Saturday, May 27, 2006

Buzzwords and Broadband

Recently, when putting together an executive brief on broadband consumer insights, I got completely distracted by this tasty little tidbid of nostalgia posted on YouTube - Superman & Seinfeld. I'll bet you will too.

I've been on my soapbox a lot lately about the way the term 'broadband' is used and abused these days - especially when all broadband really means is that you have a single coaxial or fiber cable that can support a wide range of frequencies. But I digress.

The real question in my mind is what does the term really mean to the general consumer? I myself stopped qualifying as a general consumer back in the early 90's when I started working with Frame Relay & ATM networks - so it seems to be a valid question. In general terms most consumers simply think 'video', 'music' or 'big juicy lick-your-lips graphics and images'. This generalization is used by web publishers to convince executives that their 'big' (or not) ideas are worthy of even bigger budgets. This is a lame tactic that I am ashamed to admit completely works - I have unfortunately used the same manuevering to drive product plans through on more than one occasion. No matter what the size of your company, it seems you can get to that TOP TIER of support by simply buzzing your way around obstacles like a happy little bee through the first blooms of spring. Want a bigger budget? Just use the buzzzzz.

And that brings us back to 'Superman and Seinfeld'. It seemed fitting that I came across this clip featuring a man famous for 'a show about nothing' as I was teaching about consumer insights on a word that is used to refer to just about everything.

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