Living in an abbr. world

Why is it that everyone seems to be in such a hurry in life? What is this irresistible craving we have for speed? Now I must admit that I grew up in the 1980s as part of the MTV generation so my attention span is pretty limited. Even Lisa Simpson, in an episode of The Simpsons, commented that (and I’m paraphrasing here) “we grew up in the MTV generation so we have an attention span of less than a minute.”

Armed with a short attention span and living in a business world where time apparently does equal money, we need to find ways to cut corners so we can be more productive. I completely understand that. Technologies like cell phones and mobile computing keep me stay connected to my work and help improve my productivity. But seriously, have we taken the whole speed-productivity-simplifying everything a little too far?

Which brings me to my question of the day: how many acronyms does the high tech world need? Why must we shorten everything so that we can talk faster?

The other day I was configuring my daughter’s new laptop. In the middle of cursing up a storm (yes, I’m technologically challenged J), in the same sentence I said, “just plug that into the USB drive, I’ll hook it up to the Wi-Fi network and the printer and then you’ll have your own SOHO set-up.” She looked at me like I was from Mars.

In an effort to help simplify everyone’s life in the tech world and help improve productivity I recommend that we combine some high tech acronyms. How about these?

CRM and ERP? Would that be CREEP?

HIPAA and BPO? Would that be HIPPO?

GUI and NIMBY? Would that be GUMBY?

SOHO and SAP? Would that be SOAP?

SMB and AC? Would that be SMAC?

Really now…SaaS, IP, VOIP, FOIP, ISO, CMOS, HTTP, RFID, FTP, OEM and EMEA …it never stops.

So what’s your opinion? Has the tech world taken acronyms too far?

Author: Rob Goodman

Rob Goodman is a communications professional with more than 27 years of experience in public relations, marketing and content creation.