Corporate speak

Matt from 37signals has a hilarious post today making fun of Adaptive Path's latest essay.

As a geek, reading articles like this just hurts my soul: there are no new thoughts, just buzzwords and overly complicated diagrams. When I first read the original AJAX essay, I wanted to rip my eyes out. I couldn't believe that these guys were getting so much attention just because they coined a new buzzword.

But of course, geeks aren't the target audience for this stuff. As a fellow consultant, I can appreciate the intent: it can be hard to explain technical things to non-technical people. I just wish they tried to do it without the incredibly cheesy portraits and terrible diagrams.

Matt also links to an old 37signals joke, Enormicon, where they make fun of branding consultants. Some claim that Sapient was the first "*nt" company (we were founded in 1990). Surprisingly, Sapient's name didn't come from the branding guys-- Jerry, one of our CEOs, found it in the dictionary and just liked how it sounded (or at least that's the story they like to tell).