A Language of Automation: No Code/Low Code, Citizen Developers -- or Apps?

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The world of work is changing for the better. First, collaboration tools (reducing rework and the struggle to find information) took off as people demanded the same fluidity at work that they found in their personal social media. Next, mobile devices are ubiquitous and many of us are able to leverage mobility through BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) policies at work. Now we have Low-Code/No-Code tools that let us customize and empower our work even further.

We Are All Experts

We all fit somewhere on a spectrum of programming knowledge. No matter where we are on that spectrum, we deserve respect. We each know our jobs better than anyone else. How do we help share the value of No-Code/Low-Code tools to everyone working with any kind of data? 

Chart using face icons to describe familiarity

Scary Language?

My biggest fear is that even an accessible term like No-Code/Low-Code will scare people. The idea of “coding” may be outside most people’s experience, or worse, code of any form, something to be avoided. In the cases of collaboration tools and mobile devices, the explosion of adoption at work took place after people had experience with the tools in their personal lives. Maybe the same is true of No-Code/Low-Code?

Ninety-seven percent of Americans have a mobile phone. The number is 78% in Europe; 99.7% of Chinese internet users use a mobile phone for their access. How do we share the mental image that if you can use a mobile phone, you can use No-Code/Low-Code in your job?

Enticing Language

I see at least two positive ways this can go:

  1. The terms Citizen Developer and No-Code/Low-Code gather steam. Maybe we can leverage the “Hot cause - Cool mobilization” dynamic that Hayagreeva Rao describes in his book, Market Rebels. The hot cause is that our work demands are increasing faster than our teams and our skills can manage. The cool mobilization is that No-Code/Low-Code becomes what the cool kids -- the Citizen Developers -- do to solve the problem.

  2. We avoid language like No-Code/Low-Code and Citizen Developer. Both those phrases presume you know what coding and development are. For most people, do we even need that level of knowledge to take advantage of the tools? Collaboration tools don’t need people to know what a knowledge management system is. Internet devices don’t rely on more than the ability to install an app (or know someone who does). Sure, you can do more if you know more, but great value is coming to billions of people who don’t have advanced skills.

Bridges Rather Than Walls

I request we don’t build walls out of language. Perhaps mobile phone terms like apps, app store, and the like are more enticing. We need to build bridges from the technology knowledge people have and how they work now to how they can be gaining value from No-Code/Low-Code. I’m also okay with Citizen Developer superheroes — as long as we know we can all be one.

Thank you to Phil Simon for our conversation this week. His forthcoming book (available now for pre-order), Low-Code/No-Code: Citizen Developers and the Surprising Future of Business Applications will be a great resource as we think about the automation of our work.