Abby (00:02)
every time I sit down to write, I think to myself, is this word a buzzword? And you know, because I mean, buzzwords you read all the time. You see them all the time. have to think to yourself, does this word mean what I'm trying to describe? lot of times the answer is no. the answer is no, you know it's a buzzword. You know how to change it.
Ben Ard (00:45)
Welcome back to another episode of Content Amplified. Today I'm joined by Abby. Abby, welcome to the show. Abby, I'm excited. This is going to be fun. I think the subject is something that everyone needs to hear. But before we dive into that, let's get to know your background, work history, all that fun stuff. Let's let the audience get to know who you are.
Abby (00:51)
Thank you. Glad to be here.
Sure, I've had a very unconventional career path. I started as a television news reporter in my 20s, working at local affiliates all around the country. And then I moved to New York City and I started working for a New York state senator as his communications director. And then I got poached by a PR agency and that's when I moved into PR and it was wonderful. I represented all kinds of clients from law firms to tech companies.
to nonprofits, lot of nonprofits. And then from there, I moved to Chicago to be closer to family. And that is when I tripped and fell into cybersecurity. And I got my first job as a media relations director in cybersecurity at a company called TrustWave. I absolutely loved cybersecurity. When I walked in there, I was saying, Gigabytes. And I had a BlackBerry. I was a technology dinosaur. And after a year, I knew all of the acronyms, Sue.
and I was being interviewed by reporters. So it was very exciting. And I was there for about two and a half, three years, and then they were acquired. And I moved on to a startup called Bay Dynamics, and it was a SaaS company that they did a lot of UEBA. So it was a completely different side of the house from TrustWave. And I built and ran their corporate comms program, which mainly focused on PR and AR. And then I also became acting CMO for a bit too, for about four months.
And while I always loved corporate communications, I also really enjoyed marketing. So I thought, I want to do more in marketing. So then I worked for IBM and I led marketing for their team of hackers and incident responders. I was there for four and a half years. And then after that, I moved on to Akamai where I was senior director helping launch from the marketing angle, their cloud business. And then from there, I moved on to where I am now, Hydrolix And I've been at Hydrolix for about two years. It's a great company to work for.
We are also a SaaS company. We have a data analytics platform that can take in data from all types of log sources. And then in real time, from time to glass, it produce insights on the performance and security of how your CDNs are doing, WAFs are doing, whatever types of data types we feed into our platform. So it's really exciting to be here. And currently, I'm leading corporate communications at Hydrolix
Ben Ard (03:17)
love it. That's so cool. I love the experience. Abby, I'm excited to have you on the podcast. I think it's going to be a ton of fun. What we're going to talk about today is specifically buzzword free content. Now this seems basic and I probably shouldn't even ask this and I apologize for everyone listening real quick, Abby, before we get into kind of the meat and potatoes of the episode. What is a buzzword? Like how would you define that?
Abby (03:42)
Very good question. I would define a buzzword as a word that means nothing, but everyone uses. To be short, I have some examples that I wrote down for you. Holistic, that's a big one. Robust. Frankly, I think AI has become a buzzword. Even though it is a thing, people use it in all kinds of ways that don't make sense or say what it does. Big data, digital transformation, leverage.
Ben Ard (03:49)
Okay.
Abby (04:07)
so those are, those are like some ones that I wrote down, but you know, you see those words, everybody says those words, AI models say those words and you're just sitting there scratching your head thinking, well, what do you actually do and what does that actually mean?
Ben Ard (04:19)
I love it. Yep. So oddly enough, I think of I'm a millennial, I'm kind of on the older end of it. All these Gen Z terms and all that kind of stuff. I think of that. That's like buzzwords, but we're talking corporate buzzwords. Oddly enough, there's a really funny weird out song. It's just corporate jargon that doesn't mean anything, but it's pretty much the phrase from every company. Abby, when you're looking at buzzwords,
And you're putting yourself in the perspective of a reader. What does a buzzword do to your copy and why is it kind of important to eliminate those buzzwords from your content?
Abby (04:53)
think that buzzwords make companies sound less credible and less trustworthy. It's like you're trying to hide something by putting all these fancy words in front of it and not saying exactly what you do, the pain that you solve, the value that customers can get from whatever you're selling. So I really think it really makes you lose credibility in the market. It also makes you sound like everyone else.
there's no differentiation and nobody can say, I remember that company because, and this is what they do. And it was memorable. Instead they're thinking, yeah, she said holistic and big data and leverage and you know, all the words that don't mean anything that everyone's saying. And I also think that, you know, with credibility, you can get more leads, qualified leads, right? Like people want to talk to you because they actually have a problem that needs solving. And they know right away if you don't use buzzwords,
if you can solve their problem. So I think it actually does help you do a better job of marketing and selling by just saying what you actually do instead of trying to cover it up with a fancy word.
Ben Ard (05:54)
I agree 100%. I love this concept. So how do you work on tactically eliminating buzzwords from your vocabulary, from your content? And then also we were kind of talking about this before with the introduction of AI, helping people write content. It's kind of become even worse, but how have you tactically worked on eliminating this kind of
I don't want to say phraseology, but I am from ultimately what you're writing.
Abby (06:22)
You really have to be cognizant of it. I mean,
every time I sit down to write, I think to myself, is this word a buzzword? And you know, because I mean, buzzwords you read all the time. You see them all the time. You have to think to yourself, does this word mean what I'm trying to describe? And a lot of times the answer is no. And when the answer is no, you know it's a buzzword. You know how to change it.
So I really try to get very specific in
what I'm writing when it comes to messaging. And I can give you an example. I wrote a press release the other day. And one of the ways that we were describing Hydrolix, the company I work for, is unmatched. Unmatched in speed of how fast we can deliver data analytics and insights to customers. Well, that word unmatched, it's like, yeah, OK, maybe it means we're better than the competition. But it doesn't jump out at me as something that says value.
I mean, the truth is, is that we produce insights faster than anyone else. We are the fastest in the market. So why can't we just use the word fastest instead of unmatched? So I changed it in the press release and I do that in anything I write. I just go through each word with a fine tooth comb and I try to change anything that sounds buzzy.
Ben Ard (07:32)
I love that. That's so cool. As you work with others and AI, do you have any tips and tricks about getting this out of the vocabulary, training that out of the models, anything along those lines that people can take and apply to their day to day?
Abby (07:49)
Well, I mean, if I were a programmer, I would love to create a capability within these AI models that was like a buzzword detector, right? And so it could just spot it right away and you could eliminate it. But in the meantime, since we don't have that, it's really just, again, like just focusing on every word that you're writing and rereading what you write and think, okay, does this describe what I'm selling? Does this describe the pain we're solving?
What is the pain we're solving? How does it solve it? And what is the best way to describe it in words that actually mean something, you know, that not everyone is using all the time. So it's really just awareness and opening your eyes to it. That would probably be also don't overcomplicate the messaging. I think a lot of marketers try to think of these flowery complicated words that make them sound really intelligent.
when really, again, they don't mean anything. Like messaging can be super simple. Hydrolix has a data analytics platform. We ingest data, we retain data, we deliver data insights in a dashboard all in real time. Not one of those descriptors is like, huh, what do you do? Like, I just described exactly what we do. So it's really just focusing on that and just remembering that you don't want to sound like everyone else, right? Like it just sounds inauthentic.
So I never want to blend in with the vendor wallpaper. Let's just say that.
Ben Ard (09:13)
I love that. I've even heard other guests refer to it. If you're looking at some copy and you feel like that could be on any of our competitors websites and you wouldn't know which one you should eliminate it. Now here's a real world example because they are guests listening today that are nodding their head that are listening to this podcast and they're saying, yep, a hundred percent need to get rid of those words. But I have someone on the C-suite or someone above me in the organization.
who is obsessed with this specific buzzword or they want to show off to the board that we do some kind of industry loving word kind of a concept. How do you approach tactically those conversations and help people understand, hey, maybe we should avoid something like this because it just sounds like a buzzword.
Abby (10:01)
can say I'm fortunate I have not experienced that a lot with our CEO. Our CEO is a, he's an engineer. He's like, say what we do, right? And same with our CMO, he's the same way. But I would say that if any of them were to come to me about like the word holistic, or I remember when I was at IBM, there was an executive who loved the words digital transformation. And we got into a whole debate over a steak dinner on that phrase. But he did challenge me. He goes, well, what would you say instead of digital transformation?
be honest, at the time I didn't really have a better answer for that one, right? So, but I did do research and try to come up with something. But what I would do is I would challenge the executive in a polite way. Like I would say, look, you want to use this word. What do you think this word means? You know, I saw this on like five different websites and on three different AI models. Are you sure this is how you want to describe it? And then I always offer an alternative. What about fastest, for example, right?
So like you're highlighting the problem, but you're also providing a solution to the problem.
Ben Ard (11:03)
I love that. I love that. something that I always think about again, we're going back to the AI side of things and everyone has a different stance on when and where and how AI should play a role in it. And you talked about, you know, if you're an engineer at one of these companies to just have a nice little toggle to say, please don't use buzzwords anymore. Do you specifically when using AI prompt into it to say, please eliminate all buzzwords?
please get rid of corporate jargon. Have you found like a meaningful way to do that to get decent results?
Abby (11:34)
So that's a really good idea. What I do is I give very specific prompts. And then when it spits out something, I look through it very thoroughly and I just remove the buzzwords myself. However, with AI, can put in, like if I'm writing a statement for my CEO, I can put in past statements that he has said and past bylines that he has written and say, write in his voice.
And so if you're dealing with an executive who doesn't use a lot of buzzwords and you say right in his voice, the model will probably deliver something that doesn't have a lot of buzzwords. But the next time I write something, I'm going to try your strategy because I really like that idea.
Ben Ard (12:15)
We'll see if it works. That'll be great. I love it. Okay. I have one final question because we're about to run out of time. I have in my notes, you know, as we were talking beforehand, any like interesting stories about how you really kind of came to this conclusion and like this passion for eliminating buzzwords, was there a moment in time you're like, wow, like this needs to change or was it kind of this gradual discovery?
and ⁓ revealing process that buzzwords just don't have a part in business content.
Abby (12:45)
think it was when I was learning about cybersecurity. Like I said, I walked into it knowing nothing. And when people would just throw buzzwords at me, I still knew nothing. and I was also training people to speak to reporters. And when you use buzzwords with journalists, they also will not understand what you're saying. And they'll probably dig further and ask you more questions. So it was during that time when I was like, you know what, we can't keep using these words.
And so I went on like a tirade at Trustwave telling all my spokespeople, nope, choose a different word, nope, choose a different word. And I've been ⁓ very careful not to use them ever since.
Ben Ard (13:20)
I it. Well, Abby, thank you for your time and the energy and really just sharing the awesome insight and the reminder to the audience that we need to eliminate buzzwords from our content. It helps you sound more credible, even though a lot of times we're trying to put those in to sound fancy or whatever it may be. It really just proves you don't know what you're talking about because you don't have better terminology or you can't describe it well enough. I love it.
Abby for anyone who wants to reach out and connect with you online, how and where can they find you?
Abby (13:51)
I'm on LinkedIn. That's probably the best way. My email is abby at Hydrolix.io. So I would say either one of those channels would be great.
Ben Ard (13:59)
Love it. Abby, again, thank you so much for the time and insights today. I really do appreciate it.
Abby (14:04)
Thank you, Ben.
