[Sigia-l] Semantic Technologies - Jan. 25th Taxonomy Community Call

[Stewart Dean]

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for the response to my slightly vitriolic attack on 'market speak'. I
rode the .com boom more by luck than judgment and, looking back, my English
sense of irony could have been used more. I sat in on 'money is free' talks
and had a highly paid member of a technical team ask me 'do  they us Windows
in the UK?' - that alone should have made me realise that this stuff isn't
person - it's just how lots of incremental bits of dumbness pile up.

But maybe I'm the dumb one - this could - after all - be a matter of
culture. Just as one persons mouse is another persons gravity detector (hung
up near the computer whilst they use the command line) so another persons
means of effective communication.  By using terms like 'mutually beneficial
positive outcomes based upon synchronized paradigm shifts' (forgive my
novice attempt at marketese)  then it's more than just communicating
business needs but more a case of 'I understand, I am one of you as well'.

I once worked with a large US American insurance company that has a rather
large office in a rather large US city. I found myself walking across a
block spanning expanse of cubicles to get to the meeting in one of the
window offices. I stopped half way and did a 360 - gazing off into the
distance where the cubicles merged into a uniform sea of grey - like
something from a Terry Gilliam film.

There and then I swore I'd never work in a cubical. It's a culture I could
never understand and I was forever to be a 'gaijin'. Oddly enough I have
continued to work with large companies with out having to speak their
language. It still might happen I might find myself debating the merits of
bone, eggshell and off-white business cards.

May your fruit always low hanging and all your ducks be in a line.

Stew Dean


On 17/1/06 9:13 pm, "andrew at friendlymanual.com" <andrew at friendlymanual.com>
wrote:

> Quoting Stewart Dean <stew8dean at hotmail.com>:
> 
>> Can people write things like that with a straight face? It's as clear as mud
>> and essentially written in business speak in it's worst form. In short, if
>> the people behind this idea can't write intelligent English instead of
>> advertorial gibberish why should anyone take it seriously?
> 
> Hi Stewart,
> 
> not that I am condoning, just working towards understanding: people write
> stuff
> like this because there are other people (like
> wanting-desperately-to-be-tech-savvy middle and upper management) who will lap
> it up.
> 
> Mr King said "write to your audience, everything else is bull". This was not a
> great fit of text-to-audience perhaps. But in other audiences, this kind of
> thing is just what they want to see. "Keep hitting me about the head and
> shoulders with those big words used out of context, man, I love it. Throw in
> some undeniable motherhood statements. Baffle me.".
> 
> Anecdotally, this kind of language was so common during the dot-bomb dark ages
> that it was the rule rather than the exception amongst technical salespeople
> addressing project management in Australian government. I got a lot of work
> sitting in on presentations then "de-bulling" it for my clients after the
> salesfolk went away.
> 
> Cheers, Andrew
> 
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