‘11.5G’ made me laugh – in a write up on a conference I read this morning (no link I’m afraid – this client doesn’t have copy and paste!). It means the need to build services that cater for all bearer technologies: 2G + 2.5G + 3G + 4G = 11.5G, right?
Well, my first instinct was to point out that they were missing 3.5G (HSDPA) and 3.75G (HSUPA), and I’m sure I have also heard something described as 3.9G.
So we’d have blown through 20G already. Perhaps this is getting a bit silly.
A similar thought recently concerned the daft web3.0 meme starting to do the rounds. Should we actually care what it is called until it succeeds in meeting users’ expectations?
Looking across at the technological evolution within the recorded media industry (vinyl, cassette, CD, MP3), there’s clearly been no need to resort to dull numerical monikers – the differences are clear enough to users – as are the benefits.
So perhaps we need to drop the in-house jargon and arithmetic one-up-man-ship… and think about packaging what we do in simple language that helps human beings know what’s in it for them.