Well, not all that deep. Not all that dark. Not much of a secret.
I was exchanging email with someone a while ago, and they asked about my business and what I do.
What I came up with on the spur of the moment so perfectly captured one aspect of Ask Leo! that it took me aback. 
The answer I shared crystallized something important about how I do what I do.
Call it my ulterior motive, if you will.
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The not-so-secret secret
The core of Ask Leo! is to answer your tech questions while slipping in some education at the same time. I want to empower you with knowledge to solve future issues on your own, reducing your reliance on external help. My ulterior motive is for you to gain confidence and be able to handle more tech challenges on your own.
Answers and education
My statement was this:
I answer people’s tech questions and sneak in some education when they’re not looking.
It’s true. You might think I’m here to simply answer questions, and that is the basis for this site and the information I produce.
But my real purpose here is to educate even those who don’t know they want or need an education.
Answers versus explanations
You may have heard the term mansplaining. Wikipedia currently defines it as “to explain something to someone, typically a man to a woman, in a manner regarded as condescending or patronizing.”
Everything I write is, in one form or another, an explanation of some sort — even this article. I try not to do it in a condescending or patronizing way, but with a wide variety of readers who have a wide range of understanding, it’s a challenging line to walk.
That reminded me of something else I also hear from time to time:
I don’t care how or why — just tell me what to do to make it work!
You want solutions. I get that. The how or why that fascinates some1 is so much noise to you.
Or is it?
Related
Where Do You Get Your Answers?
There are many ways to find information on the internet, and here are a few tricks of mine that can work for you.Knowledge is power
If the problem you’re facing is the only problem you’ll ever face using technology, then just telling you what to do without explanation would be entirely appropriate. There’d no real value in going further. Click here, type that, and you’re done.
Unfortunately — and I think you know this — technology is rarely that simple. You will encounter challenges again. Be it not understanding how to do something or being stymied by a computer that isn’t behaving as expected, there will be problems. There will be bumps in the road. Some will be large and some small, but bumps are inevitable.
I want to empower you to navigate those bumps more confidently and solve them on your own.
When you need to reach out for help, I want you to be able to ask the right questions in the right way so you’ll get the answers you need.
That’s where sneaking in education comes in.
Knowledge is confidence and independence
If every time you have a question I give you only and strictly the answer to that question, then the next time you have a question, you’ll need to ask again.
If each time you ask a question you also learn a little about how things work, chances are you may be able to answer your own questions as they come up.
You won’t depend as much on people like me to help you through your day.2
In fact, you might even pass it along — pay it forward, if you will — by answering someone else’s questions.
That’s my ulterior motive: that you’ll need me less and less.
I guess it’s not a secret anymore.
Do this
Ask your questions, but be prepared to learn a little as you get your answers. Not only will that hopefully solve the problem at hand, but it’ll make future issues less frustrating as you need less and less outside help.
One way to get more of that is to subscribe to Confident Computing! Less frustration and more confidence, solutions, answers, and tips in your inbox every week.
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Thanks Leo! l quite enjoy learning new things and then passing my knowledge on to others.
Great Dilbert reference!
Humor goes a long way in education. My Organic Chemistry book had a cartoon with a caption to explain an isonomer (a mirror image molecule) that said everything has a mirror image, except ghosts.
“Isonomer?” Are you sure you don’t mean, “isomer”…?
I enjoy learning how to solve problems myself before I go looking for help. When I am stuck, your site is my first stop. I look to see if you have covered that problem in a past article and I have learned a lot from your your articles. My only problem is my age. It won’t let me remember today what I learned yesterday so I find myself looking for help more often than I feel I should. That is frustrating so I really appreciate having a site to go to when I need information. Thanks for all the great articles.
Dear Leo: I never miss the opportunity to read your words. Thank you.
I appreciate that you don’t just answer the “what” question but also include the “why.” My goal is to be educated enough to troubleshoot problems without having to always call on outside help and your newsletters, forum and Facebook page definitely has increased my computer knowledge tremendously over the last several years.
Thanks for the education!
I’ve always been a fixer. My motto has always been “If I can’t fix it, it ain’t broke.” (poor grammar intentional) It’s always been my belief that if you understand how something works, you can likely fix it when needed. I think the same goes for this computer stuff, and that’s why I like what you do, and the way you do it. The explanations are very helpful, sometimes necessary. Thanks for what you do, Leo.
Need you less and less? No way! The more I learn from you, the more I want to learn. Thank you, Leo!
Fully agree with your comments Leo. I’ve asked you a few direct questions, as well as found lots of other solutions among your pages and those of other forums. Actually, nearly every forum I’ve visited for help, I’ve been able to return afterwards to help others.
I spent my entire working career doing what you described and now look back with pride at the many individuals who surpassed me in their occupations. Keep the education going, Leo.
I enjoy messing around with the computer and always want to know WHY and not What makes it work. I feel I’m missing out on electronic technology as it progresses faster than I can keep up with. Your answers up me a bunch. At my age I feel I’m just getting started and have it end before I’m ready. Thank you for having your web site and teaching me…more lattes a coming!
Leo,
I highly appreciate what you are doing. Truly, ignorance is not a bliss! Yet, I have come to find out that knowledge is not all that is cut out to be. Even so, my “mansplaining” will not fit in this comment. Regardless, perhaps you could email me and request my “mansplaining”– I would be glad to oblige because, the knowledge that I now have and would like to share with you could be of much help to you. By all means I am not selling anything. Google + or Facebook or Twiter, etc can tell you all about me. Thanks for all the valuable info that you kindly share with all! :-)
Leo,
I have been working with computers since 1983. I consider myself a troubleshooting expert; however, when reading your newsletter I always learn a little bit that I didn’t know.
Not once did it feel condescending or an “everybody knows that” attitude.
You are providing a great resource to many that may not have the skills or knowledge to get the most out of their computing experience.
Please don’t stop!
Ken. Edmonton Canada
My father always told me that the best question you can ever ask is “Why…?” and to keep asking until you get the real answer.
To those who just want the “fix”, you too should keep asking why, as it does as Leo wants – to empower you.
Thank you Leo, a man after my own heart. I now enjoy teaching and empowering.
I subscribe completely to your explanation and have done that my whole life. My wife, of course, rolls her eyes. And my son, when he was eight and there was a discussion about sex and I realized he knew what the story was, told me he never asked me anything because “You give long answers to short questions.”
Long answers to short questions – I’ve been accused of that. That’s why I say that I try to “sneak in” the education when people aren’t looking. :-)
Reminded me of the story about Stalin when he was asked a similar question and took a while to come up with an answer.
Shortly after he came to power, and before his likeness was plastered all over the Soviet Union, he decided he wanted to visit with his mother. Stalin hadn’t seen, spoken or corresponded with her for more than 15 years. So he sent a car and a couple of squads of guards to pick her up and bring her to the Kremlin.
After her arrival, he gave her a tour, showing her that magnificent citadel, including the austere little cubbyhole that was his office. Later as they sipped tea, she asked him, “Well son, just what is that you do?” Stalin, who never held any government position, recited the only title he ever had, which was something like, “Secretary General of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Moscow”.
Knitting her brow, she continued her inquiry, “So, you’re a secretary?” Thinking it over for a while, Stalin asked, “Mother, do you remember when there was a Czar?” “Of course,” she replied.
“Well, now I’m like the Czar.”
Leo: You put your finger on exactly why I treasure your writing and tell everyone who will listen that if they would just hire Leo to do their instructions or support or manuals, they would get an immediate boost in sales and satisfied customers. (Disclosure – no relation to Leo). The worst place for horrible instruction is the dropdown menu you get under the Help tab in many consumer programs. Even including Open Source programs. For example, if you are befuddled by an entry on the TOOLS menu that says “MODIFY THE HXML CONFIGURATION” and you go to the Help window, they may tell you CLICK HERE TO MODIFY THE HXML CONFIGURATION. I’ve actually seen this happen and so have most people I would wager. Some people are just missing both copies of the Explaining gene but why are they allowed to handle help and support? It’s a mystery.
Leo,
If I just wanted things fixed, I’d hire someone who could do a better job that I can. But I want to know both how and why. You do a great job of showing how and why. I’ve learned so much from you, and, I think that in most cases (computers being so much easier to work on than they were 10 or 20 or 30 years ago) I can do the job just as well as a professional. Thanks.
Gary
Teach a (person) to fish and you feed them for ever …
Every teacher walks a narrow path between giving fish and teaching how to fish; some students want their fish caught, cooked, de-boned and pre-chewed for them. I believe you achieve a good balance between instructing (“Do this”) and educating (“you need to do it in this way because …”).
The last person who got this balance exactly right got nailed to a tree. The rest of us just do our best. Your best is pretty good. Thank you.
Your help over the years has made it possible for me to care for my computers, and to help friends and family with their computer problems. I don’t keep you a secret, but for some reason most are unwilling to learn what is so readily available from you. Maybe I’ll start charging a fee – if so, I’ll gladly share!
I must admit that I kind of like it when people say “Oh, good you’re here, I really need you to fix my computer.” And I think “Thanks Leo.”
I attended the first classes in Computer Programming in my last year of Mechanical Engineering at the Univercity of Toronto in 1945. It was a mainframe, cuz the little guys had yet to be invented. It occupied only 3 standard rooms. Little did we know!
I attended the first classes in computer programming at the University of Toronto in 1945. Believe it or not, it was in FORTRAN!
Fortran was my first programming language. Punch cards and mainframe in 1976.
As it has been said before “a wise man can learn from a fool”. A fool can’t learn from anyone.
My very first computer was an Epson PX-8, bought for $1,000 in Hong Kong in 1984 — similar to a Tandy, and an NEC.
In those days it wasn’t called a “notebook”, but in effect it was, although it only had an eight-line flip-up b/w screen, and saving a file involved writing (VERY slowly!) to a micro-cassette — 12 files to a cassette. It had WordStar on a built-in ROM, and I am still using a version of WordStar to this day. (Yes, I am essentially a DOS man, with now thousands of files in WordStar — wish I knew of a quick and easy way to convert them to a format that would run in Windows, as it won’t run on 64-bit Win7, 8 or 10….)
Having a small, “cute” — as some people termed it — computer in those (fairly) early days caught my interest and imagination. And within 6-7 years, as a freelance magazine feature writer I was writing articles introducing and explaining first the BENEFITS of computers, and also what was going on “under the bonnet” — as well as what to do when they went wrong. One article, I remember, explained what the FAT did, and how it could get messed up.
Over the years I began to find computers and their OS’s, over-taking me — so that now I turn to resources like Ask Leo for information and help. And very glad I am to have them. Because I entirely agree — you don’t just learn for yourself, you want to impart your knowledge to empower others. I guess it is something like the “teacher gene”, because I am (also) an English tutor now, whereas a close relative, who knows more about the innards of a computer than I do, having been a radio technician, struggles with my questions, and I only really learn from him by a process of osmosis.
So Leo has it down pat — useful advice that neither talks down to you, nor “boggles you with science”. Reading Ask Leo, I am almost back to where I first started in the eighties, reading Peter Norton’s columns (in book form).
That was fascinating stuff, which excited me, as it provided an IN to understanding, and with knowledge comes power. Some people love to share that knowledge to empower others. I am indeed grateful I happened to stumble across Ask Leo recently….
Martyn, in Hong Kong.
Reminds me of the time in graduate school when I got into it with a fellow classmate who thought the new Windows was wonderful because you didn’t have to know any of the ‘behind the scenes’ stuff. I told him to wait until he experienced his first problem; he would change his tune. We got so hot on the issue that we were asked to shut up or leave the classroom and continue in the hall.
Leo, you are the best thing that happened to computers. Way to go.
Your explanation comes close to the expression “you can give a cat fish or you can teach it how to fish”. The latter part being better than the first part.
Leo, you do a wonderful job of explaining and educating. Don’t shorten or leave anything out on my account. Please keep on with the whys and wherefores. I am 79 years old, own 3 computers which are my prized possessions and I love to learn. I subscribe to quite a few of tech advice newsletters and yours is my favorite.
Leo, there are people who just want to know how to work it and there are people who want to know how it works. You and your readers are the latter.
Not only have I read and agreed with your article, I have also read many of the comments above. I have always thought you to be an excellent teacher and communicator, and the comments above show I am not alone in that. Thank you.
I think I’ve asked one question, but I’m here for the education. I enjoy solving problems of all sorts, whether computer related, building a jig, or simply figuring out how to haul a 50’ birch log up a hill. I like Leo’s approach, the education bit, wherein he provides context and explanation; instead of a set of “do this” steps that usually fail. Teaching us to fish and all that. If the first attempt at a solution doesn’t work there’s information to help me understand and look at the symptoms in different ways, leading to alternate solutions. Some folks are impatient and just want a fix, I get that. But
I relish the unexpected excursions on life’s path, a chance to learn, or maybe pass something along.
I come to the Ask Leo site as soon as I find something I can’t fix……… I can’t thank you enough for your solutions and/or education as to why something might happen. I like to know the `why’ in case there is something I need to change at my end of the computer. Thank you Leo for sharing your experience and knowledge. Have a good day/evening
I’ve always considered learning to be a lifelong endeavor, especially when it comes to technology. The more I learn about how my computers work, the more I discover that there is more to understand. Just when I got a handle on the BIOS boot system, my next computer came with an upgrade to the UEFI boot system with Secure Boot, and it works very differently from the older BIOS system, so then I had something new to learn about and understand. I’m still working to get a handle on that technology.
As I encounter issues with any of my computers, I use the Internet to help me better understand the issue I’m facing. Sometimes it seems that any search I execute returns the wrong information, or doesn’t answer my question(s). When that happens, I try to learn the correct terminology, so I can phrase my search terms to return the information I need. Learning to search the Internet using terminology that returns the information I need is an ongoing process, and something I must relearn with each new issue. Every component has its own terminology, and sometimes, an acronym can have different meanings with different components. Learning to search the Internet for solutions to issues I encounter is an ongoing, evolving process, one that can be very confusing at times, but in the end, it gets easier as I learn more about how things work. The main things I’ve learned are that patience is the key to learning, and that technology evolves faster than I can learn.
Ernie
This doesn’t always apply to technology, but it is a valuable thought:
Use it up,
Wear it out,
Make it do, or
Do without.
Thank you Leo.
I used to encounter what you described in your article when I’d go to work. I’m now a retired Medical Technologist, but before I left the field, there would be someone who would pull me aside, complaining of an analyzer that they couldn’t fix. I would do what I could to fix the analyzer while teaching the other tech. Most of the time it worked, but occasionally I’d start getting the “Can’t you just do it for me?” or similar, which lead me to ask them, “What do you do when I’m not around?”
This is exactly the point you’re making. If not you, then who? Who else can you ask? Sometimes you get lucky knowing the King of Geekdom but more often than not, it’s all you. Here is where I thank you for your knowledge which you’re so willing to share. I can’t imagine doing what I now do (at age 71) with computers and technology if I didn’t have resources available to lead me out of darkness. Also, the fear factor is much smaller with the knowledge you provide. A hearty “Thank you!”
A mission that only a few benefit. Therefore people who are too lazy to learn.