The Wrong Kind of Buzz

It's easier to locate and disarm the marketing messages buzzing in our heads than to disable the vocabulary that's been slipped in. At the word level, we all at times slip into the old marketing-speak.

Nowhere is this more true than in the technology industries. For example, Bob Epstein, back when he ran Sybase (SYBS), once gave an otherwise good speech in which he used the expression "extended enterprise client/server." Afterward a number of attendees were asked if they could recall this phrase. Most could remember that the phrase was a bunch of buzzwords, but no one could remember the phrase itself.

This is because "extended enterprise client/server" is composed entirely of TechnoLatin, a vocabulary of vague but precise-sounding words that work like the blank tiles in Scrabble: You can use them anywhere, but they have no value. TechnoLatin takes perfectly meaningful words and empties them. If language is a living organism, TechnoLatin words are like those pod people in the movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers. They look real, but they're not.

And like the pod people, TechnoLatin has become the norm. Clarity is the exception when it should be the rule. Today we no longer make chips, circuit boards, computers, monitors or printers. We don't even make products. Instead we make solutions, a fatuous noun further bloated by empty modifiers such as total, full, seamless and state of the art.

Equally vague and common are platform, open, environment and support when used as verbs. A veterinarian using TechnoLatin might say that a dog serves as a platform for sniffing, is an open environment for fleas and supports barking.

This isn't language; it's camouflage. A perfect example of TechnoLatin's mindless power is a press release that heralded the pointless name change of the semifamiliar Xymos to the anonymous Appian Technology:

Over the past two years, Xymos has been repositioning itself. No longer a typical semiconductor supplier, the company has focused on its ability to integrate advanced technologies that use innovative system architecture and software into high-performance system solutions for PCs and workstations.

If communication had taken place here, we would probably know what the people at Appian Technology do for a living. But because the release is written in TechnoLatin, it offers no such clues.

Since "Appian" was first a famous Roman highway, you'd think this might be a clue to Xymos' new identity. But the release says:

Appian was chosen for the name because it represents the ability to use leading-edge technology and innovation, integrated into solutions that provide differentiation and competitive advantage.

Just what the Romans had in mind.

It's obvious why we fall into TechnoLatin even if we know better. We sound so smart when we use words no one quite understands. We sound so precise. And we sound like we belong: "Distributed platform environment" does for technology marketers what "you know, like, whatever" does for teenagers.

And, of course, it's not just the technology industry that's in love with pod words. Brochureware at Ford.com talks about the Lincoln's "advanced performance characteristics," "leading-edge safety systems" and "AdvanceTrac™ yaw control."

So our advice: Speak real words. The new Web conversations are remarkably sensitive to the empty pomposity that has served marketing so well. Until now.