4 Ways to Have a Conversation about A Topic You Know Nothing About

If you’re an avid networker, or you’re out there meeting clients for the first time, there’s probably going to be a chance that at least once in your life time you’re going to run into meeting someone or a group of people who are going to be talking about a topic that you have absolutely no idea about. Usually this is when people are having discussions that highly detailed, complicated and within a specific type of work culture and the details are absolutely mind boggling.

Here’s a real life example:

One of my colleagues at work was talking about J Query, CSS, PHP and HTML. Now if you’re not familiar with all of this then don’t fret, they’re just different forms of computer languages that are used to create graphics and programs at a variety of levels. Of course that’s not the fully story, but when one of my co-workers looked at us all funny she gently walked away from the conversation since she felt like it was over her head, and went right back to work.

The main question is then what can you do in that case to be part of the conversation without necessarily feeling stupid or feeling left out?

Method 1: Be curious and ask Questions that are open ended about the topic.

Here’s the truth, at every point in your life you’re always going to be a beginner at something. That’s okay, that’s just reality. The sooner you accept that the sooner you don’t have to feel as if you need to know everything in the world to be a great conversationalist, the easier more enjoyable your conversations become.

Once you’ve acknowledged that then take the time to ask questions regarding the topic that you are lost about. For me I had only recently heard of J Query, but wasn’t too sure what it actually did. It was only when I asked directly, “I’m actually not familiar with that programming language, would you be able to elaborate what that is. That would be great?”

In a one on one situation this is usually pretty easy, people like attention and most people like to get the chance to show off what they know. ( I’m one of them down deep inside.) It’s makes us feel important. Especially if people are talking about it with some pzazz then these are people more likely to explain the complex concepts.

Here are some questions to help facilitate you’re understanding of a topic more, using a friendly tone:

“How come all of you find this an interesting topic to discuss, I’m curious?”
“What originally got you interested in this particular field?”
“What’s a core concept that a person that is not familiar with this topic should know about?”

If you happen to be with a group of people, then look for the one who is most talkative and ask that person questions you would like answered, chances are this person is also willing to take the time to explain.

Method 2: Let people know that you’re not familiar with the topic, and listen to their explanations.

Unless you were supposed to do research about a client, it’s okay to admit that you may not be familiar with the topic. This is direct communication, and makes it easier for you to understand what is going on, and what level of language the person should explain it to you. If a person is going to make you feel stupid, or disrespect you because you’re not familiar with the topic then chances are they aren’t the type of person you want associate with anyway.

Method 3: Get to know what the significance of what the topic is to the rest of human kind.

All topics have some human relateable element to it, and your job as a conversationalist is to find out what it is through asking the right questions. Malcolm Gladwell does a fantastic job of doing this in all his books, and I would highly recommend you pick up one of his books to see how he uses this method to be a best selling authour.

For example if someone is talking to me about bioinformatics, it can be easily caught up about the scientific and mathematical details of protein sequencing, analysis of gene expression, DNA mapping, and the applications of such a field. This is the kind of topic that can be way over my head.

But what may be interesting to ask is asking the person, “Can you share with me a real life example of how Bioinformatics has changed the way we do science?” “Can you share with me how this would be applicable to one specific person?”
And by requesting with the other person to create a story, it allows heavily detailed conversations to be simplified into a story format.

Method 4:Ask people to use an analogy if possible for a complex topic that people are talking. I have a lot of people that get incredibly frustrated when first talking to strangers. Allowing people to use analogies will help you understand about what is going on.

Let’s say a group of people are talking about cars (a topic that I’m unfamiliar with) and they are all talking about using a specific set of tires for certain vehicles and how it enhances performance and the conversation gets very detailed to the point that it frazzles you.

Ask them to explain it using an analogy from an everyday experience. In this case this will challenge the group to think of an analogy. To me specific tires on a car are like running shoes. Some tires are built to be casual and nothing fancy, just day to day use like walking shoes. But you don’t want to use those shoes for running because even though you can run with them, you won’t run quickly and comfortably. And tires are like the shoes you wear for different situations.

And as a bonus tip, go home and find out just a little bit about the topic you’re not familiar with that way when the topic does pop up next time, you have some idea of what is being discussed.

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