The Word On The Street

"...Buzzwords are typically intended to impress one's audience with the pretense of knowledge. For this reason, they are often universal. They typically make sentences difficult to dispute, on account of their cloudy meaning..." (Wikipedia)

Over the past couple of days, I have found myself explaining various "buzzwords", whether it be to a client, colleague, or some random stranger, it seems like everywhere I go, some new buzzword is being used. What's interesting, is that it doesn't matter who is asking the question, or which buzzword is being used, the conversation has an underlying tone of confusion and always starts in one of two ways:

"...I was in this meeting/read this email/heard this person use the word [insert buzzword here] and I have absolutely no idea what they are talking about, please help..."

or

"...I read in the news/heard on the radio/saw on TV that all the big companies are starting to [insert buzzword here] so let's do it too...".

Now, while I have absolutely no problem being the designated buzzword guru (in fact I rather enjoy it), I feel that there might be some people out there too afraid to ask the questions. And so, today's entry, is a small compilation of words that I've put together over time based on the "buzzwords" that I've come across.

• AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) - A programming language used for creating more dynamic and interactive web applications. It differs from other languages in that it communicates with the server through the exchange of small amounts of data behind the scenes, thus removing the need for slow page reloads caused by user interaction.
• Blogs (weB LOG) - A website containing an individual's chronological accounts (using text, images, multimedia...) on a specific subject (i.e. Interactive Project Management, The Business of Technology As I See It...). Most blogs increase their sense of interaction through the use of user comments.
  
• CMS (Content Management System) - A software system used to easily manage content (i.e. documents, images, multimedia...) production, organization, and archiving.
• CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) - A stylesheet language used to indicate the layout (i.e. margins, font type, colours...) of a document written in markup language (i.e. a web page, email, blog...).
  
• RSS (Really Simple Syndication) - A web feed format used for automatically publishing content (i.e. news highlights, podcasts, news groups...) to your website/blog/email, based on your specific subscription.
• SEO (Search Engine Optimization) - A process or service offered to improve the natural search ranking of a website within various search engines, thus leading to an increase in the quality and quantity of hits.
• SMS (Short Message Service) - Refers to the sending of short messages to and from cell phones. Typically, used when referencing mobile-to-mobile text messages.
• Social Networks - Social structures setup on the Internet to connect like minded groups or individuals (i.e. facebook.com, myspace.com, linkedin.com...). To find out more about social networks, read my entry To Facebook Or Not To Facebook, That Is The Question?
  
• Viral Marketing - A marketing technique used to increase brand awareness by leveraging pre-existing social networks and encouraging it's users to voluntarily pass along a specific message to other people within their networks.
  
• Widget - A self standing chunk of code that can be implemented into any basic HTML page for added functionality (i.e. printing, font control, bookmarking...).
  
• Wiki (What I Know Is) - A collaborative technology used to easily organize information on the Internet (i.e. wikipedia.com).

So remember, the next time you start to ramble on about some new buzzword, that there is probably someone in the room who has absolutely no idea what you're talking about.

To Facebook Or Not To Facebook, That Is The Question?

Today's million dollar question...To Facebook, Or Not To Facebook?

So, unless you have been living under a rock for the past 3 years (and if you are kudos for setting up your wireless Internet enabling you to read this), I'm sure you have heard about Facebook. I know that in my own life, Facebook seems to come up on a daily basis, either at work, with friends, even the hairdresser (believe it or not), so what's the big deal? What is Facebook? And why is everyone talking about it?

Facebook is the latest in Internet Social Networking, the next big thing in a long line of social networks (i.e. classmates.com, friendster, myspace...). It is a community setup on the Internet, where people can come together to connect, to share pictures and links, to discuss similar interests, or just a place to meet other people. That being said, what is it about Facebook that differentiates it from all the others?

My best guess regarding Facebook's fame, would be it's targeted audience and therefore almost by default, it's sense of legitimacy. Unlike some of it's predecessors, Facebook originally (at it's conception in 2004) went out and focused it's attention on targeting college and university students. In fact, it wasn't until 2006 that it decided to became public and open it's doors to everyone. That being said, I think that it's original sense of exclusivity and academia, created a perception of trust, which therefore provided that extra bit of motivation for people to join, people who might typically be weary of these types of initiatives.

So Facebook is fun, legitimate, adult skewed...then why isn't everyone on it? I believe George Orwell, said it best in his novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, with the words "Big Brother is watching you". While Facebook acts as a great medium for networking, it is also a great place to gather millions and millions of data. Everything you could ever want to know about a person, from their favourite movie through to who their friends are, or where they work. Now while people might be okay with sharing this information with their friends or even random strangers, concerns begin to develop when third party corporations start to get involved.

In the end, is Facebook good, is it bad? Only time will tell. My guess is that it probably has another 6 - 12 months before something bigger and better comes out, until then, I say go out there and meet some new people, just remember to be cautious when posting personal information.

Oh...and in case you were wondering...YES I am on Facebook!

Pay It Forward

Today's entry is based on a little experiment that I've been running now for just over 2 months, which I like to call the Sugar Challenge. Based on a concept from the book "Pay It Forward" written by Catherine Ryan Hyde, I started an experiment at my office to test the impact of attitude in the work environment.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Pay It Forward concept, here's a quick recap. In the book, Reuben St. Clair, a seventh grade teacher, creates an extra-credit assignment in which the kids in his class must think of an idea to change the world and then put that idea into action. One of his students, a boy by the name of Trevor, comes up with an idea to do something good for 3 people and then when they ask how to pay you back, you tell them that they have to pay the good deed forward to 3 more people. And so the good deeds begin to exponentially grow and incorporate more and more people.

So how does this relate to me?

Back in early March, I started to put out candy or treats in a little basket on my desk at the office. Instantaneously, people appeared for a tasty little snack, said thank you, and walked away with a big sugary grin on their faces. But what did this show, besides for the fact that a little bit of free sugar in the middle of the afternoon is enough to make anybody happy!? Dissatisfied with my findings, I continued to put out sugar and observe some more. My first observation, was that I started to notice less and less work conflicts. All of a sudden, there was less backlash from internal resources when I needed them to redo work, or that there was more patience from people when I delayed on providing a deliverable. I concluded from this that the candy was basically acting as a form of payment or a bribe, wherein I'll give you a little sugar and then, out of guilt you do me a little favour. This realization troubled me and so I put a hold on the candy distribution, but I didn't receive the outcome that I had expected...

With the lack of sugar, people didn't stop being easygoing, but their attitude did begin to change, reverting to an all work, all stress attitude. Once again intrigued, I put out the candy and really watched people's behaviour. What I discovered, is that the candy wasn't acting as a bribe, but rather it was acting as a conduit to the past, inducing a youthful lightheartedness among my coworkers. All of a sudden, I started to see a sense of fun being incorporated back into their daily work routine, a feeling which due to an unfortunate series of circumstances had disappeared. Work was still being done, stress was still being had, but all of a sudden there seemed to be this mass epiphany that we are all in this together, so let's get our work done, but let's make sure to have fun doing it.

Now for the Pay It Forward part, the sugar wasn't just altering their behaviour towards me, but their behaviour towards each other and even more intriguing it was altering their behaviour towards clients! It was amazing to watch my coworkers go from one end of the spectrum, where they are at their wit's end over a client, eat a jelly bean, and then all of a sudden jump to the other end of the spectrum, re-energized to take on the world.

So, in the end, maybe I'm just being naive and forcing my perception of reality into a concept created by a fictional novel. But, if for a second I'm right about this, how amazing is it that a little bit of sugar can make such a drastic change!