I Think I've Found Gobbledy Patient Zero
Is it possible it all starts with Gartner?
Hello Gobbledeers,
A little housekeeping first:
- The latest episode of the Gobbledy Podcast came out on Monday and features Seller Systems CEO Brandon Young. You may (or may not) remember Brandon from the column titled SaaS Companies Should Steal This Homepage. He created an amazing website for his business, and we spend 30 minutes or so talking about his company that teaches people how to sell on Amazon, and how his website is basically his sales team. There’s a bunch of great advice if you’re thinking about re-doing your company’s website. And I tell him how an Amazon seller conference I went to was like a Bar Mitzvah.
(Subscribe and review, if you don’t mind)
- A small correction from last week’s newsletter: My father tells me he is in the Coast Guard Auxiliary, not the Coast Guard Reserve, a fact that I knew but my fingers did not type.
Readers’ Corner
Last week I introduced Readers’ Corner and asked you folks to send in some gobbledy you’ve seen out there. And - I actually can’t believe this - people responded. Yes, I am adult enough to admit that I underestimated my readers. It won’t happen again.
One theme I saw from those responses was that anytime anyone writes anything having to do with Web3, it’s a masterpiece. To wit:
Reader John F. shares a blurble (?) from an exec at Qredo, a decentralized finance wallet company:
“…use of multi-sided computing to generate segregated deposit addresses and eliminate the risk of private key theft. MPC nodes sign transactions as part of a consensus-based workflow that are secured without the need for centralized storage of private keys.”
Yes. Absolutely. That’s much better than “here’s a twenty dollar bill, can I have change?”
If you’d like to see your name in Readers’ Corner, send in your Gobbledy Blurbles (tm) to jared@sagelett.com
Readers’ Corner is at the top because this week’s column was inspired by reader Sean J. who sent me this:
If you’re on mobile, that may be tough to see. But trust me, that’s a better option than if you’re on desktop and can actually read it.
I loved that Gartner graphic because Gartner is an advisory firm, and they’re supposed to be advising, which I assume also means they’re supposed to be clarifying, and that graphic, alongside “persistent, decentralized, collaborative, and interoperable opportunities,” makes for an impressive lack of clarification.
Patient Zero, and William the Conquerer
One of the foundational questions of this newsletter is why tech companies use the language they do to describe their products. That language is unique to tech and sounds wildly out of place anywhere outside of tech.
While looking for that Gartner “Elements of a Metaverse” graphic on Twitter, I had an epiphany about the answer to the question of where all this nonsense language comes from.
I think Gartner is the William the Conquerer* of gobbledy.
(* Mrs. Bentzlin, my English teacher in 8th grade - a different teacher than the one I’ve mentioned who tortured us with sentence diagramming - spoke frequently of William the Conquerer, who led the Battle of Normandy in 1066, which led to the creation of the English language. That will not be on the quiz. Mrs. Bentzlin recently passed away, and I was amazed how many students posted things on Facebook about how she influenced their life. I was blessed with at least 2 English teachers I’ve written about here who have had a similar influence on me. I hope you at least had one…)
Scrolling through Gartner’s Twitter, it is amazing how they do not fail to use complicated compounded nonsense when a simpler phrase would do. Let’s take a look at a few recent examples:
Metaverse is a combinatorial trend requiring multiple technologies and trends.
It’s a trend, requiring trends.
Speaking of trends, let’s take a look at their top data and analytics trends:
Yes - I’ll activate dynamism and diversity through adaptive AI systems and metadata-driven data fabric…I mean, who wouldn’t????
I can’t argue with the “skills and literacy shortfall,” since I have a significant shortfall in being able to understand this slide.
Maybe you’re more of a Digital Government Technology Platform kinda gal. Don’t worry, they’re here to help. If you’re a rare bird who doesn’t know what a Digital Government Technology Platform is, let Gartner explain it to you:
A digital government technology platform allows for true digital transformation resulting in simplified processes, improved citizen interactions and ultimately a more resilient future.
Duh! Improved citizen interactions and ultimately a more resilient future. Obvi!
Oh what? That isn’t clear enough? Maybe you’re more of a visual learner. They’ve got that covered, gobbledy-free. Just take a look:
Clear as day!
Here, they’re literally just trying to screw with me:
You know what phrase I’ve never said in my life…yet? Asynchronous Intelligent Coordination:
Incidentally - all the Gartner screenshots I’ve included here are FROM THE LAST 10 DAYS! That’s not a lifetime of work - it’s a week and a half!
Gartner is the patient zero of every software website you’ve ever read and thought, “I have no idea what this thing does.”
It’s all enough to make me want a big bowl:
As a former Gartner associate and current SaaS sales guy, this all made me smile. Your friend Tc