Content

20 Cliches, Geek Terms Banned From CompTIA’s Stage

Vince Tinnirello
Vince Tinnirello

Vince Tinnirello is driving tectonic change that could disrupt technology conferences worldwide. Will we all pivot in time?

Here's the background: Like a pack of political outsiders promising to shake up Washington, Anchor Network Solutions CEO Vince Tinnirello and several channel influencers (Ingram's Jason Bystrak, Datto's Samantha Ciaccia and Exigo Group's Stephanie Martin among them) banned 20 terms, cliches and geek references for all panelists at this week's CompTIA Annual Member Meeting in Chicago.

Here's the list. And just to clarify: CompTIA didn't develop or endorse the list. This seemed to be a member-driven revolution... And for those keeping score at home, we've identified how often ChannelE2E has written each term or phrase in our online coverage since the site launched in September 2015. (Counts are current as of noon ET, March 24, 2016)...

  1. At the End of the Day: Three times but never by yours truly.
  2. Big Data: We're embarrassed to share the figure (or perhaps we just can't count that high).
  3. Born in the Cloud: Thrice (that's one more than twice).
  4. Echo That: Never.
  5. Ecosystem: Too often to mention.
  6. Engage: Hmmm... Far more than we expected.
  7. Holistic: Less than 20...
  8. Grass Roots: Once
  9. Go-to-Market Strategy: Four times.
  10. Paradigm Shift: Never
  11. Pick Up Where You Left Off: Never
  12. Piggy Back: Never
  13. Reach Out: Eleven ... (as in... "These go to 11.")
  14. Skin in the Game: Once
  15. Sooner rather than later: Never
  16. Strategic: Approaching inifinity
  17. Traction: About 20
  18. Trusted Advisor: Seven times... but never again by us...
  19. Value Proposition: Ten times
  20. Vis-a-vis: Not in our vocabulary.

And, for safe keeping: The hand-written banned list... Allegedly penned by Vince himself...

Joe Panettieri

Joe Panettieri is co-founder & editorial director of MSSP Alert and ChannelE2E, the two leading news & analysis sites for managed service providers in the cybersecurity market.