I quickly learned that some members of our small staff were able to master the use of the hardware and software much more easily than others. And, that some of these employees were natural trainers and mentors for everyone else in the office.
My experience was and is not unique. The respected computer industry magazine Datamation published a brief essay in their "Readers Forum" by another computer user at about that time. Even though we were both in San Francisco, I never met the author, Mark Hall. To this day, I know nothing about him.
But I did clip out his essay and have saved it all these years.
It is still relevant and suggests some strategies for teaching technical skills in any group of individuals with varying aptitudes, interests and motivations. Allow me to share the wisdom of this bit of ephemera from thirty years ago:
ORAL TRADITION
Getting acquainted with a new computer system is never easy. Different operating system commands, discrete hardware configurations, and unique program capabilities make moving from one computer to another quite a chore. In our highly mobile corporate culture, continually learning new systems is a way of life, whether because of job changes or through the continuous upgrading to the most fashionable computer technology.
The responsibility for user education is often perceived to be in the hands of the data processing manager. In some organizations this might hold true, but most data processing departments are too overburdened to take on the continuous task of user training. In real life user education happens in the ongoing oral tradition of the work group. Data processing departments occasionally offer classroom instruction in certain aspects of their hardware and programs, but seldom do these few opportunities coincide with the needs of new employees of those moving to new jobs within a computer system-dependent group. Knowledge of how a system works is passed on by word of mouth in an ad hoc, informal manner. New system users are taught on a need-to-know basis by those within their immediate circle. Very often the knowledge passed along is incomplete and sometimes wrong. But since the goal of the group is to get a particular task done, not to become systems experts, the oral tradition of the group establishes itself as the primary method by which understanding a computer system is promulgated.
It's not out of malice, stupidity, or incompetence that organizations do not extensively provide system instruction. Rather, it is because the oral tradition within an organization is capable of communicating a seemingly adequate amount of information without the benefit of a highly structured format.
Non-technical people tell others what a program does, or how a modem works, or how to print a file, or how to install a printer ribbon. Users inform each other about the vagaries of a given computer, its operating system, software, and peripherals because they know, better than the data processing overlords, what it is they want the information processing tools to do for them. After all, it's their job they want to perform; the computer exists merely because management has deemed it to be of some value in accomplishing that job. If pen, paper, and adding machines were the instruments of choice, employees would be directing each other to the supply cabinet. As it is, the complex knowledge of high technology is primarily passed along in a low-tech manner.
It is well known that corporations in this country spend as much or more on education as colleges and universities. Quite a bit of it centers on the latest technology. But the classroom barrage employees receive seldom has any direct bearing on how they can use a system to get their work done. A class on SNA (IBM's Systems Network Architecture), for example, will very likely cover the principles of logical unit types and give useful definitions for the alphabet soup of IBM's mainframe world, but it will probably do little more for the credit collections manager, market analyst, or order entry supervisor using an IBM host system.
The formal presentation of information through documentation and manuals is to be avoided at all costs. In the mainframe world, users rarely receive printed material about the host computer. If they did, it would be mostly incomprehensible. Microcomputer users know first hand the frustrations of trying to comprehend the meaning and intent of the descriptions in these works of so-called prose. Experienced PC users generally try a program before even cracking the binding of the accompanying documentation, not because they're so knowledgeable they can ignore it, but because they don't see the sense in starting off on a bad note. In the UNIX community, where the system's complexity begs for guidance, the multi-volume documentation for the operating system is widely seen as an enigma bound in a mystery, something to be dodged by all but the most masochistic individual.
Structured and rational learning processes seem to collapse before the logic of information processing, and are replaced by casual conversations within work groups. This situation should not really surprise anyone. Oral traditions are the mainstay of economic cultures, even corporate cultures. People learn by example. In the Middle Ages, for instance, farmers taught one another how to manage agricultural land efficiently to produce bountiful crops. Experience guided them through the complexities of crop rotation and animal breeding.
During the Renaissance, artisans explained their crafts, be it barrel making or paper making, to apprentices who learned over time by watching and listening, not by attending a technical school. When the industrial revolution shook the economics of Europe and North America, capitalists on both continents depended upon the oral traditions within their factories to expand the skills of their workers. Few bothered to train men in the art of making steel rails or locomotives; that knowledge was explained and shown workers by their peers.
In our so-called Information Age, things are not that different. Human beings continue to teach by informal conversation and example, just as people still learn by asking impromptu questions that have meaning to them at the moment.
In other eras this would not pose a problem. Medieval farmers were tied to the lord's land. Artisans of the Renaissance stayed with their master craftsmen. And in the factories of the industrial revolution workers strove to remain secure with lifelong jobs. Even when migration did take place in these times, the oral traditions remained constant; learning how to fallow fields, hoop barrels, or blend steel carried relevance across boundaries and generations. Continuity is vital to the successful transfer of oral knowledge.
Acceptance of common goals and attitudes also helps to smooth the interchange of information. If one thing is lacking in contemporary industry, government, and education, it's consistency and a mutual adherence to values. Workers feel less allegiance to their employers. Job mobility among knowledge workers has never been higher. Concurrent with the migration of the work force is the lack of a constant approach to the tasks of our information economy. The mainstay of this information age, computers and communications, vary widely from place to place, or, in the argot of high technology, application to application.
According to some sources, up to 65% of the workers in the United States process information for their livelihood. In the overwhelming majority of cases, this means they work with or use data provided by computers--about 50 million or 60 million people in all. Now, as the readers of Datamation know, there are not that many data processing professionals in the world, perhaps the universe. Still, at least that many people are using computers daily and the numbers are increasing. And, although not so bountiful, the variety of computer systems on the market today compounds the phenomenal problem of user training. It is little wonder, then, that the understanding and use of computers is accomplished through oral tradition.
Given the preponderance of oral traditions in computer-related jobs, it is critical for managers to take this into account when assessing the strengths and weaknesses of a group. A department that is heavily dependent on computers to accomplish its goals must have an excellent oral tradition or the quality and quantity of work will suffer.
Oral traditions, despite their informality, are generally hierarchical. Certain individuals are perceived to have a better understanding of folklore and culture because they can explain them in comprehensible ways. The same is true for computer systems. Some people know more, others transfer the information better. For a manager, it is vital to identify the group's best teachers. They may be more valuable than systems experts.
It is also important to learn what is being explained via a group's oral tradition. Just because people like what they are hearing does not mean that what they are learning is true or adequate. Myth is just as much a part of oral traditions as anything else. Make certain that those who are passing on information have it straight.
As modern organizations rapidly advance toward information systems dependency, they often bypass effective instruction of computer use. They only recourse people have is through the day-to-day, casual explanations available in a group's oral tradition. Fostering and nurturing this informal mode of teaching leads to a more productive and profitable organization. Having state-of-the-art technology may not get you anything if your people-to-people communications are in the Dark Ages.
