By Neville Chaney
I have reflected on acronyms often. It’s fine when you are communicating with someone within your industry or specialty, but doesn’t it promote a lack of understanding on your part that the person whom you are communicating with doesn’t relish feeling stupid?
The military cannot live without them apparently. They are awash in them as is the medical community. Have you ever tried to read your blood panel report? I need to show it to a buddy who is a retired doctor to tell me about my blood. So much for HIPAA (see, another acronym). Even many of the drugs go by a “nickname.” Hydrochlorozide is “HCTZ.” Why don’t they call it that in the first place?
Even in my office equipment business the acronyms are voluminous. CPI (cost per image), MFP (multifunction printer), CPP (cost per page), DPI (dots per inch). Does anybody outside the copier industry know what an A3 or an A4 is? This lingo refers to the maximum size of the printed page that your copier (alias MFP) will accommodate. An A3 machine will accommodate 11 x 17 paper (also known as “ledger” size paper) and the A4 equipment will accommodate up to 8.5 x 14 paper (also known as “legal” size paper).
There are some acronyms that when you think about them make sense “PPM” = “pages per minute” and some I have no idea of what it means (i.e. EPEAT Gold Certified). Is there a guy out there named EPEAT? What’s a GW controller? A Fiery 27-B? An optional “Buffer Pass” unit that cools the media (paper) before it gets to the finishing unit? For that matter, what the heck is a finishing unit?
Obviously, I know the meaning to many of these items as it relates to a copier, but if I use that language in communicating with a potential customer, he/she will probably be lost. I would love to look at my blood panel and be able to know what I was looking at because not everyone knows “a guy” that can explain it and is patient with me when I ask him again later.
So, I hope that I’ve given you something to reflect on while I use my copier’s Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Laser (VCSEL) technology to deliver the industry’s highest pixel density (4800 dpi) for the most vivid images and crisp text with shape lines.
Have a great day!