It appears that Microcrap is growing more inwardly focused and obsessed
with itself with each passing day.
kelly
from the New York times
August 13, 1998
Braindump on the Blue Badge: A Guide to Microspeak
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
Detroit and Hollywood have invented scores of words and phrases
that have become part of America's speech and psyche.
Tail fin, mini-series and sitcom quickly come to mind.
_________________________________________________________________
The workers in Bill Gates's kingdom have coined enough words, phrases
and definitions to make a grown man gronk.
_________________________________________________________________
Now that role falls to Microsoft. The company that has shaped the
way hundreds of millions of people use computers is helping to
shape the way people talk as well, with words like facemail and
self-toast and new meanings for terms like dog food and ask.
Microspeak is a slangy company jargon made up of dozens of words
and phrases commonly used at Microsoft. This Microjargon, which
includes word usages unique to Microsoft as well as usages from
elsewhere in the high-tech and low-tech worlds, has been documented
in an informal lexicon written by current and former workers at the
company, based in Redmond, Wash.
At Microsoft, "dog food" means software not fit for public
consumption but good enough for internal purposes.
"Code warrior" refers to a developer who writes code for software.
The workers at the Redmond campus now utter sentences like, "It's
kind of a klugey solution, but we don't have the cycles to clean it
up."
More than a dozen current and former Microsoft blue badges
(permanent Microsoft employees) and orange badges (temporary
workers and independent contractors) are among the contributors to
the lexicon of Microspeak, which can be seen on the Web at "The
Microsoft Lexicon." Ken Barnes, the principal compiler and editor
of the lexicon, was editor of Microsoft's Music Central site when
he left the company in June; he gave Circuits permission to reprint
some of the definitions.
While the lexicon began life as a semi-underground enterprise, it
eventually won some kind of company sanction. The company's
corporate newsletter, Micro News, ran a story on it, and it was
posted on Microsoft's company Web site in all its irreverence --
around the time that the company, Barnes said, began creating a
similar list of its own. This may prove two things: not only that
the lexicon is a good read but also that language is the ultimate
software.
photo credit:
Robert Sorbo for The New York Times
photo caption:
Ken Barnes, compiler of a lexicon of slang that Microsoft built, at
home in Seattle.
_________________________________________________________________
Adminisphere Organizationally speaking, the levels starting
directly above you, characterized by their general cluelessness
about issues you're well versed in and tendencies to make policy
decisions that ignore your expert input.
Ask Used as a noun, preceded by "the," as in, "What's the ask?"
which basically means, "What are you asking?" or, "What's the
question?"
Bandwidth A cumbersome synonym for "time," as in, "I don't have the
bandwidth to deal with that issue," but with implications beyond
the merely temporal, encompassing the larger issue of mental
resources or capacity.
Binary problem A method of paring down a complex issue to a
two-possible-solutions scenario (yes or no, 1 or 0). Described by a
resident Microsoft philosopher as "classic MS reductivism" and
"clearly an economical way of thinking since it eliminates all need
to consider the vast gray area that occupies the psychic space of
most issues and problems."
Bitstorm A volume of traffic on a service high enough to cause the
digital equivalent of gridlock.
Black hole A project requiring infinite amounts of work.
Bleeding edge Synonym for "cutting edge," with an added implication
of the pioneer's vulnerability.
Example: "We're really on the bleeding edge with this product. Hope
it sells through."
Bloatware Software that takes up a huge amount of space on your
hard drive.
Synonym: spacehog.
Blue badge (Sometimes, slightly derogatorily, blue badger.) Synonym
for full-time Microsoft employees, the Brahmins of the deeply
ingrained Microsoft caste system, whose card keys have a blue
background rather than the orange used for contractors and green
for vendors. Derivative terms include "turn blue," meaning to earn
full-time status.
BOOP One of at least 10,000 peculiar-to-Microsoft acronyms. There
are so many casually-tossed-off acronyms (most of three letters,
like OOF, for Out of Facility) in daily use that there is even an
acronym for the concept itself: T.L.A. (three-letter acronym).
This particular four-letter acronym is especially disarming; it
stands for "Bill and the Office of the President," meaning Bill
Gates and his three top honchos. After a reorganization on Dec. 3,
1996, BOOP was replaced by the less-endearing Executive Committee.
Bouncing Cybernetic equivalent of going off the air for repairs, a
new app or other internal tinkering.
"The system is bouncing at 4:30 and should be up in 20 minutes."
Braindump A process by which a departing Microsoft employee or
contractor imparts the essential information vital to performing
his or her job to the designated replacement.
The process normally consumes no more than five minutes immediately
prior to the incumbent's departure from the company, nevermore to
return.
Bug All-purpose term for mistake, error, glitch. Despite its
universal acceptance, the term is deliberately avoided by Microsoft
technical support personnel when referring to Microsoft software.
Employed instead are such euphemisms as "issue" or more highly
evolved doublespeak terms like "undocumented feature," "challenge"
or "design side effect." Company loyalists insist, however, that
one reason for this circumlocution is that in Microspeak, "bug" has
the all-inclusive definition of any problem or complaint filed
about a product, whether valid or not, as opposed to the general
usage, which refers only to actual problems.
Build The drive to complete a project or new version of a product.
"The IE 4.0 build is eating up all our dev resources."
Bump Synonym for "push back," i.e., readdress an issue after an
unsatisfactory or dilatory response.
As in "You'll need to bump legal again on the permissions issue."
Buttoned down Compliment, meaning tightly reasoned, clear, concise,
etc.
Not often heard of late.
Buyoff Approval from above; green light. "We need BOOP's buyoff
before this project's a go."
C.L.M. Three-Letter Acronym for "career-limiting move." Badmouthing
adminispheric dictates, no matter how ill-considered, can be a
C.L.M.
Context-switch A verb, unbelievably, meaning "change subjects."
Example: "Enough about outsourcing issues.
Let's context-switch to planning the rollout."
Crisp Well-reasoned, precisely reasoned. Opposite of random.
Cycles Another approximate synonym for "time," as in, "There aren't
enough cycles in the day to drive this issue." Often used in tandem
with the verb "burn," as in, "He's really burning a lot of cycles
trying to resolve those U.I. issues."
Death march The long, lingering final countdown to a ship date,
involving 16- to 25-hour days, catnaps on couches and plenty of
"flat food" (food, mostly from vending machines, that you can slip
under people's doors so they can keep working).
Disambiguate A remarkably unclear way to say "clarify."
Drive To push; to captain the initiative on a particular issue or
project.
"Ed is driving the HTML issue for the product."
E.O.D. Endemic T.L.A. (three-letter acronym) meaning "end of day."
Example: "I need your take-away from the off-site by E.O.D.
tomorrow."
Eye candy A commonly used term denoting visually attractive
material, analogous to "ear candy" in the music business.
Facemail Technologically backward means of communication, clearly
inferior to voice mail or E-mail.
Involves actually walking to someone's office and speaking to him
or her face to face. Considered highly inefficient and déclassé.
Feature Euphemism for bug.
Dysfunctional attributes in a product are often "explained" away by
apologists with the phrase, "It's not a bug, it's a feature." As a
result, "it's a feature" became synonymous with "it's a bummer."
Feewall A barrier of demarcation for financial responsibility.
"Does this project fall on our side of the feewall?" translates
directly as, "Do we have to pay for this?"
Fiber media Material published on the hopelessly archaic medium of
paper. Example: "Yeah, I used to be a writer in fiber media, but
now I'm a content provider in cybermedia."
Freeze Point in a project's time span after which no more changes
can be permitted. Or, as Cityspeak Dictionary puts it, "Point in
product development after which the answer to all great new ideas
is no."
Generating content Writing.
"We'll need to hire some content providers to generate content by
Milestone 1."
Global fix A programmatic trick to correct all instances of a
recurring error.
"Ed's working on a global fix to turn all the commas in the CD-ROM
into semicolons."
Granular Generally used in tandem with the verb "to get," as in,
"We need to get granular on this issue," meaning to examine the
fine details.
Gronk The sound of a computer embroiled in bandwidth issues.
"I tried to reboot, but my computer just sat there gronking until I
had to call Help Desk."
Issue All-purpose term for practically anything relating to a
product, from a particular characteristic or bug to a delicate
diplomatic initiative.
Klugey (Also kludgey; pronounced CLUE-gee.) Clunky, inefficient,
inelegant.
"It's kind of a klugey solution, but we don't have the cycles to
clean it up." Also used in noun form as kluge or kludge.
Live Odd biomorphic usage, sort of an electronic half-life. "Where
will this data live?" means, "Where will this data be located?"
Mapping Targeting.
"Mapping a user group" is synonymous with "targeting an audience."
Media Content that isn't words.
Media can include photos, song clips, illustrations.
N.D.A. For Nondisclosure Agreement, meaning Keep Your Mouth Shut. A
legal document, invoked by Microsoft lawyers for anything more
sensitive than setting a lunch date, that allows them to crucify
anyone who reveals confidential information.
Net Summarize.
_________________________________________________________________
Cyberslang, once a touch rebellious, now has Microsoft's imprimatur.
_________________________________________________________________
"Ed really knows how to net a presentation." Related command: Net
it out, meaning boil it down.
New paradigm Pompous way of essentially saying "unique": "This Web
site establishes a new paradigm on the Net."
Nonlinear Becoming nonlinear means becoming irrationally angry.
"When he found out the R.T.M. date was slipping, Ed went totally
nonlinear."
Offline A synonym for "in private" or "confidentially"; "Let's take
this offline" equals "let's talk about this in private." Often used
as a semipolite way of saying, "Shut up about that, you impolitic
idiot."
OOF A T.L.A. (three-letter acronym) that has turned into a word of
its own.
Stands for "out of office." Historians tell us that OOF originally
meant "out of facility." Occasionally used, rather irritatingly, in
conversation: "I'm OOF next Friday; you'll have to drive on it."
Open the kimono A marvelous phrase of non-Microsoft origin,
probably stemming from the rash of Japanese acquisitions of
American enterprises in the 80's, that has been adopted into the
Microspeak marketing lexicon.
Basically a somewhat sexist synonym for "open the books," it means
to reveal the inner workings of a project or company to a
prospective new partner.
Orange badge Contractor, temp.
From the background color of the photo ID badge-card key used for
temporary workers.
Own To take responsibility for an issue.
Ownership is even more serious than drivership; you can drive an
issue without owning it, but it's unlikely that you would own it
without also driving it.
Ping A reminder, or (used as a verb, which is slightly more common)
to remind: "I need to ping my program manager to get some more test
help."
Quality bar The remarkably flexible level of acceptability in a
product.
Tends inexorably to drop as the pressure of an impending milestone
or other deadline builds.
Random A pejorative term to describe poorly reasoned analysis.
Antonym: crisp.
Randomize To distract or throw off track by constantly changing
course or emphasizing irrelevant details.
"Marketing randomized him by shifting the goalposts every week."
Reality distortion field When a team deludes itself that it can
achieve impossibly tight milestones and solve insurmountable tech
problems.
Self-toast To fatally contradict yourself.
Extension of the widespread mainstream usage of "toast" as
"history," "dead," "burned out."
Showstopper A function, object or issue important enough to
jeopardize a ship date.
In other words, a really big bug.
Spec Used as both noun and verb: as verb, to analyze a field of
information prior to the commencement of a project; as noun, the
analysis of that information.
Also, a preliminary plan or prospectus. "Ed will spec the song
clips to see which ones we need to swap out"; "Ed, have you
finished the song-clip spec yet?"
Take-away Not, as might be suspected, food to go, but impressions
gleaned from a meeting or message.
"My take-away from his E-mail was that he wasn't ready to drill
down yet."
Taxonomy of options A greatly murkier (and therefore infinitely
preferable) way of saying "range of choices."
T.L.A. Three-letter acronym.
A widespread general term in computer-speak, but refined to a way
of life (if not a metalanguage) at Microsoft.
Touch skin Same basic meaning as facemail or face time. A meeting
arranged to counter the austerity of communicating in cyberspace.
"We flew that guy to Redmond just so we could touch skin."
Truline (From screenwriting jargon.) One-sentence summary of a
project's projected appeal or purpose.
Uninstalled Fired, canned, dismissed.
Vaporware A Microsoft classic, dating back to at least the early
90's) and now escaped into the world at large.
Software that was conceived (and probably promoted and advertised)
but never came to fruition; by extension, a foolish or fanciful
conceit.
Weasel text A message on a Microsoft Web site explaining why a
popular feature or option has been discontinued.
Weasel user What the outside world has learned to label "computer
nerd." Specifically, a buyer of a Microsoft product who bombards
P.S.S. (the company's customer support apparatus) with constant and
generally ludicrous technical complaints.
Zero-bug release Not, as you might suspect, a version of a software
product that's error-free, but a release with the major bugs
eliminated, retaining plenty of less significant problems.
______________________________________________________________
Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company
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