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Skewering Some Buzzword Baloney

Skewering Some Buzzword Baloney

Making up new words for old concepts – or using old words for new concepts – goes on all the time in the world of marketing, so you’d think we’d all be used to it by now. But sometimes these efforts at out-buzzing the next guy’s buzzword just end up sounding silly. Here are three of the silliest going around today.

1.       Human-to-Human, aka H2H. This one came from Bryan Kramer of PureMatter. According to Kramer, “there is no more B2B or B2C. It’s H2H: Human to Human.” In other words, H2H is the evolution of eCommerce after business-to-business and business-to-consumer. The problem? Commerce has been H2H since the Stone Age. The next generation of eCommerce is two people haggling over a fish?

2.       Business Technology. This winner comes from a recent article by Professor Robert Plant in the venerable Harvard Business Review. Dr. Plant espouses that “we should no longer be talking about ‘IT’ as a corporate entity. We should be talking about BT—business technology.” Business technology? Seriously? How long have businesses used technology? Earlier than punch card readers. Earlier even than typewriters. Perhaps blacksmiths’ tools? IT – information technology – is a worn out term perhaps, but at least we know it has something to do with information.

3.       Digital. This one is all over the place, so it’s hard to point fingers. But I will anyway: this article from MITSloan Management Review and Capgemini Consulting, for example, which defines digital transformation as “the use of new digital technologies (social media, mobile, analytics or embedded devices) to enable major business improvements (such as enhancing customer experience, streamlining operations or creating new business models).” What, pray tell, does the word digital mean? It refers to a computer that uses bits, as opposed to analog computers that use, what? Sine waves? In other words, 1940s technology.

Ironically, in spite of the digital silliness, the aforementioned article is actually quite good, and I highly recommend it. Even more ironically, I find myself describing what I do as helping organizations with their Digital Transformation initiatives. I guess if you can’t beat ‘em, you might as well join ‘em.

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