Tech Jargon – When Is It Too Much?

A.O. Scott and David Carr recently posted a New York Times video Q&A “Sweet Spot” discussion on the topic of tech jargon, and made some very good observations about why people, including even their selves, may occasionally go overboard with the terminology. One of the key things you need to remember when using an abundance of this jargon is when it is time to turn it off. For those in the tech career field, it is the language of your peers, but to the rest of the world, it can become something else.

“Part of what happens is we become somewhat prisoners of our source face, and we want them to think that we are smart, that we’re learned, and so what we do is adopt their nomenclature,” Carr says. He then goes on to give this superb example of a phrase where the jargon can ”get out of control,” stating “My site’s in beta, I’ve been dog-fooding the product to check its scalability and user interface, and see just how sticky it is on the social graph, and I’m going to use big data to do it.” Is such a thing being said because it is really necessary to fill things with that jargon, or is it done to promote oneself as being really intelligent in the field?

This type of scenario can apply to most any career field, but with technology booming so much in recent years, the language is becoming more obvious to the general public. For just the average user of technology versus those who don’t, the mass amount of abbreviations that have become common place in the texting world is confusing enough, but to then throw out more tech-speak like this, it can understandably boggle the mind.

The point is, this language has meaning, and it is good for communicating specific facts to those who understand it. It is no different in the academia world, as Scott points out. The more studied and well-read you are, the more your language may change to reflect that. Sadly on the “streets” – outside of academia – the language has deteriorated greatly, making this type of jargon even more alien sounding to the general public. That is why it is important to watch not only what you say, but specifically who you say it to, or you can lose your audience quite quickly.

When you go in to first meet with a hiring agent, you may be meeting with a general HR rep for initial screening. Throwing a large amount of job-related jargon out to them may sound impressive, but may lose them and lose you points because they failed to understand. Save the advanced tech-speak for those directly within your line of study.

Another thing to watch out for is when a term catches on and starts becoming overused by everyone. A new important sounding keyword pops up, and everyone jumps on the bandwagon of using it, until it is to the point of abuse. Nick Bilton of Bits Blog joins the conversation giving an example of such a scenario. “There is a lot of jargon in the valley, and a lot of repetitive jargon too… When something is successful, everyone wants to be the ‘successful’ of that, and you go and look online and there is a ‘We are the uber of X’ – ‘We are the uber of pet-food’ – there are thousands of pitches I get like that every single week.” He attributes these types of uses and abuses as stemming from a lack of creativity. He also points out other ones in his own blog post on the topic, saying, “Here are a few examples that I regularly hear: ‘Let’s take this offline.’ ‘Let’s get this on the road map.’ ‘This is a U.G.C. product.’ (User generated content.) ‘We should organize a brain dump’ ‘Let’s pivot this discussion.’ Oftentimes it is just people who see what they believe is a good thing, so they latch on to it and it spreads like crazy.

Over time, these terms can and often do creep over into our normal speech, and we begin using these terms in the place of other terms. Sometimes it is for fun, sometimes it is for attention. When it comes to your job search, just try to remember to keep a lid on it unless you are directly in the company of those who already live and breathe in that same world. 

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles  at FreeDigitialPhotos.net