Geek Gap: Why Business and Technology Professionals Don't Understand Each Other and Why They Need Each Other to Survive

By Bill Pfleging

Book Overview

Business managers (suits) and technology professionals (geeks) have become warring camps in too many companies. While both groups have no trouble following the lingo of their own specialties, when they have to communicate with each other, neither side fully understands or wants to understand the other. And that's a big problem in an increasingly technology-dependent business environment where success depends on the smooth integration of both business savvy and technological expertise.Bill Pfleging a respected computer and Web consultant and Minda Zetlin a veteran business writer explore, in this insightful, witty, and very instructive book, the culture clash that pervades nearly every business-technology interaction. The Geek Gap provides members of both camps a practical guide to working together effectively. Using many real-world examples, the authors vividly illustrate the consequences in time, money, careers, and even lives when these separate cultures fail to communicate. The authors provide practical solutions for building trust between business and computer professionals. The book is filled with tips aimed at geeks and suits to help each group understand the other, communicate in what amounts to a foreign language, and get what they need to do their jobs effectively. The authors profile companies and individual executives who have successfully bridged the gap by conducting events that bring the two groups together, switching jobs from one area to the other, creating whole new careers as "go-betweens," and much, much more.This is the first book to directly address issues of communication and understanding between business and technology people. The Geek Gap in identifying this problem and providing numerous practical and workable solutions is an indispensable guide for all.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1591024153
• ISBN13: 9781591024156
• Release Date: June 2006
• Publisher: Prometheus Books
• Length: 251 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.8" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

This Book Promotes Understanding and Improved Communication

It seems like a given in business that people who work together would talk with each other. Pfleging and Zetlin tell us this book isn't about hidden problems but problems that everyone acknowledges as "the root failure of a large percentage of costly failures in business." (page 17). Here's one of the keys for this book: "Everyone knows it's there, but no one knows what to do about it, so no one talks about it." And the financial cost for this lack of communication is huge. On page 26, these authors write, "According to researchers at the Standish Group, only 34 percent of all IT projects in the United States are successful. The rest either fail completely or are "challenged"--that is, seriously late, substantially over budget, or both. In total, this costs American businesses about $55 billion in 2003, the last year for which figures are available." What a huge problem! The authors boil the Geek Gap into three basic issues: 1. Geeks and suits don't communicate well. 2. Geeks and suits don't respect each other. 3. Technology people and business people don't trust each other. These authors balance careful research with clear examples and solutions. In the final pages they say, "The best way to bridge the Geek Gap, for everyone's ultimate success, is to learn more about the work of the other side, appreciate the thought and talent that goes into it, and respect all who contributed to the health of your organization. This will put you ahead of the completion." (page 233). Jump ahead of your competition with this title. I recommend it.

Suits and Geeks should read

There is a white elephant in the room at every meeting between tech team and business partners. This book articulates the source and offers practical tips to solve, giving everyone a moment to reflect on what they can do to make projects more effective and find common goals. Like every discussion of cross-cultural differences there are nuances and truisms but just to have it overtly discussed is very helpful.

Insightful, timely, important in other contexts too

This book is crisply written, as specific as possible in its observations, and has the necessary anecdotal evidence, this being the only kind of evidence one could collect on this topic. I hope this book finds the people who could use it. The geek gap is more pronounced when the product or service being sold isn't technological itself. Across such a cultural divide the hazards of prejudices are more acute. What kept coming to me as I read this book is the general prevalence of "attitude", the product of ignorance or, at worst, arrogance. I'm a lawyer and I've seen that a lot of lawyers are arrogant -- they think they know a lot when in fact they don't, they think they are good at things when in fact they aren't, and they think they have "seen the world" when in fact they have lived in a bubble. Such a lack of awareness seems worse in older lawyers. In my profession you can do some things badly for years and never suffer for it or even be aware of it. Entering law school was like entering any new environment: the important thing is not to go in with an attitude. Keep your eyes and ears and, especially, your mind, open. That is how one gets older and smarter, instead of older and stupider. Back to the point -- this book is about the attitudes geeks and business people have toward each other. A lot of the attitude is based on externals, and here I was mostly in sympathy with the geeks, based on my own experience in a non-technology field. In my profession I often have to use a more pompous, formal writing style than I prefer, because pompous writing impresses 1. stupid people, 2. insecure bureaucrats, and 3. people who don't know what they want, and most of the time I am writing to one of these three, if not directly, then eventually. The same applies, more or less, to the emphasis on appearance that business people stress. They want customers and don't want to cut themselves off from the #1, #2 or #3 market. It should be easy for any reasonably mature geek to understand this, and the need to keep up appearances with clients or corporate bigwigs. When these considerations don't apply, I don't sympathize with the business people's criticism of the geek lifestyle. As far as the geek lifestyle described in this book goes, bare feet in the office is O.K. with me. Games in the office are O.K. Casual clothing and behavior is O.K. Myself, I work better casual. Suits just suck the life out of me. In my profession, the better the tailoring, the slicker and more dishonest the lawyering. (This goes extra for those guys with the weirdly deep tans and the hair helmets.) Probably this is true in other professions too. The book describes some business decisions that were made that defeated the purpose of a geek creation. A business person without an "attitude" should find it easy to be honest with the geeks as to why he had to do what he did. Sometimes business decisions are illogical and counterproductive but you have to make t

A 'must' for improving business communication skills.

THE GEEK GAP: WHY BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY PROFESSIONALS DON'T UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER AND WHY THEY NEED EACH OTHER TO SURVIVE outlines the existing and growing gap between the two groups, who often have their own technical language within each group to strengthen understanding within - and division outside the group. Bill Pfeging is a computer and web consultant with co-author Minda Zetlin a veteran business writer: the two explore this gap, how it adversely affects businesses, and how to overcome it, with tips aimed at both geeks and 'suits' to help each group understand the other. A 'must' for improving business communication skills. Diane C. Donovan California Bookwatch

Must Read

Very intesting book that gave insight into why technology / IT projects fail. Plus, it had some great history and examples on why those project failed.