Posts Tagged “high-tech writing”

I have worked in the marketing departments of a number of high-tech companies, and if there’s any industry guilty of using too much jargon, it has to be high-tech.

Common wisdom in high-tech writing says to stress benefits before features. Be sure to tell your audience that your solution is faster, more cost-effective, easier to use, and is better than all the rest. Don’t inundate your audience with a mind-numbing list of technical features.

Unfortunately, the result if often jargon-filled and cliche-ridden sentences that border on short novels. You can read them five times over and the copy still doesn’t tell you anything. You’re left asking “but what does this product do?”.

Here’s a smattering of phrases that illustrate my point.

“Take your business to the next level.”
What business? What level? Huh? If I come across this cliche again, I’m going to lose it.

“Out-of-the-box industry-tailored functionality with built-in flexibility to match your unique processes and evolving needs.”
That’s a lot of hyphens. Does this product also make toast?

“A next-generation inventory and order management platform that enables the strategic and cost-effective delivery of traditional and next-generation services over complex networks.”
Can someone tell me what “next-generation” means? Oh, and it doesn’t hurt to throw in the word “strategic” once in a while to appeal to upper management.

“Get the right data to the right people at the right time.”
I guess that’s better than getting the wrong data to the wrong people at the wrong time. Enough said.