Electricmonk

Ferry Boender

Programmer, DevOpper, Open Source enthusiast.

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Buzzword bullshit

Monday, January 17th, 2005

The IT world is full with buzzwords. Slashdot links to an article (funny: check out the buzzword-domainname for that article..iWon.com) in this article.

A comment to the article on Slashdot:
My favorite: Web Economy Bullshit Generator [dack.com]
Dilbert-inspired: The Buzzword Generator [luc.edu]
Yet Another Buzzword Generator [1728.com]

And there are many, many more buzzword generators [google.com] out there, implemented using open-architected dynamic algorithms by organic radical policies…

Let’s do some testing? I’ll visit some semi-random websites to see what buzzword bullshit they can come up with. Here’s what I’m gonna visit: Microsoft, Sun, IBM, ZX Factory (where I work) and Apache foundation, and I’ll give the verdict on how easy it was to find some fuzzy buzz:

  • Microsoft (verdict: Easy as cake. One click):

    “Microsoft Interoperability.Interoperability is all about different software products working together. Microsoft embraces interoperability—helping the software products you have today work together and investing for tomorrow to unlock the benefits of XML-enabled interoperability by design.”

    Enabling Heterogeneous Systems Management Through the Dynamic Systems Initiative. Learn how Microsoft is enabling solutions to work in heterogeneous environments and how we plan to apply the principles of the Dynamic Systems Initiative (DSI) as we move forward.”

    Ha ha. Super!. Next up:

  • Sun (Verdict: Harder. Two/Three clicks)

    “Sun is responding directly to customer needs by offering solutions that go beyond standalone products and services. Sun’s Integratable Architectures and Systems provide the benefits of complex technologies while reducing the time, cost, and risk of deployment.”

    Quell bullshit! Integratable Arci-blaaah.

  • IBM (Verdict: Tough. Min of 9 clicks)

    “Grow your business with technology-based solutions from IBM and IBM Business Partners.

    Business process integration (BPI). On demand offers a better response to customers, competition, and markets.”

    That’s the best I could come up with at IBM. Good work. (or messy website).

  • ZX Factory (Verdicht: Too hard)

    Except for some of the names of the different products (‘Managed services’) I couldn’t find any. Perhaps it’s because it’s a small company, perhaps I’m too biased (doubt it though), perhaps I know too much about the company.

  • Apache (Verdicht: None found)

    Couldn’t find any buzzwords. :(

But the IT sector isn’t the only place we find lots fo buzzwords. I also notice them in the job titles for companies: Account engineer (previously systems manager (previously system operator)), CEO’s, Account manager (no idea what this is supposed to be), etc.

Then there’s the media. I’m only gonna discuss the dutch media buzzwords, so you english folks can skip this: First of all, there’s the latest, greatest ‘Familiedrama‘. A phrase which describes, in essence, anything bad happening in a family. In the media however, it’s linked to killings by one or both of the parents in a family. Then there’s the somewhat older ‘Zinloos geweld‘ (translated: Useless violence). An even more useless and biased oppionionated term for describing any act of violence happen in public in the Netherlands. Every stabbing, shooting, beating-up: Zinloos geweld. Not quite an buzzword, but more a buzz-happening: ‘Stille tochten‘. A silent parade in honour of some guy/gall who got killed/died. Squarrel gets run over by a car? Stille tocht. Kitten dies of old age? Stille tocht. Some time ago there was a phrase, which wasn’t coined up by the media, but rather by the government: “Demoniseren“. There’s so much more idiotic,meaningless buzzwords in the world, I could start writing about them today, and never finish in my lifetime.

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