Human scientists belong in ICT
29/11/2011
“Well, how is your teaching career working out for you? The most beautiful job in the world, isn’t it?” Almost 20 years had passed and he, my former Dutch teacher, still remembered me. That I dreamed about walking in his footsteps. That I hoped I could match his ability to get pupils’ ears growing when listening to Orwell’s Animal Farm. He even remembered that I had spent some time in the Netherlands to immerse myself into Medieval Literature, that I had successfully earned a Master Degree Germanic Languages at the University of Leuven and that I had completed an internship at my former high school.
And now, at the reunion of this very same high school he was eager to hear the story of my successful teaching life.
I chose the short pain.
That it wasn’t his fault. That teaching had been fun, but that I discovered early on that for human scientists there was a fascinating world outside high school. And consequently, that I had never again stood one day before class since my internship. I had developed a profound interest in the world of technology and got attracted by human-machine interaction. And so, I started working as a technical writer and a usability expert for domestic and international companies, and later on became project manager and change manager in large ICT-projects.
“Then you have chosen the wrong study”, he concluded, and walked away.
No I hadn’t. Not by far. Today I know that the ICT world desperately needs human scientists with an open mind:
- Because they are innovative and they have the ability of keeping a fresh and healthy view on technology;
- Because they are empathetic and they are able to get into the heads of developers and under the skin of users;
- Because they are excellent communicators that can keep project partners with dissimilar ideas and interests on the same line;
- Because they are pragmatists who come up with realistic and useful solutions;
- Because they recognize complexity and have the ability to translate that into a language that both developers and users can understand;
- Because they are curious and typically have a open world view;
- And last but not least: Because they can and will focus on usable, user-friendly and fun-to-use technological products.
A little later that evening, I accidently bumped into him again. “You know,” I said, “actually I would love to stand before the class once again. From Animal Farm to technology, it’s not such a big step as you might think.”
Sofie Vanophem
Subscribe to our newsletter
+32 (0)15 40 01 38
Video Testimonial
Bianca Reuse talks about how Randstad dealt with change management issues, resulting in a smooth implementation with maximum user acceptance.