Embrace your inner nerd

I’m a nerd. I know, it’s hard to believe, what with my glasses, bookish nature and job as the editor of a magazine, but it’s true.

Ray Bradbury is one of my favorite authors. I attended one of his readings as a pre-teen and imagined myself piloting rockets for the next decade. Would you like to discuss the possible outcomes of a Marvel vs. Street Fighter tournament? Excellent. Settle in. Perhaps we could listen to my collection of They Might Be Giants albums after.

But in my mind, being a nerd isn’t something that requires a working knowledge of HTML 5 or an encyclopedic knowledge of the cast of Star Trek (though those certainly do add to your street cred). Being a nerd, to me, means that you get excited about learning new things, and have an innate desire to figure out how things work. Those things can range from the mythical to the mechanical, the scientific to the super-natural. A nerd always has his eyes and ears open, and loves sharing what he’s learned with other like-minded individuals.

When I meet someone who isn’t excited to learn new things, I know I’ve met someone who I likely won’t need to talk with again. I mean, if he’s not learning new things, what else are we going to talk about?

And I think a lot of business owners – especially the ones we’re profiling this month in our technology issue – are nerds. (Sure, you, the one reading this, are really tough and probably not a nerd.) But lots of other owners fit into my definition: They’re excited to learn new ways to improve their business and new approaches to solve their problems. They have lots of questions for other owners. They’re curious.

This month, we’ve gathered some great stories of curious owners who are using technology to solve their problems. Taylor Milliken is using software to track which of his crews makes the most money each day. That’s nerdy. Scott Neave is using advanced web development to gather the best leads for his team 24/7. That’s nerdy. The Noon brothers have brought together a suite of technologies to make their sales staff super-efficient and super-profitable. Nerds.

So I say to you now: Come, join us and learn and be excited to learn new things. Embrace your inner nerd.

– Chuck Bowen