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The development of such language ("content verticals") indicates the transition of a maturing industry from the founders/builders to the executives/gate keepers
by cft 11y ago
The development of such language ("content verticals") indicates the transition of a maturing industry from the founders/builders to the executives/gate keepers. They create such language to inflate the value of their executive work which is necessary in corporate politics, as opposed to the value creation process of founders who build new things and call them simply.
- jonahx 11y agoTranslation: Middle management invents slang like this to seem more important.
- cft 11y agoUpper management too. Have you ever been to a board meeting of a public company?
- mikkelewis 11y agoI'm sorry you've been rubbed the wrong way to be so bitter on just a term.
- bksenior 11y agoI couldnt care less. It just screams inexperienced teenager that thinks everything adult is stuuuuipd. Just had higher expectations for the discourse, thats all.
- auggierose 11y agoThis teenager is on HN 64 days longer than you.
- spacehome 11y agoAh, yes, HN -- the font of all life experience.
- taneq 11y agoEveryone invents slang to seem more important.
- bksenior 11y agoWould you prefer them say "categories of content on the site that tend to deal with a central topic or theme." Content vertical is a pretty standard term. These kind of judgemental blanket statements have no place on a site like this,and worse show a lack of experience working in any large company. Please try to be more productive when contributing.
- obituary_latte 11y agoThis guy is a straight shooter with upper management written all over him
- niels_olson 11y agoWhat would you say ... ya do here?
- PhasmaFelis 11y ago"Content categories" would probably work fine.
- Outdoorsman 11y agoMost trades develop a vernacular particular to the trade...this makes it easy for those in the trade to distinguish between knowledgeable tradesmen and those who are new... It's a rite of passage... Go work a construction site...a hospital...a day care center...if you're new you'll either pick up on the "code" or be somewhat of an outsider until you do... It's the price of true admission...
- jonpaine 11y agoIt's not that specific. It's everywhere. I see it all the time in programming terminology. There are technical terms that annoy me when I first hear them. It appears people are trying to inflate their worth by using unnecessarily specific or complicated terms. Then on some random night when I'm bored I'll familiarize myself with the term and all its' nuances and from that point forward it's more efficient to use the formerly-annoying-and-seemingly-high-and-mighty term to communicate exactly what I mean in a single word or phrase. That's just how language works. But like anything, some folks will latch onto anything to inflate what they bring to the table by over-complicating things. Thankfully the divining rod for weeding these people out is often as simple as asking them two to three questions on the topic to discern if they're leveraging their vocabulary or hiding behind it.
- jonahx 11y agoI've had the same experience. I'd add that after you learn and internalize the slang, you can usually see it falling into one of three broad categories: 1. It's a genuinely useful term, descriptively named, for which no good succinct alternative exists: eg, "outrage porn." 2. A genuinely useful term, poorly named, but excusable because it already has an entrenched history and community using it: eg, "monad" in functional programming. 3. A confusing term, poorly named, for which many good alternatives exist, but which continues to thrive on meme status, or for political reasons, within a particular community. A lot of marketing and business slang, and PC terminology, falls into this category. So I think it's valid to criticize slang in category 3. That is, not all slang is created equal, or for equal reasons.
- zem 11y agohow is "content vertical" any more a sign of the apocalypse than, say, "threaded tree" or "responsive site"?
- tptacek 11y agoOn a typical day, this site does a pretty good job of inflating the irony aneurysm building up in my psyche, but I'm afraid that if I read a comment from a tech nerd complaining about how "executives" use jargon to obscure what they do, that aneurysm will certainly rupture.
- spearo77 11y agoI've been lurking in your /threads page for a good while, and this single-scentence post conjures up an excellent comic strip image. Keep up the good work!
- lsd5you 11y agoI don't think it's as simple as that. The complaint is about the vulgarity of executive jargon. The underlying problem with it all is the belief that they are at the top of a non-meritocratic hierarchy. Positions that have been attained largely bullshitting and politicking (and of course hard work, just not necessarily productive hard work). The jargon is just a small part of that. Fundamentally if someone can program well they will get hired. Whether one is suited to run a large company or not well its complicated and the outcomes often make the world (and indeed their companies) a worse place. At least that is the at least somewhat justified belief. That said, personally I think it is reasonably descriptive. What I do object to is when it leaks into normal life. Get new 'content'... my you have got good taste in content (points to bookshelf)
- feintruled 11y agoAlso, people referring to themselves as consumers, rather than customers. "Doing anything nice this weekend, Bob?" "Just gonna sit in, consume some content."
- laughinghan 11y agoI completely agree. That's why we founders, who are much better at using simple language, should ideate a way to pivot our unicorns to disrupt this space. These executives will discover they're not a culture fit in this paradigm shift where sweat equity is properly valued. (Can I get some help working in 'gamification', 'bootstrapping', and 'dogfooding'?)
- msellout 11y agoIt seems that the adjective 'completely' can be used to mean 'dis-'.
- larrymcp 11y agoDon't forget "leverage" instead of "use", "orthogonal" instead of "unrelated", and "onboarding" instead of "training"!
- jonesb6 11y agoYou forgot to pivot a second time.
- staticautomatic 11y agoI couldn't agree more with your learnings.
- bdcravens 11y agoI had to reread this a couple of times to properly parse - was it a meta way of answering the question?
- hammock 11y agoBro. Yahoo has been a publicly traded company since 1996. What did you think?
- forgetsusername 11y ago>indicates the transition of a maturing industry from the founders/builders to the executives/gate keepers. Is that what you think? It certainly gave me pause; "startups" are some of the worst offenders when it comes to spewing jargon. >as opposed to the value creation process of founders who build new things and call them simply. Oh brother...
- untog 11y agoUh... yeah, that's why the startup industry has absolutely no trade language, right?