I already had my say about the term "users." Let me vent on other tech terms have always bothered me:
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) – there is nothing in the CRM processes or software that promotes a relationship or is favorable to the customer. It's all for the benefit of the marketer.
Call Centers are generally provided by low cost providers with voice menus set up to make customers spend the longest time possible to get to someone not qualified to help them.
I call up LL Bean and get a real live person in a few rings who will take my order or help me if I have problems. Contrast this to your typical support call to a PC vendor or software firm. You start with a long series of voice menu prompts, have to make sure your customer number is handy and then you endure an excruciating first round of support from someone most likely reading through a script.
And then there is the campaign management software that is a way to up-sell and cross-sell you products and services regardless of how well the existing products or services are for you.
Single version of the truth – yes I use that one too but… It's only the single version of the truth if you ignore the other twelve single versions of the truth that the vendor sold you before.
End-to-end solution – what does that mean? Does it mean from the beginning to the end? Could it mean complete? No, it's not complete because that would imply something that everyone would understand and the solution provider does not want to make that claim (and have to prove it.)
End-to-end is just what a marketer loves because it sounds good but means nothing. Every time I hear a vendor say they provide an end-to-end solution I want to suggest they stick it up their end-to-end!
Connectivity, plug-in, service – all these things imply that all my data integrity, consistently and quality problems will be solved by this new enabling software that magically connects to this terrific data…right. I have a bridge I'd like to sell you.
There are other terms I hate, but that's enough for now.
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