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Startups Can't Explain What They Do Because They're Addicted To Meaningless Jargon (qz.com)
Josh Horwitz of Quartz, who is attending RISE Conference, has an observation to share about the startups he is seeing at the event: As startup culture has gone global and transcended stereotypes, though, one of its defining traits has stuck around. Startup jargon is alive and well, and it seems to be getting worse. "Content." "Platforms." "Synergy." "End-to-end." "Solutions." It's nearly impossible to find a startup at the conference that doesn't resort to jargon when describing itself. These words sound technical and informed. But they mean nothing, and they make it difficult for ordinary people to understand what a company actually does. In an effort to either sound smart and attract investors, or to simply dress up an otherwise boring product, startups that rely too much on jargon end up alienating the users they want to attract.Also in the report, Horowitz talks about an app called Cubes, and how it was pitched to him. "We visually organize your email and cloud-based content for ultra fast access. It's visual storytelling with any type of content." The app essentially retrieves non-text attachments from one's email or Dropbox account, takes screenshots of those things and bundles them together in a standalone app.
I'm afraid that "We visually organize your email and cloud-based content for ultra fast access. It's visual storytelling with any type of content." was perfectly clear to me.
I think I've spent too much time absorbing technical buzzwords.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
One of the best things you'll ever read
Chip Morningstar is an author, developer, programmer and designer of software systems, mainly for online entertainment and communication.
I have done proposals to VCs with the produce displayed in simple, terse sentences. The original draft got snubbed, because the would-be funders wanted to see words like "cloud based", "hyperconvergence", "deperimeterization", and other puffery. It almost is a different language, where just stating that "this is something that does 'x'" has to be obfuscated into paragraphs of fluff.
Weird Al's Mission Statement.
Simply crib and your next status report is done.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
A foreign language has been creeping into many of the presentations I hear and the memos I read. It adds nothing to a message but noise, and I want your help in stamping it out. It's called gobbledygook. There's no shortage of examples. Nothing seems to get finished anymore it gets "finalized." Things don't happen at the same time but "coincident with this action." Believe it or not, people will talk about taking a "commitment position" and then because of the "volatility of schedule changes" they will "decommit" so that our "posture vis-à-vis some data base that needs a sizing will be able to enhance competitive positions." That's gobbledygook. (February 19, 1970)
Also on topic: the turbo encabulator.
This is not a new phenomenon, unfortunately.
The issue is that many times they think that they won't be taken seriously if they don't use a bunch of jargon. I run into this type of thinking all the time within my field. Customer documents that read like they were written by the devil spawn resulting from a threeway between a lawyer, an engineer, and a marketing executive. It's a hard habit to get out of. People think if you use simple language the customer won't think you are good at what you do. I have to remind people that the document is for reading, not trying to show how smart you think you are. Plus, if the damn thing is actually readable, it might actually get read. Nothing sucks more than generating a 200 page document that it exists solely to check off a deliverable checkbox.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
The language in academic papers is inflated because the authors are afraid they don't have enough to say. The exception is that rare, rare animal: the seminal paper; papers that really changes things fundamentally in a field. Those are almost invariably written with stark simplicity. You can usually give them to beginner students in the field and they'll have no problem following.
Are papers seminal because they're clearly written? I don't think so; I think what a seminal paper does is communicate a naked simplifying insight that strips away a lot of confusion. The straightforward language is a kind of brash advertisement of that fact.
The reason I think that is that not hacking your meaning into semantic gobbledygook is almost seen as posing. I worked with some Harvard researchers on a grant proposal, and when I sent the draft of my bits to the Harvard team they sent them back butchered into jargon word stew. "This is terrible writing!" I said. "Yes," the researcher said, "it's deplorable. But trust me, it'll play well." And dammit, it did.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Starting 1996 investors have been knocking on my door begging me to give them a chance to participate in the then dot com boom
I looked around, the price they were willing to pay was ridiculous
I knew something had gone terribly wrong so I started selling
By end of 1998 I sold off 80% of the startups (plural) that I owned (or co-owned) for great sum of $$
Then came the crash
I came back to the scene by mid 2001 or so, and this time around I came back as an investor, picking up valuable pieces (we insiders knew which one is worth how much, not the outsiders), as well as funding some new startups, not only those in the Valley but also the ones in other 'silicon clones' throughout USA
By 2004 I started looking outside of USA. Went first to Germany, made some investments there, then I went to the Far East - Taiwan, Korea, Hongkong, and finally, China
By 2008 the asking price of startups in the Valley got to the ridiculous range again, and I knew something was again amiss, but this time they were BIG NAMES in the sugardaddies list (including a certain multi-billionaire from Hongkong), so I figure the trend could go on a little while longer
But anyway, I started selling, again
By 2010 looking over the newer crop of Valley startups I could only sigh
By 2014 I attended some of those 'sessions' in the Valley where startups tried to impress investors I nearly fainted
Those kids simply do not have anything in common with us
We are nerds, we are geeks, we have a mission, we have a goal, we want to make something, we want to become useful
These kids? They are slick, - too slick , - and their only goal is to dupe the investors
Make no mistake, I still have operations in the Republic of California, but they are for the long haul
I am no longer interested in the 'startups' scene anymore because it has become too toxic for me
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !