Ten Words Technology Vendors Abuse, Version 2.0

The VAR Guy is getting up on his soap box. He’s tired of empty marketing terms from vendors that promise far more than they deliver. Here’s a sampling of 10 words, phrases and terms vendors should immediately delete from their vocabulary.

10. Proactive: If one more vendor says they offer “proactive” rather than “reactive” IT security, The VAR Guy will proactively end the conversation.

9. Mashup: When big, old, conservative IBM starts using the Mashup term in its product announcements, you know it’s time to move on.

8. Curb Alert: This is Craigslist jargon for free stuff people leave on the sidewalk for other lowlifes to claim as their own. The VAR Guy’s wife is addicted to Curb Alerts. She spends Friday nights scanning Craigslist so that she can begin her scavenger hunts early each Saturday morning. Oh, here’s a Curb Alert now. Honey, pull over. Yes, this is quite a steamy marriage folks.

7. First, Best, Only, Unique: Stop, stop, stop and stop. If your company offered the first, best, only or unique solution to a particular business problem you wouldn’t need to spend any money on real marketing. You could simply use viral marketing… which brings The VAR Guy to #6 on this list.

6. Viral Marketing: The VAR Guy is sick of the viral term — though he tosses it around at neighborhood gatherings whenever he’s trying to impress traditional marketing folks.

5. Innovative: If you develop a product like the iPhone, you can use the word “innovative” in your marketing materials. Everybody else please try to get more innovative (i.e., creative) with your wording of press releases.

4. The Next Google: Marketing and PR folks love to tell you they’ve found The Next Google. Search Google’s own site for “The Next Google” and this is what you get: nothing much.

3. Thin Is In: A common headline every technology company — and every lame journalist — has used to describe LCD displays, thin clients, thin software, etc. The VAR Guy has gained about 20 pounds in recent months because he stopped going to the gym. For him, thin ain’t in. Update: CRNtech in January recently ran “Thin Is In” as their cover headline. But The VAR Guy is pleased to say he’s going to the gym again and getting thin.

2. Anything Green: Green data centers. Smaller carbon footprints. During recent business trips, The VAR Guy has heard about every green product possible — including green caskets that decompose (though hopefully more slowly than the bodies within the caskets).

1. Anything 2.0: Ah, The VAR Guy is a big offender with this one as well, often describing his own Internet sites as Web 2.0-centric. What’s it gonna take for us all to move onto 2.1 or 3.0? The only 2.0 item of interest to me is the Microsoft 2.0 book that Mary Jo Foley is writing.

Full disclosure: Despite the headline on this blog entry, this is version 1.0 of the “Ten Words Technology Vendors Abuse” list. The VAR Guy didn’t want to seem behind the times, though, and immediately slapped a 2.0 moniker on this list.