Adam Hils

Gartner colleague Wes Rishel  coined a spot-on term in a recent email thread: “Bonomatopoeia”, defined as something that is ”much more pleasant-sounding than the actual substance would suggest.”

I have some security ones:

• “We have no competitors in the anti-<insert exotic custom malware/threat type here> market!” sounds better than “There is no market. I hope my product can at least be a feature of a larger solution. Someone buy my company, please!”
• “This product is unhackable” sounds better than “no bad guys know about our product, and no customers use it”
• “Our product is carrier class” sounds better than “our product is too complicated for typical enterprise IT security folks”
• “Our product is right-sized for small business” sounds better than “Our product has little throughput and no enterprise-class features. The interface looks like it was designed by a precocious kindergartener”
• “Our solution provides strong positive ROI” sounds better than “I have so much disregard for your intelligence as a customer that I am trying to convince you a security product can have ROI. Not only am I feeding you a line of nonsense, I’m feeding you one that’s not very original or creative.”
• “Enterprise UTM” sounds better than….(see Greg Young for details)

There are at least a thousand more good candidates out there. Which ones do you favor?