The Hype Man
I'm the reserved one who won't sell himself. He's the hype man. Together we disarm a room full of terrified new faculty, and then the real work begins.
My Muppet spirit animal is Sam the Eagle. The stern one. Arms folded, brow furrowed, categorically disappointed in whatever just happened. Reserved, rule-following, allergic to nonsense, quietly certain the room would run better if everyone would settle down and maintain mature decorum. That’s me. At home I married a Janice, all peace-sign serenity and go-with-the-flow, because apparently an eagle only relaxes in the company of someone who has never once been tense. And at work, in Canvas-land, I have a long-time colleague whose spirit animal is Fozzie Bear crossed with Gonzo.
He’s a decade younger than me, so his pop-culture references live in the ‘90s and mine never left the ‘80s. He also knows more about technology than I do, which I have no problem admitting because I left the I-know-more-than-you competition among IT professionals a number of years ago. The high school bench press contest about knowing more about computers than your peer got too performative for me. He’s an instructional designer at the university. Where I am a yellow belt in content accessibility, he is a black belt. He is a Zoom czar, a Panopto ninja, and an entertainer who has never met a room he couldn’t warm up in a minute. Where I observe, he radiates. Put us in front of a group and we are a dynamic duo.
We meet most of our new faculty the same way, at the university’s annual New Faculty Orientation. Every year WWU hires 20-some new professors, and every fall season a fresh batch files into a room, some brand new to Bellingham, most brand new to Canvas, and nearly all of them quietly apprehensive. They’ve lectured brilliantly for years in fields that have nothing to do with a learning management system, someone has just told them to move an entire course online, and they’ve arrived braced for the version of this meeting where a boring, condescending IT guy makes them feel stupid.
They don’t get that. They get the act.
It opens gently. We introduce ourselves as the starting point for anything technology at the university, not just Canvas. As my partner likes to put it, “Chances are we know who’s who at the zoo who can help you with your computer issue.” Beat. “Hey. That rhymed.” Small laugh. Then somewhere in the first 30 seconds one of us promises to get their course all fixed up so we can get them to happy hour sooner, and there’s the first real crack in the ice.
From there it snowballs, because my partner is a hype man, and a hype man is exactly what a Sam the Eagle like me needs.
Here’s the thing about me: I will not sell myself. I find self-promotion incredibly uncomfortable, the verbal equivalent of wearing someone else’s shoes in the gym. Telling professors about how much I know about Canvas feels like boasting, and boasting is against eagle policy. This is a genuine professional problem for me. Nobody hires the quiet guy...they don’t know he’s not only competent, but is an absolute Ace with computers.
So I outsourced it. My partner gladly extols my virtues to anyone who is within earshot with his projecting voice, and I return the favor for him with a more focused, quieter tone. Between us we solved the boasting problem by never boasting about ourselves, only about each other.
It sounds like this. Someone asks about Panopto, the video platform we have available in Canvas, and I’ll say in my best Doc Holliday from Tombstone voice, “When it comes to technical issues in your Canvas course, I’m yer Huckleberry.” Then I hand over the praise. “Now, with Panopto, I’m a yellow belt. I’ll throw spaghetti at the wall and might eventually get your videos showing up for your students.” Then I point at my partner. “Him? He’s a black belt. He’ll hand you a proper plate of pasta in half the time. With tasty marinara sauce!” And he’ll immediately chime in that I’ve rescued more courses at 7:30 a.m. during finals week than he can count. Now the professors are looking at two people who clearly like each other, clearly know what they’re doing, and are, contrary to initial expectations, fun! The anxiety drains out of the room. By the time we stop riffing, the new faculty know exactly who to call for what, and they learned it with a giggle.
Then a break comes in the orientation retreat, and the real work starts. This is the part nobody expects.
During the break, one professor peels off from the group and approaches us. The unassuming one. The one who’s been quiet because they’re the most nervous person in the room. And they get a front-row seat to what happens with the act. My partner stays exactly himself, warm, upbeat, chitty-chatting, active listening at full wattage. It’s perfect, because an anxious person needs to feel welcomed and safe before they can feel helped. But I remain quiet. My posture sits back and I read them. Outgoing or introverted, like me. Braced or thawing. And when he tosses the technical question my way, I skip the huckleberry routine. I say a few sentences, quietly, aimed at that one human being, something true and encouraging and calibrated exactly to the person in front of me.
A new professor once told us they were convinced that moving years of lectures online was a mountain she couldn’t climb. My partner lit up and rattled off five things Canvas would do that were going to save her minutes or hours of time. And because he’s him, he concluded with, “...do this, this, this, then this. And Chuck Norris is your uncle.” She laughed. Then it was my turn to continue quietly. “Please don’t think this is a one-and-done consult,” I told her. “Think of us like a chiropractor. The first visit is the big adjustment. We crack everything into place and you walk out feeling better. Then we do a few follow-ups a couple weeks later, when you have the time in your schedule, to fine-tune the other aches and pains. We’ll walk with you through the whole first quarter. The midterm spike in grading, the week before finals when everything feels like it’s on fire. You’re not alone with this.” She didn’t need another reason to contact us, she needed to know we weren’t going to vanish like most techs. That’s what the quiet part is for.
The act isn’t the point. The act is the door which opens into a comfortable room where a person can actually ask for help. The jokes and the happy-hour one-liner and the black belt bit exist to lower the defenses of an uncertain room just enough that one person feels safe enough to walk up during a break. Then the volume drops and the real thing happens, quiet, one-on-one, calibrated, human. My partner gets them in the door. I meet them once they’re through it. Loud reaches the crowd. Quiet reaches the person. Neither of us could do the whole job by ourselves. A relational technologist doesn’t flourish as a lone wolf. This unique work requires other people in your arsenal, someone whose strengths cover your blind spots, someone who’ll say the good thing about you that you would never say about yourself. Together we cover the entire gamut from a cautious, defensive room to a professor who knows they’re in good hands.
The faculty leave orientation knowing our names, our faces, and our two very different personalities. The enthusiastic one and the quiet one. The black belt and the yellow belt. The Gonzo and the Sam the Eagle. Most of all, they leave knowing that whatever goes sideways in their course hours before their final exam, somebody who already made them laugh is going to be there. And an eagle, it turns out, can be very good company, as long as he brings his hype man.
More later...