Big Data, Growth Hacker, The Cloud & Lean Startup – these are the four most overused tech buzz words used in the starter community.
Every time a new trend emerges, someone tries to explain it, which usually ends up in a buzz word that everyone can understand at a high level.
Leena Rao wrote a piece on why we need to kill the term “big data“, Chris Dotson wrote about why he hates the term “cloud”, “Growth Hacker” is just a BS term for “Marketer who understands analytics,” and isn’t every startup a lean startup now?
I can even combine the words. Big Data in the Cloud. Growth Hacking is Lean Marketing for Startups. Let me see if I can use it all in one sentence for a fake company: My lean startup has acquired 100,000 users in one week for our big data in the cloud service using growth hacking techniques.
Did you cringe at hearing that last sentence? I actually didn’t. I know what it means at a high level, and that’s the point. Buzz words are created to create trends and get people excited. It’s a cursory introduction in to the topic. It’s not meant to be a detailed explanation.
The people that hate the buzz words are the people who deeply understand what the buzz word actually means. Good for them, but the word isn’t going to go away. Nobody is going to start using the term “SaaS” instead of “cloud”, which by the way, is a buzz word in itself. SaaS is actually an acronym of a buzz sentence!
Let’s say I couldn’t use a buzz word to describe my fake company. Here is the result:
“My new business collected 100,000 email addresses in one week for our service that collects data so large and complex that it becomes difficult to process using on-hand database management tools or traditional data processing applications. This service rents servers where user’s data are stored on servers at a remote location. We collected this many email addresses by performing activities which involved programming, marketing and creativity to inform more users of our new business”
Which sentence would you prefer? Does the above sentence explain any more than the first one?
My point is this: the buzz words are here to stay and they serve a purpose in tech and in business. If you are one of the lucky one’s to know exactly what the buzzword means, then great for you. For the rest of the uninformed world, the buzz words are needed and serve a purpose. Whether you do or don’t like it, those buzz words are here to stay.
*Big Data Definition source: Wikipedia