As I decelerate into the real world, I am shocked by terminology that echoes the way folks spoke in the early days of the Web. This has moved me to nominate a new member on my Tired Words list [wow, just realized tomorrow would be two years since the last one].
e-"words" – You might remember these words from the e-commerce days, when everything had an "e-" before it to connote coolness, hipness with the Web, and the digital world. In my first month at my new job, I heard (and still do) e-news, e-blast, e-list, e-vite, e-book, e-philanthropy (which, ugh, is in my title). I think they grate on me since I only have room for a few (one?) e-words, such as e-mail. To me, I think folks slap an "e" on anything to signify that the digital world is something alien and different, that sending a mass mailing on news to addressees on a list to invite them to a philanthropy event is something you could only do with paper and stamps.
You can review all my previous 'Tired Words' here on this page.
UPDATE 22oct09: Just today I got a few more: e-learning, e-transfer, e-tools, and e-library. Oy!
UPDATE 01feb10: Using e-newsletter in an article. No getting around it. Sigh.
Haven’t had many tired words lately (though I have had my overload of tired other-things). This one comes from an event I was at where it was way overused.
Technology – I am finding myself less and less a technologist and more and more a story person. I’m not an idiot (you can argue, if you want), I do know my tech. But, I spend more of my time searching for the story behind the solution – how is something used or hacked (as in, unexpected use and why) and how it relates to the person using it. It’s my service mind. Technology is not a thing, but a tool that needs to disappear into the background. At this latest event, I kept telling folks to quit obsessing about the tech and focus on what they want to deliver to the user. The word was repeated so often, like some sort of object, that by the second day it really bugged me. All that repetition suggested to me that ‘technology’ was a place-holder for something that was missing that they couldn’t put a finger on. And it seemed that the tech dominated over the simplest solution (hmm, sounds familiar).
You can review all my previous ‘Tired Words’ here on this page.
I’ve been hearing this word getting thrown about all too often, always related to product features.
Hygiene – This word is apparently used to describe the features a product the user expects it to have, just as a price of entry. But, the association with cleanliness, sanitation, and public health, just make a disconnect for me here. And also, folks usually mean attributes that go deep into what the product is, such as ease-of-use, reliability, and so on. Therefore, ‘hygiene’ is often a throw away comment for things that are incredibly hard to do (tip o’ the hat to Matt). ‘Price of entry’ or ‘minimum required feature set’ or something like that, at least gives some value to all the hard work to create a solid foundation for a product upon which to then differentiate.
You can review all my previous ‘Tired Words’ here on this page.
Matt tapped my shoulder on this one. I have to concur.
Seamless – A penny for everytime some service provider uses this word. I’ve never really been much of a fan of this one. I think it’s mostly because this word sounds so much like ‘seemless’, which reminds me of something shameful, or ‘seem less’
rather than ‘seem more’. I don’t know if there’s a better alternative, but Matt once used the word ‘seamed’ – instead of having everything blur into everything else without seams, things stitch together in a nice way, but still with clear delineations.
You can review all my previous ‘Tired Words’ here on this page.
Where did this one come from?
Content – This word just seems insufficient and ambiguous (it can be a noun or adjective). It’s so clinical and sterile. Ok, so it’s in the same category as ‘media’, but ‘media’ is a word I happen to like, is attached to nice things,and is soft and round. Kontent is not really a Kingly word, isn’t a word that is used in any regular context outside of some industry-speak, and isn’t really something that lends itself to writing, such as these not so smooth phrases: ‘download content to phone’ (yes, quite happy) or ‘manage your contents’ (my bowels?) or ‘user generated content’ (sounds like a disease). I think it’s just our own laziness, to lump so much into this word.
You can review all my previous ‘Tired Words’ here on this page.
Heard it. Don’t like it. Can’t get rid of it.
Consumer – This is a catch-all for the folks who fork over their dear money for something we have made.* All too often it is a term do describe some sort of passive consumption of media. I try hard to use some other term, such as ‘user’ or ‘people’ or ‘subscribers’ or something like that. It’s not easy. But, thinking of the way folks actually use the web, so many folks are actually lurking and reading and watching and listening, and so few actually creating or participating (read more here, via JP). Hence, I think ‘consumer’ just might be sufficient.
You can review all my previous ‘Tired Words’ here on this page.
*A related tired word: ‘end-user’. Ugh.
This is one more word I struggle with at work. Read why.
Apple – I love Apple dearly and have been a loyalist since the 80s. But, what gets me is that they are constantly used as a benchmark for design and creativity. Fair enough, they arguably lead the pack. But, my concern is that if that’s our bench mark, then we will never do better, only emulate. I don’t want to emulate them, I want them to come to me and say, ‘Hey, Charlie, I so dig what you do. We use your stuff as a benchmark.’ Yeah, dream on, but that’s what my target needs to be – to learn from them and do better.
You can review all my previous ‘Tired Words’ here on this page.
Oy, this one is starting to sound amateurish. Read on.
Beta – C’mon. Nowadays, who comes out with a polished product? Everything has a first version, some are just weaker than others. And I am having a hard time differentiating between beta and release – they all seem like a continuum, except lately we just get access earlier. I think what rubs me the wrong way is that it is used now for an excuse for a shoddy product (a bad beta is worse than a bad product) or for trying to catch some shine from the Web 2.0 folks who made a name for themselves last year.
You can review all my previous ‘Tired Words’ here on this page.
A quick comment.
Web 2.0 – That’s so 2005. Move on.
You can review all my previous ‘Tired Words’ here on this page.
Another word I struggle with at work.
Services – Uh, like experiences, this word is starting to bore me. It’s just that everything we’re building for the Web seems to be a service. Heck, the whole Internet is becoming one big ‘service’, so why do we still need to use the word?
You can review all my previous ‘Tired Words’ here on this page.
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