Bullshit in Technology Marketing

Here’s some bullshit marketing terms.

Military Grade.

Enterprise.

Big Data.

Web Scale.

These are meant to appeal to some kind of authority. We are meant to think, if it’s tough enough for the military, or a Fortune 500 company, or a tech behemoth, then it is good enough for my business.

But their business is not my business. Before adopting a technology, or worse, a methodology, we look for bullshit and question it:

• Enterprise: Am I paying for capabilities I don’t need?
• Big Data: How many Petabytes am I storing?
• Continuous Delivery: How many times a day do I need to release software?
• Web Scale: How many millions of simultaneous users do I need to serve?
• Military Grade: Will I be toppling foreign governments?

Sometimes you legitimately need a Million Dollar Combine, but a John Deere 4020 might do the trick. It’s versatile, durable, it doesn’t come with subscription fees, and a reasonably smart person can understand how it works and, with some effort, keep one running indefinitely.

You can s/million dollar combine/kafka/g here. I’ve been on projects that really do need Kafka, but as often as not, a batch file copy will be cheaper and more reliable

We design systems with security and performance in mind. But we should also design them to be open, with stable interfaces, and well-vetted techology. We value the latter “ilities” as much as the former.

I can’t compete with Google and Microsoft by scaling my technology. But I can fill the need by being available, by being a real person, and by meeting my customers’ needs succinctly and directly.