Non-tech ways to help people understand tech

JM·Jan 24, 2022

Anyone else use non-tech approaches to explaining tech concepts?

I'm finding myself increasingly drawn to visuals and humor to help people bypass the fog of technical details. While I'm happy to dive into technical details myself – that's been my strength in product design and in being a partner to engineers – I'm increasingly seeing the value in good content design and eye-catching visuals to help people see what really matters.

Last week I saw (yet another) artist friend wondering if they were missing out by not getting into NFTs. Something sparked for me and I felt compelled to spell out what I've encountered. It started with that acronym: I came up with a bunch of alternate definitions along with quotes to illustrate the particular issues. They were kind of sharp, and kind of funny...and it occurred to me it would make a good zine. I could distribute it digitally, but also just print a bunch to give out or leave around. So that's what I've done. I added a slightly rude limerick at the end to really seal the deal.

https://turbo.makeitlegit.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/21212346/Zine_NFT-NineteenFundamentalTruths.pdf

I don't think mysticism around tech – or design, for that matter – is helpful. So I'm trying this out! I'd love to discover more inspiration for interesting approaches to explaining tech.

tanmayisai·Jan 25, 2022

This looks amazing! I wish there were more resources for non-technical people! The best luck I've had about technical topics broken down is YouTube! I usually have to go down YT rabbit holes and end up discovering content that explain things like I'm 5.

Jolleen·Jan 25, 2022

This is awesome! I’d definitely be happy to learn more about NFTs. I create art and everyone keeps telling me to sell them as NFTs but I don’t know how to start and what it would entail. I’ve checked online and there are a lot of contradicting opinions so I’m not sure whom to trust especially since it’s still in its nascent stage.

JM·Jan 26, 2022

That’s exactly why I made this; there are a lot of misconceptions about what NFTs do and don’t do, and I wanted to make something to explain each of those in a way that would be attention-getting for artists. The NFT success stories right now (Beeple, etc.) are about short-terms gains by speculators, specifically for artists that already have big followings that can bank on the hype. It’s kind of like artist-celebrity performance art at the moment.The technology is, surprisingly, not very future-proof for something promising future returns. It also does nothing for intellectual property, and enables decentralized pirating (think of how many sites and fast fashion companies sell goods with stolen art — similar scope of problem, very hard to track). down and a pain to take down once found).It’s not worth slogging through the technical issues unless you’re doing it as a hobby because you like experimental stuff around tech & finances…and are willing to do a lot of research into it. From my knowledge of what’s out there and what state it’s in, I wouldn’t bank on any of these platforms going the distance. And I *definitely* wouldn’t get into it from artist FOMO.

Jolleen·Jan 26, 2022

Thanks so much for explaining this!

AnaTrueba·Jan 25, 2022

What I´ve been testing out with privacy stuff is using graphics and images (I´m not a designer so basic stuff I made on Canva) and I´ve had a generally good response. Here´s a recent example: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ana-trueba-de-buen_privacy-trends-activity-6887536927743049728-a96r I think the key thing is keeping the content clear and bite-sized and making sure that the graphics go with it.