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May 05, 2008
Jargon and marketing maturity
There's an inverse relationship between a company's ability to communicate well and its public use of jargon.
Facebook is a good example. Smart people run the company, but their communication with the world is usually pretty awful.
From my vantage point at a packed coffee shop in Austin this weekend, Facebook's familiar interface illuminated laptop screens on multiple tables. The scene was a typical cross-section of the site's users.
But very few, if any, of the people behind those laptops would describe Facebook to their friends as a "social utility," as Facebook describes itself on its home page.
Jargon is easy. Simple is hard.
Update: Jennifer weighs in on how jargon creates a cloak of online obscurity.
Update 2: Kara Swisher reports that Facebook has hired Google's head of PR to be Facebook's VP of communications and public policy. Public policy? Huh.
Anyway, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg emailed his employees about the new hire, saying: "He (Elliot Schrage) will be responsible for developing the key messages we want people to understand about our products, our business and the growing global importance of social networking and what we do."
Yes, the key messages we want people to understand.
Sounds positively Web 1.0.
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Amen. Text creates a customer experience - not just design or features. That is pretty funny for facebook.
A great reminder. My team continues "the strggle" to make sure we're putting things in the most commonly understood terms. It is challenging with other groups in your on corporation, let alone your external audience. To not do so, reduces the "pass along" dynamic of any referral, viral or brand efforts.
In any online endeavour you are unwise to wear all the hats. You may be a design genius, a PR whizz, a marketing guru, a great writer, but you will not excel at each and every task your website business faces. So when planning your strategies be sure to buy in the very best persons for each job even when you are using freelancers. Many a well known websites giant could use improved user interfaces! :)
Hah! So what do you all think of Starbuck's, that McDonalds-for-the-middle-classes, with their tell, grande etc, rather than large, medium & small?
Me, it really gets my goat.
Interesting question, Simon.
On the one hand, perhaps the ubiquity of Starbucks has made tall, grande, venti part of our cultural lexicon.
On the other, I still encounter on occasion people who don't understand what they mean.
Maybe more pretension that jargon.
Hi Ben,
Hmmm, while I agree that Starbuck's outlets are ubiquitous (in the OECD, anyway) as a rare customer (twice in three years?) I find the jargon pretentious and off-putting. It's only a medium-sized cup of coffee, for goodness' sake! To be honest I find their attempt to create mystique through language and ritual (as all leaders of new religious movements do) to be shallow and unconvincing.
But yes, it is deliberate, not casual - and so that sets it apart from the lazy users of jargon - "what's your sort code?", banks ask me - and Cable TV providers, insurance companies ask me for things like my customer number, policy number, subscriber ID, billing reference... Grrrr!
Simon
