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Cacaphones: A Chapbook for the Cursory Consultant

I came across a post consisting of images from a mid tier consulting firm. You know. Mid tier, an azure chip consulting firm. This type of firm is distinct from blue-chip consulting firms like McKinsey, BCG, the “old”, pre spin out Snowden Booz, Allen & Hamilton. Those folks. Another generation’s Google.

You can find (for now) the collection of images at this link. The person posting this link will probably not get hired at the azure chip, mid tier outfit who cooked up the images in “Every Gartner Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies Since 2000.” That works out to 16 years of “cacaphones”; that is, words which are an emission of jargon, buzzwords, and argot designed to help sell consulting work that benefits consultants.

The blue chip outfits mostly stick with the crazy lingo of MBAs, lawyers, accountants, and engineers who know who Milton and Whitman are.

Here’s a run down by year of the cacaphones. How many of these do you use? How many of these can you define even if you bandy the cacaphones around in meetings, at conferences, or at your favorite Starbuck’s?

Year 2000 Cacaphones (n=20 spoor)

3-D Web
Active Server Pages
Audio mining
Biometrics
Bluetooth
DSL/Cable modems
Digital ink
Enterprise portals
Java language
Jini
Micropayments
Quantum computing
Smart cards
Speech recognition
Synthetic characters
Voice over IP
Voice portals
WAP/Wireless Web
Webtops
XML

Year 2001 Cacaphones (n=19 spoor)

Active server pages
B2B e markets
B2C e business
Bluetooth
Digital signatures
Enterprise instant messaging
Enterprise portals
Head mounted displays
M commerce
PDA phones
Peer to peer
Personal fuel cells
Semantic Web
Synthetic characters
Voice over IP
Web services
Wireless LANs/802.11
Wireless Web/WAP
e payments

Year 2002 Cacaphones (n=21 spoor)

Biometrics
Bluetooth
E payments
E tags
Grid computing
Identity services
Location sensing
Nanocomputing
Natural language search
Peer to peer computing
Personal digital assistant phones
Personal fuel cells
Public key infrastructure
Speech recognition in call centers
Speech recognition on desktops
Text to speech
Virtual private networks
Voice over IP
WAP/Wireless Web
Web services
Wireless LANs/802.11

Year 2003 Cacaphones (n=24  spoor): The Year of the Portal

Advanced Web services in portals
Advanced integration in portals
Basic Web services support in portals
Basic search
Business process fusion
Contextual personalization
Federated portals across vendor families
Federated portals within vendor families
Integrated collaboration
Integrated content management
JSR170
Mobile access to portals
Open source portals
Personal work portals
Portal fabric
Portal ubiquity
Portlets
Process portals
Roll based personalization
SES (possibly the Korean girl musical group)
Virtual content repositories
WSRP and JSR 168
XML based multichannel output and interaction

Year 2004 Cacaphones (n=32 spoor): Revenge of the Portal

Advanced Web services in portals
Advanced integration in portals
Application platform suites
Basic Web services support in portals
Basic search
Business process fusion
Contextual personalization
Desktop portals
Federated portals across vendor families
Federated portals within vendor families
Hosted portals
Integrated collaboration
Integrated content management
Integrated open source content management
JSR168 (a portlet catalog)
JSR170 (content repository)
Micro portals
Mobile access to portals
Offline portals
Open source higher education portals
Open source horizontal portals
Portal fabric
Portal ubiquity
Portlets
Process portals
Rich client portals
Role based personalization
Smart enterpriser suites (maybe the 2003 SES?)
Syndication
Virtual content repositories
Web services for remote portals
XML based multichannel output and interaction

Year 2005 Cacaphones (n=41 spoor): A Bountiful Year of Caca

4G
902.16 2004 Worldwide inter operability for  microwave access
Augmented reality
Biometric identity documents
Biometric user identification
Business process management suites
Business process networks
Business rule engines
Carbon nanotubes
Corporate Semantic Web
Corporate blogging
DNA logic
Desktop search (what?)
Electronic ink/digital paper
Handwriting recognition
Inkjet manufacturing
Internal Web services
Internet micropayments
Linux on desktop for mainstream business users
Location aware applications
Mesh networks Senor
Micro fuel cells (no longer personal)
Model drive approaches
Networked collective intelligence
Organic light emitting devices
Peer to peer VoIP
Podcasting
Prediction markets
Quantum computing
RFID (passive)
Really simple syndication
Services oriented architecture
Software as a Service
Speech recognition for telephony and call centers
Tablet PC
Text mining
Text to speech speech synthesis
Trusted computing group
Videoconferencing
VoIP (listed twice in the 2005 hype cycle)
XBRL

Year 2006 Cacaphones (n=32 spoor): A Year for Remembering Quantum Computing

Augmented reality
Biometric payments
Collective intelligence
Corporate blogging
Corporate Semantic Web
DNA logic
Digital paper/e paper
Enterprise instant messaging
Event driven architecture
Folksonomies
IPv6
Internal Web servicers
Location aware applications
Location aware technology
Mashup
Mesh networks: sensor
Model driven architectures
Offline Ajax
Prediction markets
Quantum computing
RFID
RSS enterprise
Smartphone
Social network analysis
Speech recognition for mobile devices
Speech to speech translation
Tablet PC Mobile phone payments
Telepresence
Tera-architectures
VoIP
Web 2.0
Wikis

Year 2007 Cacaphones (n=34 spoor): VoIP and Digital Fiesta

Bluetooth in automobiles
Broadband video on demand
Consumer telematics
Digital TV (cable and satellite)
Digital terrestrial TV
Digital video recorders
Digital video broadcasting–handheld
Fixed mobile converged voice service
HD Radio
HD optical disc players
HDTV displays
Household Wi-Fi
IPTV
Interactive TV
Legal file sharing / legitimate P2P
Micro projectors
Media distribution via game consoles
Mobile TV broadcasting
Mobile TV streaming
Mobile video on demand
Network DVR
Next generation satellite
OLED TVs
Online game consoles
PC based media center
Portable media players
Portable personality
Residential VoIP
Ultra mobile devices
Video on demand
Video chat over IP
Wire line home networking (coaxial and power line)
Widgets
Wire line home networking / dedicated Ethernet wiring

Year 2008 Cacaphones (n=27 spoor): The Hardware Influence

3D printing
Augmented reality
Basic Web services (Yep, basic)
Behavioral economics
Cloud computing
Context delivery architecture
Corporate blogging
Electronic paper
Erasable paper printing systems (Huh?)
Green IT
Idea management
Location aware applications
Micro blogging
Mobile robots
Public virtual worlds (Oh, boy)
RFID (case/pallet)
Service oriented architecture
Service oriented business applications
Social computing platforms
Social network analysis
Solid state drives
Surface computers (A mid tier person talked to Microsoft)
Tablet PC
Video telepresence
Virtual assistants
Web 2.0
Wikis

Year 2009 Cacaphones (n=35 spoor): Some Weird Stuff

3-D flat panel displays
3-D printing
Augmented reality
Behavioral economics (Someone took a night school course)
Cloud computing
Context delivery architecture
Corporate blogging
Developed markets (What?)
E book readers
Electronic paper
Green IT
Home health monitoring
Human augmentation
Idea management (What?)
Internet TV
Location aware applications
Mesh networks: sensor
Micro blogging
Mobile robots
Online video
Over the air mobile phone payment systems
Public virtual worlds
Quantum computing (Yippy. Back on the list)
RFID (case/pallet)
Services oriented architecture
Social network analysis
Social software suites (Huh?)
Speech recognition
Surface computers (Go, Microsoft)
Tablet PC
Video search (Discovering YouTube and Google Video search perchance)
Video telepresence
Web 2.0
Wikis
Wireless power

Year 2010 Cacaphones (n=32 spoor):The Début of Extreme

3D flat panel TVs and displays
3D printing Speech to speech translation
4G standard
Activity streams
Augmented reality
Autonomous vehicles
Biometric authentication methods
Broadband over power lines
Cloud computing
Cloud/Web platforms
Computer brain interface
Consumer generated media
Context delivery architecture
E book readers
Extreme transaction processing
Gesture recognition
Human augmentations
Idea management (round  up those puppies, partner)
Interactive TV
Internet TV
Internet micropayment systems
Location aware applications
Media tablet
Mesh networks sensor
Micro blogging
Mobile application store
Mobile robots
Pen centric tablet PCs
Predictive analytics
Private cloud computing
Public virtual worlds
Social analytics
Speech recognition
Tangible user interfaces
Terahertz waves
Video search (again!)
Video telepresence
Virtual assistants
Wireless power

Year 2011 Cacaphones (n=41 spoor): A Year in Recycling

3D bio printing
3D printing
Activity streams
Augmented reality
Big Data and extreme processing and management
Biometric authentication  methods
Cloud / Web platforms
Cloud computing
Computer brain interface
Context enriched services
E book readers (hello, Kindle)
Gamification
Gesture recognition
Group buying
Hosted virtual desktops
Human augmentation
Idea management
Image recognition
In memory database management systems
Internet TV
Internet of things
Location aware applications
Machine to machine communication services (ah, ha, a network)
Media table
Mesh networks sensor
Mobile application stores
Mobile robots
NFC payment
Natural language question answering
Predictive analytics
Private cloud computing
QR /color code consumerization
Quantum computing (it’s back again)
Social TV
Social analytics
Speech recognition
Speech to speech translation
Video analytics for customer services
Virtual assistants
Virtual worlds
Wireless power

Year 2012 Cacaphones (n=44 spoor): The Kitchen Sink Era

3D bio printing
3D printing
3D scanners
Activity streams
Application stores
Audio mining / speech analytics
Augmented reality
Automatic content recognition (Huh?)
Autonomous vehicles
Big Data (at last!)
Biometric authentication methods
Bring your own device
Cloud computing
Complex event processing
Consumer telematics
Consumerization
Crowdsourcing
Gamification
Gesture control
HTML5
Home health monitoring
Hosted virtual desktops
Human augmentation
Hybrid cloud computing
Idea management
In memory analytics
In memory database management systems
Internet of things
Machine to machine communication services
Media tablets
Mobile over the air payments
Mobile robots
NFC payment
Natural language question answering
Predictive analytics
Private cloud computing
Quantum computing (a familiar emerging technology)
Silicon anode batteries
Social analytics
Speech recognition
Speech to speech translation
Text analytics
Virtual worlds
Volumetric and holographic displays
Wireless power

Year 2013 Cacaphones (n=43 spoor): Losing the Familiar

3D bio printing
3D scanners
Activity streams
Affective computing
Augmented reality
Autonomous vehicles
Big Data
Bio acoustic sensing
Bio metric authentication methods
Bio chips
Brain computer interface
Cloud computing
Consumer 3D printing
Consumer telematics
Complex event processing
Content analytics
Electro vibration
Enterprise 3D printing
Gamification
Gesture control
Human augmentation
In memory analytics
In memory database management systems
Internet of things
Location intelligence
Machine to machine communication services
Mesh networks sensor
Mobile health monitoring
Mobile robots
Natural Language question answering
Neuro business (huh?)
Near field communication
Predictive analytics (a perennial favorite)
Prescriptive analytics
Quantified self (huh?)
Quantum computing (still an innovation trigger)
Smart dust
Speech recognition
Speech to speech translation
Virtual assistants
Virtual reality
Volumetric and holographic displays
Wearable user interfaces

Year 2014 Cacaphones (n=43 spoor):Time for Affective Computing

3D bio printing systems
3D scanners
Activity streams
Affective computing
Augmented reality
Autonomous vehicles
Big Data
Bio acoustic sensing
Biochips
Brain computer interface
Cloud computing
Complex event processing
Connected home
Consumer 3D printing
Consumer telematics
Content analytics (new jargon for the old jargon text analytics?)
Crypto currencies (the consultants discover Bitcoin)
Data science
Digital security (at last, security)
Enterprise 3D printing
Gamification
Gesture control
Human augmentation
Hybrid cloud computing
In memory analytics
In memory database management systems
Internet of things
Machine to machine communication services
Mobile health monitoring
Natural language question answering
Near field communications
Neuro business
Prescriptive analytics (do what the math says, Mary)
Quantum computing (still an innovation trigger)
Smart advisors
Smart robots (mobile robots have disappeared it seems)
Software defined anything (anything?)
Speech recognition
Speech to speech translation
Virtual personal assistants
Virtual reality
Volumetric and holographic displays
Wearable user interfaces

Year 2015 Cacaphones (n=37 spoor): Not Much Neuro Creativity Evident

3D bio printing systems for organ transplant
Advanced analytics with self service delivery
Affective computing
Augmented reality
Autonomous field vehicles (Isn’t this autonomous vehicles?)
Autonomous vehicles
Bio acoustic sensing
Biochips
Brain computer interface
Citizen data science
Connected home
Consumer 3D printing
Crypto currencies
Crypto currency exchange
Digital dexterity
Digital security
Enterprise 3D printing
Gesture control
Human augmentation
Hybrid cloud computing
Internet of Things
Internet of things platform
Machine learning (finally!)
Micro data centers
Natural language question answering
Neuro business
People literate technology (A first timer)
Quantum computing (still with us)
Smart advisors (who wants a stupid advisor?)
Smart dust
Smart robots
Software defined security (a variation on software defined anything)
Speech to speech translation
Virtual personal assistants
Virtual reality
Volumetric displays
Wearable

Year 2016 Cacaphones (n=33 spoor): Lots of “Smart”

4D printing (another dimension?)
802.11ax
Affective computing (More emotion in that silicon)
Augmented reality (Remember Google Glass)
Autonomous vehicles
Blockchain (A first timer)
Brain computer interface
Cognitive expert advisors
Commercial UAV drones (Go, Amazon)
Connected home
Context brokering (love that context word)
Conversational user interfaces
Data broker Platform as a Service or dbrPssS
Enterprise taxonomy and ontology management (Huh?)
General purpose machine intelligence (Wow!)
Gesture control devices
Internet of Things platform
Machine learning
Micro data centers
Nanotube electronics
Natural language question answering
Neuro morphic hardware (Huh?)
Personal analytics
Quantum computing (Plugging along)
Smart data discovery (Opposite of stupid data discovery?)
Smart dust
Smart robots
Smart workspace
Software defined security
Software defined anything, now SDx
Virtual personal assistants
Virtual reality
Volumetric displays.

Here’s a list of the cacaphones, deduplicated, in alphabetical order:

3-D Web
3-D flat panel displays
3-D printing
3D bio printing
3D flat panel TVs and displays
3D scanners
4D printing (another dimension?)
4G
4G standard
802.11ax
902.16
Active server pages
Activity streams
Advanced Web services in portals
Advanced analytics with self service delivery
Advanced integration in portals
Affective computing
Application platform suites
Application stores
Audio mining
Augmented reality
Automatic content recognition (Huh?)
Autonomous field vehicles
Autonomous vehicles
B2B e markets
B2C e business
Basic Web services
Basic Web services support in portals
Basic search
Behavioral economics
Big Data
Bio acoustic sensing
Biochips
Bio metric authentication  methods
Bio metric identity documents
Bio metric payments
Bio metric user identification
Bio metrics
Blockchain (A first timer)
Bluetooth
Bluetooth in automobiles
Brain computer interface
Bring your own device. BYOB
Broadband over power lines
Broadband video on demand
Business process fusion
Business process management suites
Business process networks
Business rule engines
Carbon nanotubes
Citizen data science
Cloud / Web platforms
Cloud computing
Cloud/Web platforms
Cognitive expert advisers
Collective intelligence
Commercial UAV drones (Go, Amazon)
Complex event processing
Computer brain interface
Connected home
Consumer 3D printing
Consumer generated media
Consumer telematics
Consumerization
Content analytics
Context brokering
Context delivery architecture
Context enriched services
Contextual personalization
Conversational user interfaces
Corporate Semantic Web
Corporate blogging
Crowdsourcing
Crypto currencies
DNA logic
DSL/Cable modems
Data broker Platform as a Service or dbrPssS
Data science
Desktop portals
Desktop search
Developed markets
Digital TV (cable and satellite)
Digital dexterity
Digital ink
Digital paper
Digital security
Digital signatures
Digital terrestrial TV
Digital video recorders
Digital video broadcasting–handheld
E book readers
E payments
E tags
Electronic ink
Electronic paper
Electro vibration
Enterprise 3D printing
Enterprise instant messaging
Enterprise portals
Enterprise taxonomy and ontology management
Erasable paper printing systems
Event driven architecture
Extreme processing
Extreme transaction processing
Federated portals across vendor families
Fixed mobile converged voice service
Folksonomies
Gamification
General purpose machine intelligence (Wow!)
Gesture control devices
Gesture recognition
Green IT
Grid computing
Group buying
HD Radio
HD optical disc players
HDTV displays
HTML5
Handwriting recognition
Head mounted displays
Home health monitoring
Hosted portals
Hosted virtual desktops
Household Wi-Fi
Human augmentation
Hybrid cloud computing
IPTV
IPv6
Idea management
Identity survives
Image recognition
In memory analytics
In memory database management systems
Ink jet manufacturing
Integrated collaboration
Integrated content management
Integrated open source content management
Interactive TV
Internal Web services
Internet TV
Internet micro payment systems
Internet micro payments
Internet of Things
Internet of Things platform
JSR168 (a portlet catalog)
JSR170 (content repository)
Java language
Jini
Legal file sharing / legitimate P2P
Linux on desktop for mainstream business users
Location aware applications
Location intelligence
Location sensing
M commerce
Machine learning
Machine to machine communication services
Mash up
Media distribution via game consoles
Media tablets
Mesh networks sensor
Micro data centers
Micro fuel cells
Micro portals
Micro blogging
Micro payments
Micro projectors
Mobile TV broadcasting
Mobile TV streaming
Mobile access to portals
Mobile application store
Bio metric authentication methods
Mobile application stores
Mobile health monitoring
Mobile over the air payments
Mobile robots
Mobile video on demand
Model drive approaches
Model driven architectures
NFC payment
Nanocomputing
Nanotube electronics
Natural language question answering
Natural language search
Near field communications
Network DVR
Networked collective intelligence
Neuro business
Neuro morphic hardware (Huh?)
Neuro business (huh?)
Next generation satellite
OLED TVs
Offline Ajax
Offline portals
Online game consoles
Online video
Open source higher education portals
Open source horizontal portals
Open source portals
Organic light emitting devices
Over the air mobile phone payment systems
PC based media center
PDA phones
Peer to peer
Peer to peer VoIP
Peer to peer computing
Pen centric tablet PCs
People literate technology (A first timer)
Personal analytics
Personal digital assistant phones
Personal fuel cells
Personal work portals
Podcasting
Portable media players
Portable personality
Portal fabric
Portal ubiquity
Portlets
Prediction markets
Predictive analytics
Prescriptive analytics
Private cloud computing
Process portals
Public key infrastructure
Public virtual worlds
QR /color code consumerization
Quantified self (huh?)
Quantum computing
RFID
RFID (case/pallet)
RFID (passive)
RSS enterprise
Really simple syndication
Residential VoIP
Rich client portals
Role based personalization
SES (possibly the Korean girl musical group)
Semantic Web
Service oriented architecture
Service oriented business applications
Services oriented architecture
Silicon anode batteries
Smart advisers
Smart cards
Smart data discovery
Smart dust
Smart enterprise suites (maybe the 2003 SES?)
Smart robots
Smart workspace
Smart phone
Social TV
Social analytics
Social computing platforms
Social network analysis
Social software suites (Huh?)
Software defined security
Software as a Service
Software defined anything, now SDx
Software defined security (a variation on software defined anything)
Solid state drives
Speech analytics
Speech recognition
Speech recognition for mobile devices
Speech recognition for telephony and call centers
Speech recognition in call centers
Speech recognition on desktops
Speech to speech translation
Speech to speech translation
Speech to speech translation
Surface computers
Syndication
Synthetic characters
Tablet PC
Tablet PC Mobile phone payments
Tangible user interfaces
Telepresence
Tera-architectures
Tera hertz waves
Text analytics
Text mining
Text to speech
Text to speech speech synthesis
Trusted computing group
Ultra mobile devices
Video analytics for customer services
Video chat over IP
Video on demand
Video search
Video telepresence
Videoconferencing
Virtual assistants
Virtual content repositories
Virtual personal assistants
Virtual private networks
Virtual reality
Virtual worlds
VoIP
Voice over IP
Voice portals
Volumetric and holographic displays
Volumetric displays
WAP/Wireless Web
WSRP and JSR 168
Wearable
Wearable user interfaces
Web 2.0
Web services
Web services for remote portals
Webtops
Widgets
Wikis
Wireless LANs/802.11
Wireless Web/WAP
Wireless power
Wire line home networking (coaxial and power line)
Wire line home networking / dedicated Ethernet wiring
Worldwide inter operability for  microwave access (Yes!)
XBRL
XML
XML based multichannel output and interaction

Observations

1. Each annual list is what appears to be a subjective round up of jargon. Unlike Google Trends, the lists and their relative placement on the hype graph seem subjective.
2. Some drums are beaten loudly and for years; examples include portal (20 mentions). Other inclusions are pretty darned weird or incomprehensible; for instance, digital dexterity, quantified self, synthetic characters, electro vibration, and behavioral economics.
3. The lists with their suggestion of what’s coming, what’s here, and what’s going out of style is obviously a marketing exercise. The give away is that collective cacaphones skew to business processes, hot hardware (real or imagined), and network services. My hypothesis is that the mid tier outfit wants to sell bread-and-butter advice along with speculation about the world of Star Wars and Star Trek.
4. One would expect an entry to appear each year with its location adjusted to reflect the market grip of the “innovation.” That’s not the case. Items appear once like behavior economics and then disappear. I asked myself, “is this annual cacaphone graph prepared over kale and sushi in a brainstorming session with participants Googling for ideas?”

You will be able to divine the future by contemplating these alphabetical lists and doing some poetical extrapolation. Security appears in four different forms, but lags behind the burning hot subject of portlet. Apply your efforts to “neuro business” and thrive or not. By the way, I have absolutely zero idea what to do with my “quantified self” when I use “neuro morphic hardware.” Stupid, right?

Stephen E Arnold, December 16, 2016

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