I can’t make head nor tail of this. Can you? And does it matter?

Introducing the new science of persuasion by incomprehension. Kindly translate into English: “SDN Drives New SLAs Across Data Center WANs”. 

I have a very soft spot in my heart, which is close to my emaciated wallet at all times, for Ziff-Davis.

That is because about ten years ago they paid me the most I ever got – £200 a minute – for a speech.

In the audience that day was a shifty looking computer salesman called Alastair Lee.

He heard me say something that changed both our lives: “The sad thing is that most of you here will do absolutely nothing as a result of what I am going to tell you.”

Al decided to do something and came to work with me.

God alone knows how many times he must have regretted that decision. And God alone knows how Ziff-Davis – at that time the leading publisher in their field – managed to go broke.

But they did, and then re-emerged as these firms often do. They send me lots of e-mails (good!). But I hardly understand a word of what they say (not good!).

The heading above is the subject line about a seminar they sent yesterday. It was followed by this:

Our panel will address these topics:

• Understanding the SDN use case for continuous availability

• The different approaches to implementing SDN in data center WANs

• How SDN simplifies the deployment of HA and QoS in and across data centers

• The considerations and planning criteria when deploying SDN in and across data centers

• Trends in SDN over the next 2-3 years

Now you may say that experts will understand this. Fair point. So why are they sending this stuff to me?

Either change the targeting or change the language. It may well be that whatever they are talking about is relevant to me. But I shall never know.

More to the point, my partner Gerald who worked in computers for years doesn’t understand a lot of it either.

I think a lot of stuff that goes out is either badly targeted or incomprehensible or both. And I also think that these people overestimate what we know.

For instance, I am getting shoals of stuff about Big Data and The Cloud. I am not ashamed to admit that I know very little about the first and not much more about the second.

Because most of us are often reluctant to admit that we don’t understand things, these techno-gerbils think we do. But we don’t.

If they translated what the things are into what they can do for people their readership and sales would soar. But taking the complex and making it simple and understandable is hard work. Too hard for them.

Shame.

Anyhow, I have spent a lifetime trying to sell things I don’t understand to people who don’t want to spend a penny unless they absolutely must. Do you?

What have I learned? In October at EADIM.com I shall deliver my legacy – everything I have ever learned about the tricky business.

Joining me will be some people who may know even more than I do. In the audience of just 40 people will be delegates from one of the fastest growing firms in its field in the world.

Although they’ve only been in business for three years you will almost certainly recognise the name immediately.

But there will also be people from very small businesses you have never heard of.

Why are they bothering? Why should you bother? Because this is the very last time I shall run this event.

But also because, as you are a reader of this blog, I have a deal for you. Just email me, Drayton@draytonbird.com with the word “blog” as a subject line, and I’ll tell you more.