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Polyglots, Plutonians, and Mercurians by Charles Cranford
There's an old joke which asks:
Q: What do you call somebody who can speak two languages?
A: Bi-lingual
Q: What do you call somebody who can speak three languages?
A: Tri-lingual
Q: What do you call somebody who can speak four or more languages?
A: Multi-lingual (or, as the crossword puzzle fans like to use the word, "polyglot")
Finally,
Q: What do you call somebody who can speak only one language?
A: American (or as we sometimes hear it called "back-home"…Merican…)
Tell me you have never seen a real-life comedy where a "Merican" tourist is asking a native "Where is the bathroom…, por-favor?" As if using the word "por favor" (Spanish for "Please") will make the previous words completely understandable…
I believe that one of the big problems that today's communications professionals face is that we are an industry of "Mericans" - most of us speak only one language:
- Voice people speak Time Division Multiplexing and like fixed-sized, digital 64 Kb/s channels
- Data people speak Statistical Multiplexing and like all the bandwidth they can get
- Wireless people speak analog or digital over Frequency Division Multiplexing and use from 30-200 KHz up to 1.25 MHz of radio spectrum.
- Cable operators speak analog (and sometimes digital) over Frequency Division Multiplexing (and sometimes statistical multiplexing) and use 6 MHz channels
So it shouldn't be a surprise when a CTO convenes a meeting of different communications professionals over a planning table and begin to plan for the (Converged) future that they quickly and easily misunderstand what the other person (or industry) is talking about! This can drive a CTO or MIS Director crazy! How do you overcome this Technological Tower of Babel? It isn't easy. But we can shed some light on what the problems are and what the chief solution is!
Understanding the Problem!
The word-picture that I most use with clients borrows from the famous 'Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus' book series. In these books the experienced (seven-times-married) Dr. John Gray describes the stereotypical challenges that face men and women in deep conversations as being like people from different planets trying to relate. In short, your concepts, communications and expectations will be based on your "planet of experiences". Where you're from dictates your native language and the meanings of words. One way to show an example is by using the word "commitment". It is rumored that natives from Venus and Mars use that same word with considerable difference in meaning!
I would suggest that in a similar manner, people from different "planets of industries" will use the same words with, potentially, a vast difference in their meaning. Let's just compare the voice and data people for starters.
Who is from where?
If men are from Mars and women are from Venus, then I would suggest that "Telephony People are from Mercury, and Data People are from Pluto". In short, they are barely in the same universe! Wireless People must be from Jupiter (with its great mass and gravity) and Cable People are probably from Neptune (just because I'm about to run out of planets or this analogy), but that's for another time!
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