Who needs an IT expert, when taxi drivers will offer just as good comment? After the BBC`s recent boob, I asked my local taxi driver about downloading music and he gave me great expert comment.
A BBC interview with a man, who was mistaken for an IT expert and then mistaken for a taxi driver, highlights this industry is littered with standard answers to standard questions.
Some years ago, I was told that to be considered an IT expert, one had only to know 50 acronyms. It seems that now that bar has been lowered.
The interview happened a few days ago when Guy Kewney, a white, bearded man and an IT journalist, was supposed to be interviewed by BBC consumer affairs reporter Karen Bowerman about the court case between the Beatle`s Apple Corps and Apple Computers over the use of the apple logo.
Instead Bowerman interviewed a clean-shaven, black man called Guy Goma, a graduate who specialises in data cleansing and hails from the Congo. He is not a taxi driver as at first reported.
The strange interview started with his priceless facial expression when he realised they had the wrong person, but he persevered in answering the questions. The strange conversation went on and one can see a puzzled expression on the interviewer`s face as she began to realise something was not quite right. But she too carried on with the interview.
The same first name goes some way to explain how the mix-up happened. However, why no double-checking was done, or asking the simple question: "Why are you here?".
Weak stomachs
The great thing about all of this is that Goma supplied almost perfectly acceptable answers to Bowerman`s questions - a cringe-inducing fact for most IT executives, experts and those who coach them on media training.
Similarly, reporters and journalists should also be shuddering as none of the questions asked, when one thinks about them, are particularly insightful.
The strange interview started with his priceless facial expression when he realised they had the wrong person, but he persevered in answering the questions.
Paul Vecchiatto, Cape correspondent
I asked my local minibus taxi driver, Saleem Jones, if he thought he could cope with being interviewed about IT or computers. His response was: "Ja, as long as the reporter doesn`t throw-up while we hit the N2 on two wheels out of the city centre. These media people have weak stomachs."
When asked where he gets the music that blares from his taxi at eardrum-bursting level, he replied that he and a number of friends club together to buy a CD and then copy it as many times as is necessary. However, most of it was copies of copies.
He then became quite vocal when I asked him why he did not just go to a shop and buy the CDs himself. "Wat, betaal? [What, pay for it?] ... Jou ma se *@#4! [No way!]."
Painful transcript
Here`s the BBC interview (with thanks to The Guardian.co.uk):
Bowerman: Guy Kewney is editor of the technology Web site Newswireless.
[Face of horror]
Bowerman: Hello, good morning to you.
Goma: Good morning.
Bowerman: Were you surprised by this verdict today?
Goma: I am very surprised to see... this verdict to come on me because I was not expecting that. When I came they told me something else and I am coming. So a big surprise anyway.
Bowerman: A big surprise, yeah, yes.
Goma: Exactly.
Bowerman: With regards to the costs involved, do you think now more people will be downloading online?
Goma: Actually If you can walk everywhere you are going to see a lot of people downloading the Internet and the Web site and everything they want. But I think, eh, it is much better for development and, eh, to inform people what they want and to get the easy way and so faster if they are looking for.
Bowerman: It does really seem the way the music industry`s progressing now that people want to go onto the Web site and download music.
Goma: Exactly. You can go everywhere on the cyber cafe and you can take, you can go easy. It is going to be an easy way for everyone to get something to the Internet.
Bowerman: Thank you. Thanks very much indeed.
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