"Received this promo. Is this legit?" asks a reader in Bermuda who sent me the following e-mail and probably should know better since there are so many warnings about scamsters on the Internet.

The e-mail she sent for my consideration was purportedly from Microsoft and informed her that she had won "One Million Great Britain Pounds" in a draw. Winners were "randomly selected from a wide range of web hosts which we enjoy their patronage". It then gives a Hong Kong based Yahoo e-mail address for the "claims agent", which the recipient is supposed to contact to receive the "prize".

I have always attempted to give dignified and respectful answers to even the most basic of questions readers have sent me over the eight years this column has run in the Royal Gazette. I regard this column as an exercise in learning with readers how to understand and deal with the vast amount of technology we increasingly have to face in our everyday lives. No question can be too basic (although I sometimes think the answers to some queries could have been found just as easily on the Internet or even in a manual).

I think basic questions can sometimes be interesting as they can point to a wider problem with software and hardware developers, who often do not make their products user friendly. Too often I think IT and other technical people deliberately speak a Star Trek language or talk down to the clients they are serving in a warped but often successful bid to increase their power over a process or a position.

In the past I also wrote a lot about the kind of scams that were being made more potent through the Internet and via e-mail. But I must admit, I was surprised at the sudden flash of anger I felt on receiving the query from the reader above.

"I can't believe that in this day and age some one would even be asking such a question about such an e-mail," I thought. Greed does disconnect the reasoning part of our brain, I thought. First, if you have to ask, then it's probably a scam. Another sign of a scam is the bad spelling and grammar.

But really, does anyone think Microsoft or any other company would contact someone via e-mail to say they have won enormous sums? Would they be distributing this money through an agent with a Yahoo address rather than one with their own business contact?

You can bet that any gullible person who contacts the "agent" will be asked to hand over their bank details, or have to make a "deposit" to collect their winnings. They will soon find themselves out of pocket. 'Nuff said.

My reference above to the Star Trek language actually hails from a wonderful article in the Financial Times, written by IT consultant Ade McCormack. He captures exactly what I've been attempting to say.

McCormack quotes an indecipherable description from the Star Trek TV series about a technology and makes the connection with the "technobabble" used by many IT workers.

"This is a problem, given the important role IT has to play in business today. Poor communication across the business-IT department boundary is the most pernicious form of IT value-damping," he writes.

Geek chic is the language IT workers use to keep the power to themselves, to hide their errors, to develop technologies that don't do the right job for the right tasks, and to show their superiority, McCormack argues.

"The business implications of obfuscating terminology are profound," he writes. "The resultant sub-optimal use of IT leads to poor cost management across the business, reduced competitive advantage, poor business decision making and in the extreme, prison for board members."

He suggests IT people need to change so that they do not continue to do damage to their own profession and also that executives need to take charge to reverse the IT industry's "speaking in tongues" syndrome.

He suggests linking the CIO's remuneration to be index-linked to user-happiness. Consequently, smart and financially motivated CIOs will address the issue as a priority, or at least recognise it as a problem.

Companies should also only recruit business-literate IT staff, making extinct the "propeller-head nerdie geeks".

"Where such people are critical to your organisation, ensure that they are kept away from users," he advises.

I also believe a lot in the next piece of advice: Challenge IT staff on their use of IT jargon. They must use language that is rich in user terminology and light on technology jargon, he says.

"Technobabble is at best a symptom of technology staff indifference to the plight of users and at worst a political tool for keeping the users in check," he writes. "—Technobabble reflects poorly on the IT industry and diminishes the value that the sector might deliver to both business and society. Nothing less than genetic reprogramming will address this and so a cultural overhaul is required."

I could not agree more. For my part I see technobabble as a possible sign of laziness. To me it could be an indication that the IT person has not truly bothered to understand the user needs behind a project and has descended into a generalised technical language to hide the fact.

I hope IT people who recognise themselves in some of McCormack's descriptions and will act differently in the future.

The Financial Times link is: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/686af7a0-0dc7-11dc-8219-000b5df10621.html.

If you have any comments, contact Ahmed at elamin.ahmed@gmail.com.