Mar. 16, 2005 - 19:24 MST

THE WONDERING JEW

Technorese

Not only are things technical more and more complicated as time goes on, the langauage associated follows in the skyrocket, big whoosh manner.

Still chuckling after I again ran onto this article from back in January 24, 2005 in the Rocky Mountain News business section, by Allison Linn of the Associated Press.

Tangled in tech tongue twisters

In part, with my comments interspersed.

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 always have been common in business -- where few get fired, but plenty get "downsized" -- but some say the tongue-twisting technology industry has gone too far."

Me here -- Things I run into here at my house cause me to puzzle and nuzzle my muzzle in things not shown in most dictionaries. Where the heck did "boot up" come from ? Doggone computers don't wear shoes, let alone boots. Or in the UK a boot is the equivalent of the trunk of a US auto. Either way "booting" seems to have little to do with using a computer.

"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 Co. Inc. in Point Pleasant, Pa."

Yeah, I get that loud and clear. On about the fifth reread I am so lost that I have to look at a road map to see where I am. And then the article goes on:

"Anyone who's worked in the 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 PR firm Ketchum in New York."

"Other buzzwords that grate include enterprise and scalable."

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And the article goes on, but I will list some of the stuff mentioned and add a bit about some of them.

Enterprise = high tech speak for big company. Not Starship Enterprise

Scalable = Tech lingo for something that can get bigger, not a mountain peak. One man said, "My son is scalable: he's got built-in room to grow."

Viral marketing = A marketing campaign that spreads at lighting speed.

Stickiness = refers to something that keeps a person interested in a Web page.

"Even blog, a fusing of Web and log that refers to online diaries, made it to an annual list of words that shoud be banished. The list was compiled by Lake Superior State University in Sault Ste. Marie, Mich."

"Many who nominated it were unsure of the meaning," the list's authors noted. "Sounds like something your Mother would slap you for saying."

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" (time) to do a project.

Paradigm = An example or model. Oh man have I seen this misused and abused.

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. Yeah right, often used to make the meaning of win-win a more synergistic high falutin term.

Robust = Implies that a product is bug-free and will work under rigorous circumstances. Yep, believe that and you are toast.

World-class, best-of-breed, bleeding-edge,state-of-the-art = variations on the claim that is a unique and superior product. Yeah and brand spankin' new too.

E-anything = Something that is now being done online or in another electronic space such as e-commerce or e-mail.

The article goes on to say, "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 Stratgies. 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."

"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.

The article goes on to let us know how lingo-bingo plays out yet today.

"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 such as data migration and optomizes agility both of which are found in the company's media 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 are speaking to them in a language that they understand," Donovan says.

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I Pray that a "Tech" type isn't hired in at CU.

So here is this rookie at the keyboard trying to figure out what the hell is the difference between a file, a folder and a document and how to get into and out of any of them. All of the things he brings up in, for instance, "accessories" most are if not Greek perhaps are involuted Geek. Icon ? In what I learned in school an icon was a religious painting. When I see icons on my screen am I to cross myself to each of them ?

I can send and recieve e-mail and read journals and other sites . . . . . that is until I make a mislick and freeze this monster up and try to do a Juju dance to determine if the right words will bring it back to life. Amma Lamma Ding Dong Hoopty Doopty Bang Kachow I doubt will do much good, although perhaps 'twould be as good or maybe even better than frantically punching buttons or flipping switches. Maybe in the far future I will learn a bit and eventually learn how to understand and make use of the new Technorese . . . . . . . . . . .

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