Buzzwords
I got an email from the State Manager of Sun Microsystems inviting Adam and myself to a breakfast briefing. Here's what the email said:
This breakfast session is about how to apply the principles of SOA to high priority projects like application consolidation, integration of disparate silos of customer information into a single view, and multi product and multi channel customer engagement.
I mean seriously, do you people think that these buzzwords impress anyone?
It never used to bother me and I thought it was just "how IT was" but now it's driving me mad. You can't just invent shit and expect it to mean something. Another recent entry: "security posture". What the hell? It's meant to mean how well positioned you are with respect to security, but instead sounds like you're sitting on your ass.
The term "AJAX" came out of nowhere and it was good. I didn't like it because it sounds catchy, or because it was a fuynky new technology (it wasn't, Google and Microsoft have been doing it for years, well) but it meant that you could discuss what it meant with someone and you'd both know what you were talking about.
But who talks about god damned "silos"?
The point is to confuse the hell out of the management types that sign up for these emails. Gotta keep changing the lingo every few months, otherwise they’ll catch on and stop buying your crap.
Who *doesn’t* talk about silos!!
Man, we’re an MS shop, going to MS conferences and talks etc… that’s bullshit central for this stuff.
Last week we had one put on by the perth .net users group or whatever. I left half way through because it was so full of shit. I literally went back to work because work was better than their talks.
hahaha, I think i used “security posture” in a whitepaper a few months back. I’m as guilty of this as anyone.
Oops, I don’t think it was Emma that wrote whitepapers full of buzzwords…
Weatherill: I was trying to make the connection of “Security Posture” with Dentistry… Thanks for your follow up; I almost swore against seeing another dentist ever again.
Hale: You are spot on! The big words are 2 fold;
1. To confuse you in thinking the words are norm and because you don’t know what they mean you should attend the seminar to “update” your knowledge.
2. To make the seminar sound important and you would be disadvantaging yourself if you don’t turn up.
I have been to enough of these talks to realise it is just big words to invite you to a day of propaganda.
However, I’m always a sucker for a free feed and gimmicky merchandise.
But they’ve been flogging the “on demand” and “disparate silos” thing for a couple of years now. I can’t believe people get paid to just come up with immature marketing terms like that. I give a garbage man more credit than the person that thinks calling systems “disparate silos” is a good thing.
Excuse me while I return to my board of typing enhancers and withdraw some documented expense forms from my disparate savings account.
I think you should both go to the breakfast and play buzzword bingo. Lay out as many buzzwords as you can on a grid and the first to get four in a row stands up and yells BINGO!
The prize can be a free detailing for the winner’s Z. ;) Paid for by the company, of course.
Like they did at MIT…
Typing enhancers? Wow, they sound great, I would like to order 5000 for my company please!
They just need to “engage” with their market