Redefining geek and techie?

Let’s take the case of a techie and a geek as defined in modern technology.  Let’s use the example of Best Buy and their geek squad, a retail division that has been established by Best Buy to service computer and technology failures in products sold by the retailer. This industry change has led me to explore the difference between a geek and a techie.

Technology has divided the world into three general categories, the geek, the techie and everyone else. When we discuss everyone else we are specifically looking at anybody who does not fall into the category of techie or geek.  We do this specifically because it is my belief that the technology offered by the world has created two type of IT professionals a techie and a geek.

The geek is the programming and engineering individuals that handle technical design and code. These individuals known as Geeks are strongly fluent in programming language and technical expertise in constructing and deconstructing technology.

I introduced the techie on the other hand as the individual who is capable of understanding the needs analysis of the general public and how that technology applies to that need. The techie is an individual who has remained and continues to remain on top of different technologies while never specializing in one specific type of technology.  That techie understands the different strengths, weaknesses and opportunities that technology offers to resolve the needs of everyone else.

Who is everyone else? Everyone else is the public at large, be it business professionals, educators, students, consumers, clients, physicians, lawyers etc. The general idea is that humanity has created needs and these needs have been fulfilled by technology.  In addition to the needs being fulfilled by technology, we have also started to fulfill wants. While the geeks have provided us ways to deliver technologies to resolve the needs and wants, it is unfortunate that most geeks fail to be able to see the big picture and purpose of the very technology in which they are creating.

Take the website for example.  Websites offer a unique opportunity for individuals to share knowledge, display their expertise, and develop a medium through which they can educate, support or organize outreach. For a business owner, the difference between geeks and techies, have been exemplified in the Web 2.0 era. This is what happens when countless business owners have invested time, energy and money into websites that have been built by programmers and other geeks who understand their trade, language and their code. Unfortunately, business success is not defined by the contribution of programmers and geeks. This is where the need for techies has evolved.  Techies are individuals who have enough technology experience and understanding of the technology. They excel in how delivery should be in a streamlined user-friendly manner so that business owners can reach everyone else in the world.

Techies serve the most crucial function of understanding how technology meets the needs, or fails to meet the needs of any function, business or organization.