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Bill Hackos, PhD
Vice President, Comtech Services, Inc.
www.comtech-serv.com
During my recent consulting visits, I've found that people
agonize over the definitions of terms. In my opinion,
agonizing over definitions is a huge waste of time.
Contributing to the confusion, many of us don't properly
distinguish among key terms (a definition problem itself).
Let's review what we mean by terminology, definitions,
usage, and jargon. It's important that we understand when
each of these concepts is appropriate. Such an understanding
could save a lot of time and confusion.
We look up words in the dictionary to determine usage. The
dictionary is actually a description of how the English
language is used today. We consult the dictionary to learn
under what circumstances English speakers use a word. New
words typically enter the language through usage by a small
group of speakers and may either come into general usage or
die out. Words entering the language in this way are
initially regarded as slang until they become accepted for
more general use.
A good example is the word "cool," meaning great, fine, or
excellent. I never use the word cool in this way, but many
younger people use it freely. Technical words that originate
spontaneously in this way are known as jargon. An example of
jargon is "mouse" (for a computer mouse), which has now
become general usage but is not in dictionaries published
prior to the mid-1980s.
Scientists and technical people define new terms to
facilitate communication in their fields. Physicists are
famous for adopting simple words to specific scientific
definitions. Words like force, energy, momentum, inertia,
string, or nucleus. Newer terms are defined as well, such as
neutron, proton, and electron. These are not general usage
terms and are defined precisely to facilitate communication
among physicists. Physicists don't concern themselves with
general usage. Instead they refer to the "physics" definition.
When groups of people agree on the definitions of terms,
they develop a terminology. Information developers have
created a rich terminology. We use terms like file, font,
PDF, HTML, draft, header, footer, and a host of other terms
that are known to all writers but not to those outside the
special community.
What does all this mean to us? We should not let definitions
distract us from our real work. I have had several
enterprise content-management (ECM) consulting projects in
which days or even weeks were spent by my clients agonizing
over what is "business critical information." They appear to
believe in some kind of "universal" distinction between
business critical information and non-business critical
information. In reality, we can define business critical
information any way that suits our needs and then move on
because we're creating a definition, not applying standard
usage.
We can define terms dynamically as well as statically.
Sometimes a definition is based on activity rather than
static qualities. In the absence of an official uniform or
direct observation of activity, we can't distinguish
people's occupations. A policeman, fireman, or physicist is
identified by his or her activity rather than some intrinsic
physical qualities. The same is true for business critical
information. We can't look at an email, letter, spreadsheet,
policy, or procedure in isolation to determine if it is
business critical. But if information is necessary for the
success of our company, we may classify it as business
critical, if we have defined the term dynamically.
I've seen the same thing with other information-development
terms. What is single sourcing? What is usability testing?
Document management? Content management? Validation?
Heuristic evaluation? Verification? These terms can be
anything we define them to be in a specific context. My
advice—"Let's get past definitions and get on with
information development."
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