Sometimes, the words we choose communicate things we didn’t mean – and sometimes they end up being more honest than we wished.
Here’s an example, from Clearspring, which develops products for developers who develop widgets:
We are building services to make cross-platform widget development, distribution, and tracking as easy as ‘pi.’
Now I love a good pun as much as anyone else. In fact, I cracked the following joke on a hapless telemarketer:
Marketer: Now, please rate our service using any number between 1 and 5, with 1 being ‘never use it again’ to 5 being ‘would always recommend it to a friend.’
Me: Any number?
Marketer: Any number.
Me: ? (pi)
Marketer: ?????
Me: ?. You know, 3.14159…
Marketer: cricketswind.mp3
This would be an example of a poorly placed joke – but it did serve to get me off the call. It wasn’t her fault – she didn’t specify an integer.
Which brings us back to the Clearspring example. They want us to believe two things:
- Their development system is easy.
- They are credible as techie nerds and math geeks.
So therefore, a joking comment about it being “easy as pie” becomes “easy as pi“! Gety it? Yes, it’s funny. Yes, I’m sure everyone in the room was laughing over that one. But did anyone stop along the way and figure out just how easy ‘pi’ really is?
- It’s an irrational number
- It doesn’t repeat
- It has no end
- Average people never use it (consciously)
Now, if the “real truth” behind the widget development system is “It’s impossible to fully express how complicated this thing is, and we’ll never see the end of it,” then by all means, it is in fact as easy as ?.
I wish no ill will to the folks at Clearspring, and certainly hope I have the advanced math and calculus knowledge to properly use their products. They have succeeded in totally reversing my tag line: “Making the simple complex through inferior communication.”
[tags]Ike Pigott, Occam’s RazR, mathematics, pi, widgets, communication, puns, telemarketers[/tags]
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