• Want to receive the latest contracting news and advice straight to your inbox? Sign up to the ContractorUK newsletter here. Every sign up will also be entered into a draw to WIN £100 Amazon vouchers!

Terminology....

ladymuck

I live on CUK
Joined
Sep 2, 2005
Messages
25,719
Likes received
23,342
Thanks received
5,250
Location
London
To appease a comms person I need a friendly explanation of what a network share is. I've mentioned it's sometimes called 'shared network drive', 'mapped drive' etc but the comms person is insistent that no-one outside IT knows what those terms mean and I must provide a different description.

I'm stumped, what would you describe such a thing as?
 
To appease a comms person I need a friendly explanation of what a network share is. I've mentioned it's sometimes called 'shared network drive', 'mapped drive' etc but the comms person is insistent that no-one outside IT knows what those terms mean and I must provide a different description.

I'm stumped, what would you describe such a thing as?

I'm actually with the comms person - what do you mean by a network share is it:-

Cloud based storage such as Microsoft's one drive

The corporate version of Microsoft's One Drive

Something similar such as Amazon S3

or is it literally a restricted access drive on Network attached storage.
 
I'm actually with the comms person - what do you mean by a network share is it:-

Cloud based storage such as Microsoft's one drive

The corporate version of Microsoft's One Drive

Something similar such as Amazon S3

or is it literally a restricted access drive on Network attached storage.

Nothing cloudy, this is on-premise storage \\server\share type navigation

Remember back in the day when we all had a H drive and a P drive and such like
 
Nothing cloudy, this is on-premise storage \\server\share type navigation

Remember back in the day when we all had a H drive and a P drive and such like

Use Shared Team / Departmental storage then.

Easy to understand - both it's intent and purpose.
 
Will try that and see if it helps. Thanks!
 
If they want it really dumbed down, tell them it's like a joint bank account for file storage.
 
We're doing a data collection exercise ahead of a migration and need to validate who owns what. So we're asking people which network shares contain data they own. Then we disappeared down a rabbit hole of how to explain to people what such a thing is. Sadly, the comms person can't offer any suggestions for a lay person description and just keeps saying "what if I don't understand this term, how can I answer this question".

We need to ask the question in a form and describe it in FAQs and covering email.

After hearing that we were putting together a quick video and FAQs the comms person then insisted we add a 'have you watched the instructional video' question to our form :facepalm:

I've added it but I think it's going to draw complaints (I really hope it draws complaints).

I can only assume that the comms person hired to do the comms for the entire Technology Transformation department doesn't know feck all about Technology and expects people who are not technology communicators to communicate the technology :D
 
We're doing a data collection exercise ahead of a migration and need to validate who owns what. So we're asking people which network shares contain data they own. Then we disappeared down a rabbit hole of how to explain to people what such a thing is. Sadly, the comms person can't offer any suggestions for a lay person description and just keeps saying "what if I don't understand this term, how can I answer this question".

We need to ask the question in a form and describe it in FAQs and covering email.

After hearing that we were putting together a quick video and FAQs the comms person then insisted we add a 'have you watched the instructional video' question to our form :facepalm:

I've added it but I think it's going to draw complaints (I really hope it draws complaints).

I can only assume that the comms person hired to do the comms for the entire Technology Transformation department doesn't know feck all about Technology and expects people who are not technology communicators to communicate the technology :D

Now I have the context - the answer is more obvious.

Check with IT how they do network drives and then get the comms person to call up a few random departments and ask them what they call the thing the IT department calls it.

The issue here isn't what should I call them - it's what the company calls them and what it's called within departments - and that is a job that the comms person should be working on.

It's not a question about what they need to be called, the question is what ARE they currently called (and that is quite likely to be different things in different places.

So it is we are looking for all shared departmental / team network drives (you may know them as H: drive or......)

And you get the Comms person to find that bit out.
 
Now I have the context - the answer is more obvious.

Check with IT how they do network drives and then get the comms person to call up a few random departments and ask them what they call the thing the IT department calls it.

The issue here isn't what should I call them - it's what the company calls them and what it's called within departments - and that is a job that the comms person should be working on.

It's not a question about what they need to be called, the question is what ARE they currently called (and that is quite likely to be different things in different places.

So it is we are looking for all shared departmental / team network drives (you may know them as H: drive or......)

And you get the Comms person to find that bit out.

The comms person I have is expecting me to supply the text.

I am "this close" to having a full on rant because I'm working with a comms person who nit picks, contradicts themselves, changes the text then complains about it, then tells me my micro site can't look corporate then tells me off for not using corporate imagery etc etc etc etc

:tantrum:
 

Advertisers

Back
Top