7 Reasons Why Non Tech Professionals Should Learn About Technology (8 Mins Read)

In today’s times, technology is the lifeblood for all the industries. The basic communication technology tools such as word processing, spreadsheets and presentations are the new literacy skills like reading, writing and arithmetic which used to be the literacy skills in the yesteryears. The great thing about the tech skills is that learning begets learning. Once you figure out how one function works, it gets easier to look into the other functions and figure out how those things work.

The benefit of having some tech skills under the belt is not just limited to the tech industry only. For example, coding skills can also carry over into the other parts of life, both professional as well as personal. There are so many benefits of learning tech skills, like basic HTML and CSS to more complex languages like PHP and JavaScript, that it’s becoming a huge disadvantage day by day, if you don’t keep learning basic tech skills on a priority basis.

Basic Tech Knowledge Which one Should Have

You need to learn the following to see how tech skills can improve your life outside the tech industry.

1. Need to know how the internet works:You need to understand how the internet traffic flows and how the data is received and reflected at the user's screen. Not just being able to click on a link and use a browser or send an email is sufficient in today’s times in order to get the maximum benefit of the internet.In addition to the above, there are some other things that everyone should know or learn about, like Encryption: Why is it necessary and how (and when/where) to look for https:// Data sizes: Mega, Giga, Zetta (general awareness of what are these)Operating systems and applications: Role of each system and application, including the strengths and limitations.
2. Understanding of the Cloud technology: Even TV ads from the cell phone operators talk about storing the data in the cloud, yet most of us have no idea what that means.
   Need to learn privacy controls and management
   Should know about database and how is it different from a spreadsheet
3. Mobile and related communication technologies: You shouldn't worry about the exact protocols and try to understand what the following terms mean: 3G/4G and how the cell phone technology works and when it doesn't work.How the bluetooth works and how Bluetooth LE is differentWhat the internet of Things (ioT) is all about.

Benefits of having basic tech knowledge

There are various benefits if you acquire the basic tech skills which are required to do well in your career and secure your future in the industry. Some of the benefits are as follows:

1. Tech knowledge saves a lot of money: We see that often we get frustrated when the tech support tells us to reboot our computer, but that doesn’t resolve the issue (however, in many cases, that actually fix the problem).But, with tech skills, you can learn to diagnose and fix quite a lot of problems yourself. If you get the basics right and if you’re comfortable with technology, the solution to a lot of your tech problems is just a Google search away. There is absolutely no need call the IT team or get someone else to fix the problem.
2. Tech knowledge makes you a better problem solver: Coding is about solving a problem. You have to start with a user problem which needs to be solved and have to come up with a solution. Thereafter, you make use of that solution to find out the bugs or possible improvements and then from that you create a much better resolution to get the problem fixed. Each and every step of the way is about solving problems. From identifying a problem and breaking the solution down to different parts like creating, testing and improving the solutions, you’ll definitely learn how to efficiently handle the problems.
3. Technology is not so frustrating, if you understand it: Technology is not much frustrating if you understand how it works. While the coding skills won’t teach you how to build and program your smartphone from the scratch, but understanding some basic tech issues make everything quite a bit easier. Once you are able to understand one thing, you can understand the rest even better.Many times you get completely frustrated because your smartphone went wrong and you had no idea how to fix it or you couldn’t figure out how to make your computer do something which seems to be so simple.

4. Tech skills make for a better leader: As a manager or a CEO, it’s important to be able to work effectively with either a department that handles web development or with an outside agency which handles those things. So, if you don’t know the basics of the jobs which those departments or agencies do, it makes a lot harder to work with them in a way that’s both efficient and productive.This doesn’t mean that every leader needs to be a full stack web development professional. But understanding the basics like HTML and CSS, the difference between Ruby on Rails and JavaScript or the purpose of a content management system (CMS) is going to go a long way towards working with those who are actually in charge of those things.

5. Tech helps in better collaboration: Collaborating on design and development projects is very common in the tech world. The collaboration skills which you learn doing these projects do wonders for your collaboration in other areas too. When you do troubleshooting with another developer or manage a project with the designers and developers working on it, then working as part of a team outside tech will only get easier.There are still standalone web designers and developers there. But as the web grows, more  and more people are working as a part of the design and development teams rather than operating solo.

6. Tech helps secure your future in the industry: Learning tech skills isn’t going to make you a master of all the career related technology out there. However, what it will do is to make you more confident in your tech abilities and make it easier for you to learn more specific technologies which you need to do your job well.Today, every career in the industry is becoming more and more tech focused and reliant on tech. Industries from agriculture to education are using technology for their day to day operations. So, it’s clear that those who have the tech skills and are comfortable working with technology will have a much easier time in adapting to the changing expectations.

7. Tech knowledge helps immensely in your development:Having a good knowledge of the various tech skills will serve you well both professionally and personally. Being able to list the basic tech skills on your CV will make you more attractive to virtually every employer out there, regardless of the industry. As more and more industries are getting involved in the technology, having a basic tech knowledge of what it’s all about can come in handy when networking personally or professionally.

Takeaway:  No matter what sector you work in, the tasks you perform every day rely heavily on different tech tools and processes. So, it’s essential to ensure that you have the basic technical skills which is needed in order to perform the day to day jobs successfully and without any interruptions. Having the basic tech skills you need, will make you happier, achieve better productivity which in turn will result in having a competitive edge over others. To achieve this, you’ll need to learn these basic technical skills which we have discussed here in detail.