kind of know what I'm dealing with here Cool. Thank you. Um And digging a little bit deeper on kind of connecting with that that tech person Do you have any story that you might be able to share with us of kind of where Somebody was able to kind of turn a situation around and maybe it even gotten a little bit sticky but where the non tech person was able to Appeal to the the angels of their own better nature to kind of work with that tech person and To turn the conversation from a difficult one to one that was going to be constructive Absolutely You know, this comes from our own As embarrassing as it is to say, you know when you've got a bad story that comes from your own company But we all do particularly every tech company will have bad stories. You know, we had a tech who I know for a fact isn't a jerk, but Can come across that way occasionally And that had a really bad run in with somebody like you were saying and you know, it came across as condescending is just It was deeply unhealthy And it because I'm kind of in a leadership position It became my problem because this person the the client came to me and said this is really bad I don't ever want to speak to this person again ever So it was kind of a process of saying totally understand that You know if at the end of our conversation that we have you still feel that way you won't have to But i'm going to encourage you to give it one more try i'm going to have a conversation with this person because From the tech's perspective he thought That actually things were pretty much okay because they didn't leave screaming at each other Again, we're talking about generally speaking low empathy people and so from their perspective You know as long as you didn't end up punching one another we're probably okay Maybe some feathers were ruffled, but then things are fine. So I had to go to that tech and say Things are not good At all you need to apologize. Not only do you need to apologize Next time there's a problem. You need to go over and above The tech was shocked. He had no idea. There has been a problem. So he apologizes A few months later there's a problem and what does the tech do because he's created this system You know, he had a note. Hey, you were really mean to this or this person thought you were really mean last time So the tech goes I'm on this as quickly as I can Made sure to communicate in a way now that he knows this person You know, whether they misinterpreted his tone or whether he you know realized that sometimes his tone could be misinterpreted He made extra steps to make sure the tone couldn't be misinterpreted And so he took those steps to go. Okay. I'm going to be kind about this You know, if you have a tech in your office So often what I see is because I you know, we do work with some organizations that have full-time techs on staff So often the tech is in the back Basement office, you know way often because and maybe that's by their own choosing because they want to kind of be left alone to figure things out But it does create a sense of distance. So, you know as a leader Reaching out and just everyone's while talking to the person about something that isn't a problem is huge Because it can help remind this person or showing How the work they do Impacts The work that the organization is doing because so often a tech can easily fall into this rut Where the problem, you know, where it's okay, the printer is broken The network is down. This computer is broken. The printer is broken that work is down the computer is broken over and over and over again Occasionally telling that person. Hey, thanks for fixing this because You know, we really needed to get this grant so that way we could help out This community in need or something like that making sure they see not just that they're probably they fixed a problem But that they empowered the organization to help somebody is Huge it's huge Excellent is your date quill hanging on long enough for one more question It is I think my voice is going but I think I got one more question All right. All right. Well, we'll do that and I don't see anybody else hopping in. So I'm gonna I'm gonna take that opportunity for myself Dallas if there's anybody who's tuned in today or who's watching the recording and Really did want to literally get into the jargon Literally wanted to up their own game on understanding Technology, do you have any recommendations for that person resources? They might go to to kind of go from You know, I we know you're not, you know, it takes years to go from zero to a hundred on this But you know for somebody wants to go from zero to five zero to ten Um, are there any resources that that you're familiar with that you like that they might use to be able to really start to get a better appreciation of the technology and really Some of the some of those things so they know what what the cloud is and what a server is and you know, what's a dns and all that Oh, absolutely. You know ironically enough My recommendations would often be in ten and tech soup Because I have had those where somebody says I just don't have the budget or you know I'm launching something You know, and so we're really early on so I do have the time to try to bone up on it things Where should I go so often I point them to you guys? But you know just ironically enough or maybe not ironically enough oddly enough Reddit Has a lot of really great resources Where you can get very specific answers to very specific questions Jumping on to you know, just Literally googling whatever it is you want to know about following it with a word reddit You can almost always find a thread And on that thread. Yes, sometimes you're going to be mean people But there's also a lot of people who just love talking about that thing that you're interested in and so posting a question Like if you just want to say I know nothing about the cloud Somebody walk me through the advantages and disadvantages. You'll get an answer like Within a day and it'll be an encyclopedic answer Believe it or not Techs use reddit all the time For solving problems. There's kind of a joke, you know What the it person's biggest tool is google It's not it's reddit. I've seen so many texts turn to it for quick answers For full answers at all levels of expertise Excellent excellent. Thank you and uh since I don't know that the um Chat will necessarily go with the recording uh Eli dropped in there. It looks like his favorite. He says I love stack overflow dot com for questions. So For the benefit of the recording Tell us thank you so much for being here. Eli. Thank you so much for making sure that our technology would hold together and That we were able to broadcast on facebook live and All that other stuff. Either of you have any parting words for us I'm good. I want to say uh, thank you and I really want to say to you son. Thank you so much for Bleeding this um, you know these community groups don't happen by accident They happen because someone steps up and says Damn it. It's going to happen and i'm gonna make it happen All right. All right. Well, thank you both and uh, yeah Good evening. We'll be seeing you again in a month. If not sooner. Got it. Thank you. All right. All right