Hype and Reality

 I have lived through both- reality of change, and hype, for 65 years plus now. And I believe that I can recognise which is which, most of the time.

The internet and mobile phones synchronising communication and other technologies in a small package, were actually revolutionary, like the Wheel being invented, or 4 of them being put on a moveable frame by Ford (afford-able ones- that's a pun). 

But some of the corporate buzzwords that come and go with predictable regularity are just that- buzzwords. Nothing life-changing is going to happen, except to a few billionaires who may go bankrupt. Which is a good thing, if you see what they are doing after making those billions. 

To educate you, a smattering of buzzwords that more or less went bust or lost their pizzazz over time- Benchmarking, Globalization, Business Process Re-engineering, Agile, SaaS (not the mother-in-law, she still retains a sting), CRM, Service Quality (ha ha!), Good Governance (this is non-existent, mostly, anywhere you look), and a few more that I can't even remember.. to this you can add DevOps, AI, ML, or any others you can think of.

Anopheles on the Ukraine War

 Anopheles, my winged female friend, was back after a hiatus. So I updated her on the Coronavirus pandemic that I had managed to survive, and a few other things, like the war in Ukraine. And, of course, the school shootings in the U.S.

She was perplexed. 

"I thought you people had more sense," she said.

That was justified, given how it looked. But I tried a defence. 

"Not all of us are like that," was my lame defence.

"What are you going to do about this? Are you trying to stop the war? At least the rich guys in the West?"

I had to confess "Not exactly, they are sending more weapons, huge quantities, to Ukraine." 

"And the gun lobby is not about to give up either, on tighter laws to stop individual proliferation."

"But we have almost stopped the pandemic," I said, looking at the brighter things.

"Tell me, do you also have wars?" I was curious about her world.

"Yes, but only a war of words. Or buzzwords, if you want to be technical about it. Whoever creates a larger buzz, wins," she said.

"And what are some of these buzzwords?" I asked her.

"Energy through Efficient Flapping, Minimum noise, maximum output or Efficiency in Bites, Working around Mosquito Nets and other Obstacles, Co-opetition for Sharing Prey, Information System Updates to Find your Quarry, Investigating the Effect of Burgers and Pizzas on Blood Quality of Humans... there are lots."

"Illuminating, I said," and switched off the light, while bidding her good night!