The tech industry's most baffling buzzwords: A brief guide

As tech journalists, we get a lot of pitches from companies' public relations teams. Some of these pitches, unfortunately, are written in a language that bears little resemblance to English. Indeed, many of these pitches are so indecipherable that even the most hardened veteran tech reporters will find their eyes glazing over after reading 50 press releases informing them that TechnoCorp, the leading provider of cloud-based Web 3.0 solutions, has announced the availability of a disruptively robust new solution that will create an industry paradigm shift. For those normal people out there who have no idea what any of these words mean, Network World has produced this handy guide to the tech industry's most impenetrable buzzwords, slogans and catch phrases that will hopefully help you tell your blended threats apart from your paradigm shifts.

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Buzzword #1: Disruptive

What's strange about the word "disruptive" is that it normally has a rather negative connotation. For example: "When my drunken Uncle Jimmy passed out on my coffee table, it was disruptive to my Sunday afternoon." In the topsy-turvy world of the tech industry, however, it means that a technology is so innovative that it disrupts the current market and forces companies to change their business models to stay competitive. The phrase was initially coined by a 1995 Harvard Business School article coauthored by Joseph Bower and Clayton Christensen called "Disruptive Technologies: Catching the Wave."

Buzzword #2: Paradigm shift

This is what happens when a disruptive technology hits the market. Basically, it means that people and businesses are doing stuff differently than they did before. The Internet, for example, created a paradigm shift in the way people purchased music, because they're more likely to download songs directly onto their computers than to purchase CDs. Marketers, of course, are eager to describe product releases as creating a "paradigm shift" that will change the way the world works forever. A quick glance through PR News wire reveals that the following products have been described as marking paradigm shifts at one point or another: a cylinder gas delivery system, a piece of fraud-prevention software, a prenatal genetic testing program, a peer-to-peer music sharing service and a marketing venture founded by hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons.

You'll notice that paradigm shifts are often offered by companies that describe themselves as "the leading providers" in their field, which is actually how every single company in every single industry describes itself.

Buzzword #3: Cloud computing