Posted on: Tuesday, January 18, 2005
Translating tech talk is no easy task
| • | Buzzword Dictionary |
By Allison Linn
Associated Press
SEATTLE — High-tech companies don't release products anymore, they provide solutions. And those solutions don't simply run a program or play a song. Instead, they enable experiences, optimize agility or make people's passions come alive.
Say what?
Euphemism and allegory have always been common in business — where few get fired, but plenty get "downsized" — but some say the tongue-twisting technology industry has gone too far.
Alan Freedman, who has been writing technology encyclopedias for 25 years, realized things were out of hand when people started asking him to decipher technology companies' own marketing materials — the stuff they use to entice regular people to buy their products.
"The marketing people are so bad at hyping their products that, with all my experience, I'll have to read and reread and reread just to figure out what this thing does," says Freedman, founder of The Computer Language Company Inc. in Point Pleasant, Pa.
Anyone who's worked in the technology industry has their list of pet peeves, and "solution" is commonly a headliner.
Before the mid-1990s, if you had a problem, you needed a solution.
Now, "It's used so much in the tech industry that it's lost its meaning," said Tim Schellhardt, director of editorial services for the PR firm Ketchum in New York.
Other buzzwords that grate include "enterprise" and "scalable."
When Fredric Paul first started hearing the word "enterprise," he wondered if all the people spouting it were "Star Trek" fans.
Years later, enterprise — high-tech speak for big company, not the big starship commanded by Captain Kirk — shows no signs of going away.
Paul, editor-in-chief of the Internet site TechWeb, says he's dismayed that words he lampooned back in 1999 remain pervasive today.
He longs to see the demise of "scalable," for instance, which is tech lingo for something that can get bigger.
"My son is scalable, he's got built-in room to grow," he says.
Other overused buzzwords include "viral marketing" — meaning a marketing campaign that spreads at lightning speed and "stickiness" — which refers to something that keeps a person interested in a Web page. While these words are intended to convey something positive, some think they conjure up an unsightly plague.
Even blog, a fusing of "Web" and "log" that refers to online diaries, made Lake Superior State University's annual list of words that should be banished.
"Many who nominated it were unsure of the meaning," the list's authors noted. "Sounds like something your mother would slap you for saying."
How did all this tongue-twisting start?
It began in the 1980s, when Microsoft Corp. and Apple Computer Inc. were struggling to make their products sound appealing to a tech-averse public, said Tim Bajarin, a principal analyst with Creative Strategies
Instead of proclaiming that Microsoft's Office software would improve workers' ability to crunch numbers, compile data and type up letters, Microsoft sought to sell it as a "solution" to workaday problems, he says.
Apple co-founder Steve Jobs promoted the "experience" of using an Apple computer way back in 1984 — before many people could see why they'd want one of the pricey, clunky boxes in their homes.
Two decades later, the word "experience" endures.
"Today, the PC is often still considered just a tool, but together we need to make it a lot more than that. We need to make it a path to experiences," Jim Allchin, Microsoft's top Windows executive, told hardware developers in an "experience"-heavy speech last May.
Ryan Donovan, a Hewlett-Packard Co. public relations director, concedes that terms like "data migration" and "optimizes agility" — both of which are found in the company's press materials — might confuse average readers. But the company uses those phrases in documents intended for technology experts and executives, he says.
"This is the language that they're comfortable with, and it's our job to make sure that we're speaking to them in a language that they understand," Donovan says.
| BUZZWORD DICTIONARY
Even the most tech-savvy admit their brains sometimes grow fuzzy with overused buzzwords. For those who lack the bandwidth to provide robust, scalable solutions, here's a list of some worst offenders: Solution: Instead of making a product or offering a service, technology companies "provide solutions." Whether the solutions solve actual problems is a different matter. Bandwidth: Technically refers to the capacity of a communications line, but is now used much more broadly. For example, people might say they don't have enough "personal bandwidth" (translation: time) to do a project. Paradigm: An example or model. Scalable: The ability of a computer or system to get bigger, typically as more users are added. Synergy: Usually means that combining forces produces a better product — although that's not always the case in the software world. Also seen in reference to corporate mergers. Robust: Implies that a product is bug-free and will work under rigorous circumstances. In many products, this claim can be debated. World-class, best-of-breed, bleeding-edge, state-of-the-art: Variations on the claim that this is a unique and superior product. E-anything: Something that is now being done online or in another electronic space, such as e-commerce or e-mail. Win-win: A deal where everyone allegedly benefits. Sources: The Computer Language Company, Accountemps, The Associated Press. |
