Checking ESPN.com as I always do at least every other day, I stumbled across an IBM ad regarding cloud computing. Knowing what "the cloud" is and what it does, I stared blankly at the ad trying to figure out who the hell made this advertisement. Maybe I'm just one of the lucky ones who gets the word and would rather see it in a plausible sentence, but I found the ad to be a whole lot of wasted air.
Coming from a company like IBM, you would expect that there would be something concrete, but I'm starting to wonder if any of their ads have made much sense except for the Thinkpads, which I'll admit sounded pretty cool back then. The language of the ad I saw today was complete business bullshit. It made very little sense to someone with little knowledge about what cloud computing is, and it made me realize how certain companies are doomed to failure when they start to overestimate their clientèle.
IBM is a massive company, don't get me wrong; it's one of the biggest entities in the world. Yet, I'm starting to understand why McDonalds, Coke, and Google can remain strong and even grow in this economy. They cater to...well, everyone. It either looks tasty or looks like it makes sense. The entire idea behind cloud computing is comparable to the Internet. Things exist away from your computer in a "cloud" of information that anyone with access to the "cloud" can get to and modify. Basically, glorified remote access of files and applications. Big whoop. Google explained their "internet OS" so much better than this advertisement catered to, and I'll have to quote Drew Clark of IBM on this, "startups".
Of course, maybe he's talking about people with millions of dollars to fling around when starting a company, but I'd imagine that a "startup" would be the regular shrimps with the drive and idea, but with a lack of knowledge about this whole "cloud" business. I saw squiggly lines in the ads that was supposed to represent the "cloud", but that's the closest to an explanation as I got. Are they trying to keep this info a secret?
Well, good news for IBM is that a lot of their older technobabble loving clients will fling their millions in the company's direction, but billions will be thrown at Google and similar services when the younger generation of "startups" comes around. That's just the way things go. Remember how the internet started? It started with web browsers and IRC chats. People began to integrate ideas into those basic programs, and you had companies like AOL come around to make it into a nice, neat, marketable package. The older crowd loved it because it made complicated things readily available and simple to use without understanding the how. The younger generation...well, they developed the rest of the internet, killing off AOL by recreating everything into portable and free applications.
I'm not saying that IBM is going to fail, but I am saying that while their idea is timely, this ad is just not marketed correctly. It was one of those buzzword ads that seemed to be created solely to confuse and obfuscate something that's plain and simple. When you start making something simple sound complicated to impress businessmen, and when you sound obvious about doing it, you're really not putting a good reputation out there to the "startups".
This makes me wonder where our language of business is headed. Sure, you should sound proper when you go about things, but technology is a pretty complicated beast. I often have to dumb down complicated technology ideas when talking to other people, not because I'm trying to dumb it down because I think they are idiots, but technology is easier to talk about when you can simplify it. No one wants to talk IP addresses when getting a concept across to someone else, unless it's a direct colleague. People want to hear what things do first. Some people say, "cool", and leave it at that. Other people ask how, and then you go from there. This creates a different language in the workplace, and with computers officially being ingrained in everyday life, the language of business changes as well. People often comment about how the English language will one day be butchered by text shortcuts, and while that may be a leap, it is true that language is changing.
When it comes down to it, the ad I saw felt shiny, but old fashioned. Google has proven that a successful company can come with a laidback approach. Several companies are shifting their nature towards something less...bullshit. Job hunt advisors are already denouncing the resume banter that used to be the only way you could impress an employer. They literally tell you not to sound like a pompous wordy asshole and to go with straightforward "what it IS" talk. They aren't saying to go slang, but clearly the language of business has shifted to a more relaxed and sensible approach.
Buzzwords are people's way of reinventing bullshit. Plain and simple. Just like "waste disposal engineer" translates into garbageman, buzzwords are equally poisonous.
"I was involved with Web 2.0 development in my last company. While assisting with the switch to high-definition content, I implemented social-network features to our site as well as analyzing market configurations to meet our revenue projections."
Translation:
I re-uploaded a video to YouTube, enabled comments, and signed up for AdSense.
See where this is going? Replace three big important sounding words that would have worked in the 90's with an equally useless modern buzzword, and we've come full circle.
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