The very first white-paper i wrote was christened – “How to extend your tea-breaks using Scripting“. Introduction started of like this -

The ‘real’ Reason…

Like every other employee, i’m at the liberty of two tea-breaks. But you just can’t spend more than 10min on a tea-break. The work was so much that squeezing even a minute, looked like a distant dream. I would have just given anything to get that break extended.

My savior was Scripting. It helped me automate the routine manual work that was involved, and i had an extra 30 min for tea-breaks.

The question is why did i resorted to write something that was meant to be formal in such a way. I had seen couple of white-papers well written and talking about some real good technologies. Many of them carried that heavy aura of being too technical and very formal, which i felt was deterring my interest in that paper. Unless and until you are someone who is really interested in reading about that particular field of technology you wont feel like reading what that guy has written. Why does it have to be always like that?

In fact technology should be fun in learning and in presentation. When the fun factor is thrown out of the window its becomes serious, boring and well at that point people starts calling its “geeky”. Throw in a few funny statements and make it more pleasing to read and i bet you will get a better audience for the things that you want to communicate.

It can turn sloppy if you are not careful enough to make the point. The message should be loud and clear. But shouldn’t be boring. Take Al Gore’s video on Global Warming – An Inconvenient Truth – for example. Though not technical or geeky, its the best testament to what i have said. The message reached everyone. You wont feel disinterested because, he puts on his witty-shoes in between and is careful enough to avoid them so that it doesn’t start sounding bland.

Still many are prejudiced against this form of presentation and communication. Why cant we use a bit of humor to build the interest in a topic. The first reaction i got for my paper was, ‘does it have to sound so funny?’. I stood by what i believed and submitted the white paper. Felt so good. But it never got selected. But hey! who ever read the title has read the whole paper. I can guarantee that.

Many a times i wondered why do people call things geeky? Its not because it was something that they couldn’t fathom. But it’s because some one made the technology formal and boring. This applies to the online tutorials as well. Why? Why? Why? Why does all theses neat technologies have such a very formal write-ups?

So come one guys we neednt be so formal with technology and ideas. Lets make learning FUN..