Will the Real Technical People Please Stand Up?
Leslie Hawthorn • Potsdam, Germany • Talk

Date: August 01, 2015
Published: August 14, 2015
Announced: November 17, 2014

Will the Real Technical People Please Stand Up? by Leslie Hawthorn

How often have you heard – or said – the phrase “$PERSON just isn’t technical”?
If you’re our speaker, you’ve heard it plenty of times over the past 15 years, and frequently applied to yourself and other colleagues who didn’t quite fit into well understood “technologist” categories.
But what does technical actually mean? What makes someone technical? What makes them not technical?
In this talk, the speaker will explore how “not technical” is dangerous phrase we use to ensure that we need never question our hidden biases about others and their aptitudes. She will demonstrate how this phrase not only encourages a lack of collaboration, but leads to stagnation in the growth of your orgnization by actively discouraging your peers from learning new skills.
She will conclude with concrete steps attendees can take to better understand the capabilities of everyone on their team – coders or not – so their projects, company or teams can be most successful.

eurucamp 2015