Tech talk cliches

Inspired by a season of too many meetings.
  • Speaker strolls from side to side across the stage, staring at the opposing wall while occasionally stealing furtive glances at the audience.
  • Dress: skinny jeans, blazer or cardigan over ironic t-shirt. Beard and/or dorky glasses optional.
  • "passion"
  • Technology failure
  • "data-driven"
  • "Yeah, I used to be a musician / poet / performance artist but then I realised that what the world really needed was a distributed node.js-driven DRM ecosystem ..."
  • "evangelist"
  • A slide extrapolates a curve way past the point of statistical embarrassment.
  • "This is basically Google / Facebook / Uber / Yelp for tracking your socks"
  • Let's play 'Spot the woman!'
  • Use of painfully obvious stock images: "And then we had an idea ..." picture of lightbulb "But those problems were only the tip of the iceberg ..." picture of iceberg
  • CEO or CTO enters to rock music anthem
  • "social media consultant"
  • "You have to tell a story / take the users on a journey ..."
  • "ninja / guru / rockstar / revolutionary / wizard"
  • "Dan always gives an exciting and provocative talk and this year is no exception!" Dan speaks about a web app to track your socks
  • Repeated references to how hard it is to find the "best people" and how the speaker spends so much time ploughing through the tsunami of resumes that desperate developers send them every day.
  • "talent"
  • "With all this technology guys, I think we've lost sight of something. You have to consider the human angle ..."
  • UM. UH. UM. UM. UH. UR ...
  • "Silcon Prairie / Glen / Village / Gulf / Cap / Canal / Swamp ..."
  • "brand ambassador"
  • Let's play 'Spot the non-caucasian!'
  • "going global"
  • Speaker talks about making the world a better place. With a web app that tracks your socks.
  • "monetize"
  • "... with a Raspberry Pi"
  • "pivot"
  • "drink the koolaid"
  • Dopplr. Flickr, Tumblr. Soonr. Wankr. Dyckhed.
  • "intangibles"
  • "A different business model ..."

References