About Nouveau Geek

Since before web sites were the norm for everyday business operations, I’ve been extremely passionate about web technologies and how they can be used to advance a business’ overall mission. My recent interests include blogging, mobile, social media, and a combination of all three. In my spare time I volunteer to help drive various non profit online marketing and social media campaigns including Slow Food Chicago and the Near South Youth Association. Also, I offer digital strategy services to small businesses through my own small business, Black Walnut Web Solutions.

My work experience includes everything from operating every aspect of a small business (dental office), to corporate web strategy, to adjunct instruction of Internet Marketing at IADT Chicago. My professionalism matches my passion: I have experience presenting to large audiences including high level executives; I’m well-known for keeping my cool under extreme deadlines and pressure; and I believe in the critical importance of customer service, whether it’s internal or public-facing. My education includes a BA in English from the University of Florida, and an MBA with a concentration in Marketing from the Crummer Graduate School of Business at Rollins College. On a personal level, I’m an enthusiastic “early adopter,” I love my Blackberry, and I can pretty much figure anything out using Google.

So what is a nouveau geek? I’m not sure I actually coined the term but I did coin a definition which I entered into Wikipedia, and have pasted below. Although Wikipedia deleted the nouveau geek page, I have kept the link (see below,) because it was ever so briefly legitimized by Wikipedia. I hope to restore the page, AND the nouveau geek, into legitimate existence!

Cheers,
Pia Simeoni

Nouveau geek (French for “new geek”), refers to a person who has acquired considerable technical savvy without the deep foundational knowledge of a computer scientist. This term is generally to emphasize that the individual was previously part of a different educational curriculum, such as liberal arts, and that such education has not necessarily provided the means for the development of web sites or the use of gadgets that were previously unobtainable, but rather the Socratic drive to keep questioning, learning,  creating, viewing source, copying and pasting, and using WordPress themes and widgets . The term can also be used in a derogatory fashion by hard core techies, for the purposes of intellectual distinction, to describe persons with newfound knowledge as lacking the experience or finesse to use technology in the same manner as the  “old geek”—persons who actually know how to write software from scratch but often have no interpersonal skills or the ability to apply complex concepts to modern or everyday business scenarios.

Wikipedia contributors, “Nouveau geek,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nouveau_geek&oldid=311594364 (accessed September 3, 2009).