How to explain IT to lawyers

Recently I was asked to explain, in plain language, the size of a certain data set that was several terabytes as measured in disk space. I was not allowed to simply state that a byte was a character, a kilobyte a thousand characters, a megabyte a million, a gigabyte a billion, and a terabyte a trillion. This was not plain enough. 

So, I couldn't use the direct approach. After all, if you read this whole article, you will have read about 2,000 characters and it would be 135 kilobytes in size, but that really doesn’t help comprehend what the 7.3 billion copies of this article would look like (it would be a 471 mile-high stack of paper). I'd be surprised if this article was read more than once anyway. 

Forget characters, bytes, and colossal stacks of articles, I had to use seconds instead. (As in, one Mississippi, two Mississippi, … not helpings of a meal). This is how I explained it:

One thousand seconds is over 16 minutes (a KiloSecond). According to Andy Warhol, everyone will be famous for 900 seconds. One million seconds is more than 11 and a half days (a MegaSecond), but one billion seconds (GigaSecond) is nearly 32 years. That's a big jump, but just enough time for one generation to grow up and produce another generation. 

A human life span is typically two and a half billion seconds, unless you are River Phoenix who got way less than one billion, and the oldest lifetime claim is 127 years of age, which means they made it to only 4 billion seconds. Even human life spans don't get you into the trillion neighborhood. 

Imagine this: one trillion seconds (a TeraSecond) is over 31 millennia - a millennium is a thousand years - the year 2000 marked the year that ended the 2nd millennium in the common era. As I write this, there have been about 63 billion seconds so far in the common era, give or take a few.  

So, going back to the life of Jesus is not enough seconds ago, not even close to a tera-second. Even with this conversion, the numbers are too big to think about. The oldest written language dates to 3200 BCE, although Egyptian glyphs date to 3400 BCE, still only hundreds of billions of seconds ago.

The practice of farming is arguably about 12,000 years old, which is not even half a trillion seconds ago. You have to go back to the stone age - before words, before farming, to a time when the human population was just expanding enough to no longer be considered an endangered species - to count enough seconds to add up to a trillion. From cave man to modern man, just a TeraSecond, to get 900 seconds of fame each.

-AR
© Aron Ruthe, 2015

It's Not What You Know

It's not what you know. It's not who you know. It is what you know about who you know that counts. How well do you know the people you have to motivate, influence, or persuade? 

I have had countless meetings with different industry representatives who have done one of two things: dropped names or dropped facts.  Rarely, did they do this with any sense if either were important to me. If they dropped both, almost never did the "name" relate to the "fact."

Why it's not who you know: 

Don’t drop names. I know why you do it. Having mutual friends can be a device to build trust - if done in context and in moderation. I had one guy go through twelve names before he stumbled on one I knew. I didn't tell him what I thought of our "mutual friend." If he had done his homework, he never would have mentioned that joker in my office. 

If you must mention a name - for instance, you want to shorten your explanation and it would be easier if I was already familiar with their work - make sure you establish that context. Otherwise, it looks like you are just bragging that you know someone I don't. Besides, it's all I can do to keep up with my own crap. I don't have time to track other people's crap. 

It is never good to just name drop. You have to remember what mattered to the person you know and why that matters to me. Do they have a similar problem which has the same solution that I would need? Is the person with the problem/solution someone I would want to know more about?

Why it's not what you know: 

Being smart is not enough. You could be a brainiac with a triple PhD, but if you don't know where I am, what motivates me, or what my "care-abouts" are, all those smarts are wasted. Don't show me your super widget and ask what "my challenges are" and if I think your thingy can solve them. Do your homework, read my website, review recent congressional testimony by my leadership - my problems, my challenges, the context you need is usually out there. I probably wrote some of it myself. I certainly reviewed and cleared a lot of it. If my problem was not specifically, or even remotely, addressed in your demonstration or pitch, you just wasted everyone's time. 

You, at least, have to meet me halfway. Explain why the scenario you are about to use is like, or similar to, my problem. Don't expect me to have the epiphany. If you can’t work it in, skip the demonstration and ask for an informational meeting where I can answer questions about what you read on the website, or in the testimony, etc. 

It's what you know about who you know:

If you know what matters to people, it is easier to connect with them and get them to help with your agenda. The people you know, who know me, can help you understand me and what I have going. Ask them what I care about, what do I not care about. If they don't know, ask them who does know. If there is one thing everyone likes to do, it is talking about other people. 

By the way, remember the serial name-dropper that I mentioned earlier? I ended up giving him a list of names of people who knew me and were out in the industry crowd. I recommended that he could contact one of them and perhaps learn what he needed to know. He instead brought one to the followup meeting and watched me talk to him. (sigh).

I've used the example of the typical vendor capabilities brief, but this is true of your teammates, employees, and your leadership too. If you know what they care about it is easier to motivate them. 

If you can master this, you are one step closer to the secret to getting things done in government.  

-AR

© Aron Ruthe, 2015