Tonight, I’m going to talk about a very special topic. This is a topic that has touched the minds and hearts of all IT professionals. It is also a topic that drives us nuts day in and day out. The topic I’m referring to is acronyms.
I chose to discuss acronyms because someone today reminded me just how painful their overuse has become. After all, I can’t tell you how many meetings, discussions, presentations, etc. that I’ve had to sit through where acronyms had been thrown through the air like an armada of pirate ships searching for their next victim (yeah bad analogy, but you get the point). I also can’t tell you how many times I’ve also looked around the room during these intensive acronym usage sessions to analyze people’s reactions while pondering the following question: “Did they understand the acronym that was just used, or did they just relate the acronym to the wrong meaning?”
Yes… that is the root of the problem for why I’m writing this ode. For you see, there are just too many Information Technology (IT) acronyms and there usage tends to be way out of control. Case in point:
Does the FDE solution make use of AD, GPO, and PKI to enforce IT SOX requirements and protect our IP?
Err… if you didn’t have the background for what I was referring to you might not understand what I was asking. Or, better yet you might translate my question as:
Does the Full Duplex Ethernet solution make use of Application Developers, Global Process Outsourcing, and Performance Key Indicators to enforce Integration Testing Schema for Object-Oriented XML requirements and protect our Internet Protocol?
If so, then you would either be really confused or think that I’m talking in toughs. In either case, my example illustrates the problem with acronyms when they are not correctly used. If you’re still not convinced, let’s review the many different meanings for the acronym KB. According to the Web site https://www.acronymfinder.com/, KB can stand for any of the following IT terms:
- Knowledge Base
- Keyboard
- KiloByte
- Kilobit
- Kick and Ban
Did you catch that? There is an entire database of acronyms that this Web site is hosting. Yes, a single resource that is dedicated to chronicling acronyms/abbreviations and their usage. Even more impressive, this site has over 550,000 terms that are available. That’s pretty darn impressive! How many do you know off of the top of your head?
So, next time you jump onto the acronym train. Just consider for a second that certain members of your audience may not be familiar with the acronyms that you are using. Instead, slow down for a second, and introduce the abbreviation that you will be using. In the end you may get less blank stares.
