LET GEEKS RULE: Why ‘techies’ should be considered as stakeholders and not as ends in themselves

In the last couple of weeks, I’ve attended a number of conferences and workshops that brought together different “stakeholders” from various fields including donors, businesses and corporates (the private sector), researchers and academics and NGO’s and Non Profits.

This list intentionally leaves out ‘techies’ as stakeholders despite the fact that a number of this breed were in attendance in all the events.

The discourse at the meetings, in my honest opinion, was mostly self centred in the sense that everyone was looking at things through their own lens and seeking out value for themselves in addition to utilizing every opportunity to achieve their own objectives.

Very few were willing to see other people’s point of view which was quite unfortunate considering this approach provides new insights on the issues being discussed which in turn broadens the scope of one’s thinking.

The thing that frustrated me about all this is that at the centre of all these discussions were techies; but they weren’t talking with us, they were merely talking about us. And this is a problem!

A number of these stakeholders agree to the fact that the technologists (techies) are directly responsible for a number of shifts in various industries in today’s world.

Focusing on the development industry, the geek nation has had a number of successes in effecting social change. Surprisingly, these successes have been much more effective than those of traditional NGO’s and non profit organizations.

So why aren’t the voices behind these successes esteemed?

Most people only seem to need techies when they need to implement something but rarely include them in planning and strategy. Yet, this group of people are a vastly untapped knowledge source.

It beats logic.

I’m not sure of the reasons why this is happening but I believe a lack of organization and structure in the tech industry is a major contributor. Think about it for a second. Most techies prefer to be individuals working on individual projects or contributing to those they have an emotional resonance with or benefiting from. Rarely do you find an organized group of techies operating under some sort of rules.

This is stumbling block but it’s not a killer. Techies have perfected the art of ‘unorganized organization’. That’s how the Open Source movement, as an example, was created and is being sustained.

My reasoning behind this is based on the growing consolidation efforts that are taking shape in the form of co-working spaces and incubation labs across the globe. These spaces allow techies to work together in some sort of organized environment but still give room for individuality and creativity to thrive.

I believe such spaces are a form of ‘organization’ that other stakeholders can use to interact with techies as stakeholders.

…and that’s when the magic happens!

I strongly believe that by engaging with techies as policy and decision makers, the stakeholder level, we open up opportunities for knowledge creation and innovation which in themselves can create new avenues of collaboration that result in even better ways of achieving both common and stakeholder objectives.