Words, Buzzwords, Tags, and Buzztags
Have You Updated your Buzzwords? That is the question being asked by Kathy Sierra at Creating Passionate Users….one of the blogs I would absolutely want to have access to should I find myself on the proverbial desert Island. She says that we are on Internet time, baby and last month’s buzzwords quickly become like email, "so 5 minutes ago".
Her point about the latest (as of 5 minutes ago) Web 2.0x buzzwords (ok what’s with the "x"? Oh, yeah..we’re on internet time, baby) is that they are not user focused but technology/business model focused….she says that the buzzwords should be written in terms of users…the buzzwords should convey what the benefit of the innovation is to users not as be an explanation of the technology. As she explicitly states, "A buzz-phrase should explicitly state how it directly benefits the user." To paraphrase, it should capture, not the technology but the this rocks/I rock when I use it user experience.
OK..so that explains how Web 2.0x buzz words should explain the benefit of the "thing" that they are buzzing about. What then is the benefit of the buzzwords themselves? It occurs to me that there is a relationship between buzzwords and tagging.
Are buzzwords in fact a kind of user directed information organizational tool, like a tag? Tag being itself a Web 2.0 buzzword…as Web 2.0 is in fact a buzzword itself. Actually, Web 2.0 is a kind of enormous buzz cloud filled with all kinds if buzz words: Just take Edge Perspectives with John Hagel’s definition: “an emerging network-centric platform to support distributed, collaborative and cumulative creation by its users.†Take the "an" the "to" the "and" the "by its" out of the preceeding sentence and all that is left are buzzwords.
So, are buzzwords in fact, tags without their soft navigational link side? Or, since buzzwords came before tags…are tags buzzwords with function?
As we struggle to categorize the onslaught of information constantly hurling our way into something meaningful to us and to others like us by tagging, so do buzzwords organize a process, a procedure, a movement, an event into a word or two, that is understood and "says it all" to us and to others like us.
I know that Kathy Sierra was talking about the problem with buzzwords being tech driven, not user driven; and that it would be more meaningful if the buzzwords conveyed "how this thing helps the user kick ass" however, when users start using the buzzwords, they are then driving the usage. Collaborative creation is a just buzzword on a presentation slide until the user feels collaborative creation….then they are driving. Turnabout is fair play…especially in a game of tag.
So the #1 benefit of buzzwords is in essence, social..,we are speaking a common language; we see things the same way: we are "in the know" together, united in our conversant buzzwords. Using buzzwords in a conversation is like a secret code…I hear you use a buzzword and know that you "get it" and I let you know
that I "get it, too" and the seat belt sign is off and I am free to
move around your cabin. Our use of buzzwords says something about us…we get "it" or we don’t get "it" as evidenced by our buzzwords.
As Mark Twain wrote long back when tag was a child’s game,"The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightening and the lightening bug." The difference between a buzzword and a word is the difference between an IPod and an MP3 player. You can check the Technorati, del.icio.us, and Furl tags to see.
So, we now turn words into tags and if we are joined by others tagging the same word, the word becomes a buzzword? And if lots of other like tagging people, tag the same buzzword then the buzzword becomes a buzztag? In the mad, mad, mad world of Web 2.0 that is what it’s all about! And you thought it was the Hokey Pokey?
And of course there is a site dedicated to improving our Buzzword intelligence, BQ. I am not certain there is one yet for improving our Tag Intelligence, TI.
Technorati Tags:
tags, tagging, buzzwords, Technorati, buzztags
Typepad
Typepad has become the source of dissatisfaction for many bloggers lately…and the subject of many blog posts that express the dissatisfaction. Business Blog Consulting has three such posts which highlight the problems and offer positive suggestions including a "business class" of service and limiting new subscribers until the infrastructure can support it. I believe they are promoting with a buy one give one offer…why promote a flawed product? I think they should consider ending promotional offers and closing subscriptions and fix the issues.
This should become standard company policy and is good business sense. We all know what happens when we over commit…..things don’t get done right and no one is happy. Further, we lose the trust and confidence that our clients and customers had in us. The equity that we worked long and hard to earn is diminished…and value decreases much more quickly than it increases. Mostly no one is bashing or trashing Typepad….bloggers are asking that the issues be acknowledged, addressed and fixed. There are exceptions.
On top of the infrasctructure problems summed up by Raving Lunacy, "When it takes longer to post than it does to type"…and the lack of crisis control communication from Six Apart, there is the problem in the trenches of customer support. You state your problem and everything you know about it in an email. They respond with a request for more specifics. You give them the information that they say they need thinking that they intend to provide a solution, they then reply with a request for more information…sometimes they then refer you to the "how to" section of the instruction manual which you have all ready tried, you wonder why they asked for the additional information…you try and point this out…they then ask different questions. It is an endless loop, seemingly designed to avoid providing a solution with the illusion of support in the form of questions.
What a waste of everyone’s time. And I am not blaming the customer support staff….this too is an infrastructure problem; get more support staff, train them to own and solve issues and reward them for solving issues not writing emails. Customer satisfaction is directly related to employee satisfaction….something is not working here.
As Toby Bloomberg posted on Diva Marketing , " Growth without a plan that includes customer communications can cost you significantly in terms of good will and lost customers." Typepad needs to align people, strategy, and technology….Mihaly Csilszentmihaly, the father of Flow, wrote in Good Business that, a valuable product or service is one that customers perceive, rightly or wrongly, make them happy. No one is very happy with Typepad right now…the product or the service.
Technorati Tags: Type_Pad
The Tag Not Taken
It has been one of those two steps forwards one step backwards weeks….and one of the two-steps has been my adventures in tagging. To make a long post short, I had been feeling under-tagged for quite some time..I got the idea, just not the execution. Like many similar things that require that missing part of my brain to implement, I just kept putting off the OK, I’ll read the instruction manual part hoping that one of those little tag clouds would just float on over and the tagging elves would make it happen. So, while that wasn’t happening, a post by Toby Bloomberg at Diva Marketing on the very issue of being tag challenged actually started a series of steps that ultimately solved the problem for both of us (well it’s solved for Toby…this post will let me know if it’s solved for me) thanks to Marshall Kirkpatrick, whose bookmarklett reduced it all to one little web 2.0 version of fill in the blank!
So…all the great back and forth conversation and support from Marshall and Beth and Toby, started by tagging, the topic, really is what blogging and tagging and all the awesome new tools, in reality, are all about, right? And since this post is also a test to see if my tags, powered by Pingshot, will actually launch me into Technorati heaven and it has been such a two- step week, I will close with the wish that,
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two tags diverged in a wood, and I–
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Technorati Tags: Web, 2.0, Tags
Technorati Bookmarklet
Thanks to Marshall Kirkpatrick whose tagline "Always on the lookout for the best web tools" is so true, I will now be including Technorati tags in my posts. Marshall, who has written an explanation of tagging and podcasted about it in language that is easy to understand even for those of us who do not speak Geek fluently PLUS, has made it easy to do with his Blog Tag Bookmarklet….and there’s more (better than a Ginzu knife!): Beth Kantor has created a screencast which is available on Marshall’s Blog or on her own.
Technorati Tags: tag, bookmarklet, tags, podcasting, screencasting
2 Cool Sites From 2 Cool Sites
Even with RSS and aggregators, there is still too much information for me to process and use. In my email was Inter Alia Weekly Research, which always has great information to help manage the overload. This time, a site called memeorandum which takes daily news articles and links to the blogs that are talking about the the stories. Then from Seth Godins Blog came a reference to Emily Chang’s e-hub which is a constantly updated reference to everything new in blogs, social software, folksonomy, design and well, just everything.
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