I seemed to have struck a chord with our readers last month when I made a simple post on Linkedin that was meant to just be some friendly advice:
As I sift through MANY ISC West product press releases, I’m just going to give some unsolicited advice to all the security marketers out there: Remove the word “seamless” from your vocabulary. Every integration is described as “seamless” (even if it isn’t). It means nothing. 😊 👍
What resulted was one of the most viewed, commented, and liked social media posts I had ever created. An esteemed marketing person even called me up to discuss. And here I was just trying to vent after a very long day of editing “marketing speak” out of press releases.
For me, seamless is just a useless word. I’m realizing you would be best served to read that sentence in Morgan Freeman’s Shawshank Redemption voice.
For a lot of you, seamless is just the tip of the iceburg – and you didn’t hesitate to let me know. Here are some of my favorite “yes, and” comments:
• Yes, and let’s stop with the “evolutions” and “revolutions.”
• The physical security lexicon is overdue for a refresh, with so many terms already outdated or on the verge of becoming obsolete. I could write a whole article just on that topic.
• It’s all because of ChatGPT.
• Having been knee deep in xml config files to get some “seamless integrations” to work, I wholeheartedly agree.
• We can probably give “thrilling” and “cutting-edge” a rest, too.
• Nobody brought up the other overused term: frictionless.
• It just means the vendor spent more on marketing than on delivering a usable product.
• Replace “seamless” with “AI enabled.”
• Almost as good as saying the word “pivot” after 2020.
• Let’s take this offline, circle back and create some synergy if we have the bandwidth.
• You forgot “enhance” and “boost” – classic ChatGPT vibes.
• I have the same issue with any piece of software being referred to as “powerful.”
• 2020 called, and Paul has receipts.
• Not only that, but leave out the word “enhanced”
• Every year with its buzzwords.
The list goes on and on, but there has to be a point here, right? There are a bunch of them!
First: Want to go viral with a social media post? A quick ticket is to post about something that is annoying but sort of funny and definitely apolitical. One of the most popular Reddits in the world – simply called “mildly infuriating” – is a testament to this fact.
Second, and certainly most relevant to security integrators and consultants, is putting these buzzwords into context. It is your job to slice through the marketing jargon to get to the meat of a product or service and effectively explain the benefits and drawbacks to your customers. This is yet another opportunity to put your SME foot forward and be a trusted advisor!
Finally, marketing is often difficult for a small security integrator, and Large Language Models like ChatGPT can be very helpful for the creation of customer-facing marketing materials. But remember, they never come out as a finished product. LLMs are great at certain things, but if you want to sound seamless or frictionless, then trust your marketing campaigns to them. Most industry people can see right through an LLM-generated marketing campaign, so be a good editor and you won’t go wrong.
