Weakend Special: Techie jargon and early-adopter buzzwords turn off normal folk. The headlines from this year’s CeBIT technology fair in Hanover, Germany, tell the tale:
Tech Fair Hawkers Woo the Geek-Wary (A/P, The Porterville Recorder, CA, 03-20-04)
“Firms Dropping Jargon in selling gadgets” (A/P, The Daily Gazette, Schenectady, NY, 03-20-03, at C2)
Tech fair hawks wares to nongeeks (A/P, Louisville Courier Journal, 03-20-04)
Gadget fair offerings go beyond geekdom (A/P, Allentown [PA] Morning Call, 03-20-04)
Savvy companies who want a broader appeal have figured it out. As the A/P article reports:
” Sharp design and simplicity are in. Acronyms are out, along with data transfer speeds, kilobytes and megabytes as marketing tools.”
” At this year’s CeBIT technology fair, computer and telecoms companies are trying to muffle the jargon — aiming their pitches at people indifferent or even hostile to geektalk who still love the gadgets.”
“‘The consumer is not buying these acronyms, the consumer is buying solutions’,” Rudi Lamprecht, head of Siemens’ mobile phone division, said as he introduced his company’s new phones.