Guy Reams (00:01.378)
Day 156, the delicate art of using acronyms to sound smart.
So I've had many opportunities to listen to founders asking for investors for money. And I don't know you know this process, but usually it involves a pitch. So the founder will come in and give a pitch with a slide deck usually and talk about their company. And I've seen several types of founders, some really confident, well-dressed, sleek, all that. And then I've seen some that are very shy and timid.
But there's one trend that I've noticed and it's interesting and it happened today. So I thought I would bring it up. There's definitely an art to using acronyms for a strategic advantage. And then there's using acronyms to try to sound cool. And I can tell you right now that using acronyms to sound cool just never works. For example, a founder might say,
Our AI enabled SaaS solution leverages IoT and blockchain to optimize UX while maximizing ROI through a robust API. Now, that sounds kind of silly when I say it like that. But honestly, people will say this kind of thing all the time. And it really makes no sense at all. You can watch the people in the room and those
It just kind of flies right over the top of them and they don't nobody understands what they're saying. They might understand a word or two like I know what ROI is and I know what API is and I know what a UX is. But honestly, of all those acronyms strung together, I can't make sense out of it. So people usually just nod their head and politely smile and really not ignoring exactly what the person was even saying. Sometimes when you corner them and he asked them what do you really do?
Guy Reams (01:59.278)
They'll even then try to launch into acronyms. Could you please explain to me without using any acronyms what your company does? And it's funny, sometimes people can't even do that. They'll say, well, we use AI and ML. And I'm like, no, don't use an acronym. And it's kind of funny how sometimes people just are able to answer. And then a lot of times, I don't even know if they know what they're talking about. They just learn how to string together a bunch of acronyms.
So that got me to thinking today. Are acronyms bad or can you use acronyms strategically? If you're using acronyms to sound smart and you don't know what you're talking about, I think the results are bad. But acronyms, when used correctly, can be powerful. They actually can condense complex ideas into shorthand so that other experts in the field can recognize them immediately and you can move on with what you're talking about.
Like, I really need to explain to a group of data scientists what machine learning is? No, I don't. I can call it ML. So when your communication is more efficient and precise, then it can add credibility to what you're saying. People will recognize that you also understand the terminology used in their industry. For example, I was talking to an engineer today.
And the engineered said something to the effect of our ML-driven model leverages NLP to detect sentiment and improve recommendations dynamically. Effectively, what the product does is it watches customer feedback. And if the customer feedback is positive about a particular product, it recommends similar products. But those acronyms made sense to me because it was topical and relevant to the conversation. It wasn't just throwing around buzzwords.
So he used an acronym like NLP, but NLP had context and therefore I understood it.
Guy Reams (03:55.81)
Now, I'm sure if I asked this engineer to dive into it, this engineer would understand it. And I had the feeling that he would, because he just had that level of credibility. He would have had the ability to explain it in technical terms, I mean, in plain language, but he didn't need to. On the flip side, acronyms can also make you sound really shallow. And I don't know, I think, do people understand this? It occurred to me today.
when I was listening to an investor give a pitch, it occurred to me today that they don't. People actually think acronyms make you smart, and they don't. So oftentimes, you'll get people that will use language designed to impress and not to clarify. And that's the danger of overused jargon. When you're just dropping acronyms, dropping jargon,
It doesn't help because you actually don't understand it. You're actually covering out for a lack of depth with fancy words. I've seen this play out many, many times again. People using a string of buzzwords to sound sophisticated. We need to integrate AI and IoT and SAS to revolutionize our UX and drive ROI. I people actually say stuff like this. So what does that, you know, it's kind of funny how you don't even know what it means, yet we blab about it.
So I got to thinking, how can you avoid this? Like what mentality should we have to avoid this? So if you want to use acronyms effectively, I would keep the following in mind. First, you should know your audience. If you're speaking to experts, acronyms can be useful. If you're not speaking to experts, then you better spell it out. If you're in doubt, always clarify meaning at least once before you use the shorthand again. So if I'm in a conversation and I use NLP,
The first time I use NLP, I'll say natural language processing, and then later I can use the NLP acronym. You should use acronyms, I think, to simplify, not to obscure. When they make communication more efficient and not more confusing, then I think an acronym is appropriate. If an acronym makes your message harder to understand, then I would say don't use it at all. So a clear explanation.
Guy Reams (06:15.236)
before you start using acronyms, I think is a good way to avoid this trap. Don't start out by throwing out vomiting acronyms at somebody. Rather, give them a very clear explanation. And then the acronyms that you're using will make sense. For example, the engineer could have started with me and say, we have a system that can understand people's sentiment by looking at the comments they make and then recommending appropriate products.
Then later, he can use, well, we accomplished this with NLP. And so that would make sense, because he gave context before he used the acronym. So if you can't explain something simply, then you don't understand it well enough to use an acronym. So what is the TLDR? OK, that's a joke. Too long, didn't read. Use acronyms strategically. If you use them strategically, it signals expertise. It lends you to credibility.
using them recklessly signals that you are insecure and don't know what you're talking about. The real test, I think, is whether you can explain your idea without acronyms. If you can, then use the acronyms as an appropriate tool. If you can't explain the concept, they become a mask. And in any serious conversation with investors, with friends, with colleagues, with customers, people will see right through that and realize that you're an imposter.