The Curse of Knowledge concept is a big deal in technology marketing communications. A great example is Elon Musk outlawing the use of acronyms at SpaceX. Reportedly a fire-able offense, Musk coolly stated in his biography that they don’t save time and almost always cause confusion as businesses expand their reach. He admonished that when you’re a rocket scientist too much is at risk to assume people understand the context required to make sense of an acronym.

The same is true for every product or business initiative acronym that you’ve ever concocted. Great for captive internal teams, but how about a channel partner with 20+ vendors on the order card or a new employee learning on the job, alphabet soup.

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