Lost in translation

An executive who was honored at the recent annual CIO 100 event was describing the privilege of being with rock stars like Rob Carter, CIO of Fedex. He then observed “I was surprised how few CIOs at the event used the term “system of engagement”. I thought that was a very hot term with you analysts and bloggers.” Thanks to Geoffrey Moore who coined the term, it certainly is a popular term in social media circles.

The comment hit me though. There are so many buzzwords – Big Data, Gamification, In-memory computing – that the vendor and influencer world speaks in.

And then there is the results oriented talk of effective CIOs. No catchy buzzwords, just stunning results:

Example 1 – Union Pacific’s firewalls reject a billion messages a year from its track side sensors. Which means many, many more billions of messages get sliced and diced for predictive maintenance of expensive railcars. They have been doing it for years, long before the term “Big Data” was coined.

Example 2 – UPS truck drivers use DIADs to guide their delivery routes and more - over 22 million packages a day during the peak holiday season. The DIAD was introduced back in 1990, way before the iPhone or the iPad was even conceived of and certainly before any mobile buzzwords were coined.

Not just gentle pokes from CIOs, this buzzword bingo will make us the butt of more jokes. Exhibit A: This episode from The Big Bang Theory which makes fun of something I wished I had coined: “Mobile Virtual Presence Device”  :)