Every generation has its slang and every industry its acronyms. Most of these abbreviations are just alphabet soup to outsiders. But if you are going to join an industry or snoop on your teenagers, you have to learn the lingo.

There are many abbreviations that have multiple meanings. Take GIS – I learned it as Gas Insulated Substation. The first time I heard GIS used as meaning Geographic Information System, it was in the context of “we need to update the GIS with the latest maps.” It didn’t make any sense at all. At the risk of embarrassing myself and sounding stupid, I asked what does GIS mean? You’d have thought I had two heads. After that I made a policy that acronyms have to be defined before they are used. I compiled a list of acronyms for our industry and put them in a manual and later an eBook. Not many people want to know what SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) means, but there are some that live for this information!

As you know, the military is great for acronyms and has some very flowery ones. Parents have to know what PAW, POS and P911 mean as well as a host of others that describe what your children are doing. Scan through the list and I think you will be surprised at the number of text message abbreviations dedicated to specific actions and emotions.

Will this generation destroy the world with text messaging? I don’t think so. Every generation was going to destroy the world because of their reckless abandon and callous disregard for the way society works. Look at rock-n-roll music, mini-shirts, MTV, the Internet and text messaging – each a danger in itself, but here we are. The analog generation figured it out and I think this millennium generation will too.

BTW, text abbreviations work for casual communications, but don’t use in business correspondence or resumes. If you are not hip with the current lingo, look it up before retweeting or repeating. There are several sites that have deciphered lists. NetLingo has a good list with tips.

OMG IONO Wa UR Saying! means Oh my gosh, I don’t know what your are saying!

My journey has taken me many places I never imagined - from a family driving school business, to a dairy farm, to an engineering degree, to parenting two teenage girls. My first position after completing my electrical engineering degree was at Commonwealth Edison in transmission line design. After returning to Atlanta, I accepted a temporary position as a support engineer at Advanced Control Systems. It was a 3-month contract that lasted 10 years and I was promoted to department manager at ACS.. Now at LAN Systems, I still devote myself to providing support without compromise. My goal is to make LAN Systems known to all as the best IT Solutions and Service provider in the metro Atlanta area. Still committed to providing exceptional support that serves the needs of the people that use technology, I work with our engineers to improve their problem solving and interpersonal skills. In addition to my responsibilities with LAN Systems, I volunteer with several non-profits that serve the electric utility industry and introduce engineering as a career to young people.Technology is almost as awesome as people and look forward to exploring many “technology for the people” topics at AtlantaSmall.biz.

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