My Tech Glossary
Updated June 3, 2011
When I began working in the high-tech industry, I was befuddled by the many abbreviations and three-letter acronyms (TLAs) as well as much of the jargon that I encountered. An email with the subject line of “OOO 2/23 (EOM)” left me scratching my head. I began keeping this glossary of interesting terms a while ago and will keep adding to it as I learn more.*
A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J - K - L - M - N - O - P - Q - R - S - T - U - V - W - X - Y - Z
0.1 = a software version number; pronounced “zero dot one” in British English context and “zero point one” in U.S. context
+1 = email response to mean “I agree” or “I concur”
1:1 = one on one, a meeting of two people, not necessarily in person; “‘Let’s 1:1 later today,’ wrote his manager. ‘Call me at 2.’”; “His manager scheduled a 1:1 with Rafael for 2 p.m.”; see “F2F,” “sync”
AI = action item: any item on a to-do list; “‘That’s my team’s AI,’ said the web services manager at the end of the planning-group meeting.”
alias (n) = an email group to which one subscribes, similar to Google Groups or Yahoo Groups; “Send your question to the pc-help alias to see whether your colleagues can help you solve your computer problem.”
align synergies (v) = work together; “Let’s see if we can’t get the engineering and product teams to align the synergies and create the best user experience possible.”
all-hands (n, a) = a meeting of all members of an organization; naval metaphor: all hands on deck; “All 250 members of the new division are required to attend Wednesday’s all-hands meeting.”; see “meeting”
app = abbreviation for application, a software program
AR = analyst relations; the branch of an organization that works with financial analysts (for example, Gartner and Forrester)
architect (n) = an engineer; also: to engineer (v) = to create, to make, to program, to build
ARPU = average revenue per user, average revenue per unit
bandwidth (n) = time: “I don’t have the bandwidth to take on that project.”; see “cycles”
bio break (n) = bathroom break: “This meeting’s running a little long, and we have lots more to cover. Let’s cut for a bio break and meet back here at 3:30 sharp.”
brain dump (n); see “TOI”
BRIC = Brazil, Russia, India, and China; see “geo”
C2R = contact to revenue; the time from a salesperson’s first contact with a customer to the selling company’s getting the revenue; “To reach our financial goals this fiscal year, we must cut C2R time by half.”
call to action (n) = action command within a piece, often abbreviated as CTA; “Write an advertisement no longer than five words to describe the new product, and add a CTA of ‘Buy This!’”
CAPTCHA = acronym for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart; a psychedelic-looking combination of letters and numbers that some web pages include for users to type in, with the aim of thwarting spammers; “When Ellen tried to submit a comment on the blog, the CAPTCHA that came up was too distorted to read, so she clicked to get another.”
chalk talk (n) = a meeting at which someone lays out a new project, program, or product; metaphor; chalk is rarely involved
cheat sheet (n) = “With her notes, Alicia created a cheat sheet so that no one else on the team would lose time figuring out how to make the program accomplish the needed tasks.”
checked out (a) = no longer engaged in one’s work; term from hotel occupancy: although “checked out” is in use, “checked in” is not; “Since the last round of RIFs, George has checked out. He no longer answers phone calls or emails.”; see “radio-silent”
CID = campaign ID; an addition to a URL, which allows you to track how many people clicked through from one article to a particular web page; sometimes called a targeted URL
COB = close of business; end of the workday, usually understood as 5 p.m. (17:00) in the speaker’s time zone
concall (n) = conference call; two or more people talking together by telephone; see “meeting”
CR = change request; a request to make a change in a software program or application; see “RFE”
CTA = see call to action
cxl = abbreviation for cancel; “The busy manager sent an email: ‘cxl 10 a.m. meeting’”
cycles (n) = time; always used in plural form; “My manager asked if I had the cycles to do this by COB today, but I’m already squeezed for time.”; see “bandwidth”
demo (n) = a demonstration; also verb meaning to give a demonstration: “At the all-hands, we demo’d a mapping component built into our web application.” (variant spelling of past participle: demoed)
dial up, dial down (v) = to increase or decrease attention to something; “Let’s dial down our emphasis on last year’s blazing fast version and dial up this year’s version.”
dialed (a) = to be up-to-date on, to have given assent to; “‘We’ll get you dialed with the new plan,’ said the manager to the intern, ‘and you’ll be good to go.’”
disappointing (a, adv) = very bad; “Sales figures for the first quarter were disappointing”; see “unfortunate”
drink the Kool-Aid (v) = to be convinced of something, to promote something with energy and fervor; “Jack never thought he would like social networking, but he’s drunk the Kool-Aid and he’s hooked.” Although some say that the phrase originates in the mixture of fruit punch and tranquilizers used in the mass murder– suicide of the Peoples Temple cult in Jonestown, Guyana, in 1978, and now has multiple meanings, Stewart Brand of Whole Earth Catalog fame says it dates further back, to Ken Kesey and his band of Merry Pranksters.
EMEA = Europe, Middle East, Africa; see “geo”
EOL = end of [software] life; to reach end of life, no longer supported or updated; “That software has been EOL’d.”
EOM = end of message; used in email when the entire message is in the subject line: “Bob day off today (EOM).”
escalate (v) = to take the action or issue up one level; “When Tim failed to get a satisfactory response from Dan, he escalated the issue to Dan’s manager.”
ETA = estimated time of arrival, the date or time by which one estimates a task will be done; airport metaphor; “We filed an RFE with tech support for that bug, but they haven’t given us an ETA on the fix.”
execute (v, intransitive) = to carry out, to perform; “‘We have a companywide plan for the next fiscal year,’ said the CEO. ‘Let’s get out there and execute!’”
F2F = a face-to-face meeting; sometimes used as a verb; see “1:1″
FCS = first customer shipment
fine-grained (a) = detailed; see “granular”
fire drill (n) = a cycle of work set into urgent motion; “The fire drill on Monday had managers scrambling to spend the last of the department’s funds before the fiscal year ended that afternoon.”
FUD = fear, uncertainty, and doubt
FY = fiscal year
GA = general availability, date that the software product is available for mass distribution or sale
geo = geographical region
go + verb = construction used to emphasize action, as in “We need to go build the future.” Although adding the word “go” might work to de-emphasize the real action involved — in this case, “build” — it adds a sense of immediacy instead.
granular (a) = detailed; “Jim cited the cost of each donut served at Monday’s sales meeting, but his manager said that this was too granular for a cost-benefit analysis.”
granularity (n) = detail; “What level of granularity do you want in that analysis? And how soon do you need it?”; see “fine-grained”
heads down (adv) = hard at work, focused; “The engineering team has been heads down getting the latest release to GA.”
hosed (a) = ruined, done for; “That virus wiped out my hard drive. Dude, I’m hosed!”
HTH = hope that helps; short for “Here’s the information I have. I hope it will be useful to you.”
i18n = abbreviation for the 18 letters from i to n in the word “internationalization”
IANAL = abbreviation for “I am not a lawyer”; used in emails and aliases when people give advice or comments but want to make clear that they are not speaking for the company
internationalization (n) = the process of standardizing text or a program to work equally well in multiple languages or locales; see “i18n”
IP = intellectual property, Internet protocol
IRL = in real life; “‘I know a lot of people through business and the Internet,’ Sunil wrote on the alias, ‘but there are probably 50 or so social media friends that I don’t necessarily know IRL.’”
ISV = independent software vendor
L10N = abbreviation for the 10 letters from L to n in the word “localization”
Latam = Latin America; see “geo”
launch (n, v) = to make available to the public (v); the date or occasion of availability (n); “The beta version launch will be on October 12″; “We plan to launch the beta version on October 12.”
legacy (a) = old; “Management decided to limit operating expenses by running the new software on legacy equipment, but this required hours of extra work from IT.”
leverage (v) = to use, to make something of; “When the researcher won a prestigious award, the company leveraged the announcement in several new ads.”
LMK = let me know
localization (n) = translation into local language(s), usually from English; “The product team sent the documentation to Hiroshi for localization into Japanese”; see “L10N”
LOE = level of effort; term used primarily in engineering work groups; “This task is low priority, so the LOE for getting it done is one hour.”; see “P1, P2, P3″
meeting (n) = a gathering in person, by phone, or online between two or more people; often abbreviated as mtg. “Call in to our regular staff meeting on Tuesday at 10 a.m., or join us in the Redwoods conference room.”
mtg = abbreviation for meeting
noise to signal ratio (n) = value; radio metaphor: more noise equals less signal (or value), and less noise equals more signal (more value); “A person who sends five emails to ask a single question has a high noise-to-signal ratio.”
ODM = original device manufacturer
OEM = original equipment manufacturer: “His new computer came loaded with OEM software.”
offline (a, adv) = in private; used in multiperson telephone calls and meetings to mean continuing a discussion in private; “Randy, let’s take the conversation about health benefits for your cat offline and let the CEO get back to his presentation.”
OOO = out of the office; “He set his email auto-reply to read ‘OOO 9/29-10/7.’”
optimal (a) = very good; usually used in the negative: “The performance of that five-year-old web server is not optimal.”
org chart (n) = organizational chart: a diagram that shows the company hierarchy, usually with the name of a person, the job title, and the relationship between persons on the chart; “The CEO is at the top of our company’s org chart.”
P1, P2, P3 = priority 1, 2, 3, with P1 as the highest priority; “When the company’s email system for 200,000 people went down worldwide, fixing it became P1 for engineering.”
pain point (n) = something that is not working as well as one would like, a troublesome situation, difficulty, or obstacle; “The company’s stock price that quarter was a pain point for investors.”
parking lot (v) = to put off until later; “Let’s parking lot that discussion.”
passdown (n) = the transmission or passing down of information from people at one level to the next lower level; from verb: to pass down; “My manager’s manager did a passdown from yesterday’s executive leadership team meeting during our staff meeting this morning.”
ping (v) = to contact: telephone, send email, talk to; “If engineering doesn’t get back to you, ping Rahul.”
PITA = pain in the @ss; someone or something that is bothersome, troublesome to deal with; “Getting the numbers together for this quarterly report is a real PITA.”
PTO = paid time off, vacation
put out fires (v) = to deal with urgent deadlines that come up without notice and that allow no delay; “‘I’m sorry to join the meeting so late, folks,’ said Rachel, ‘but I had to put out a few fires this morning.’”
QQ = quick question
radio-silent (a) = out of communication, no longer keeping in touch; “Since she cancelled that last team meeting three months ago, Amelia has gone radio-silent. She no longer answers phone calls or emails.”; see “checked out”
ramp up (v), ramp-up (n, a) = to learn, to prepare, to make necessary adjustments (v); the time taken to make those adjustments (n, a)
RC = release candidate; comes before GA stage as a test candidate for GA and is often used for pre-GA OEM sales
reach out (v) = to contact; “The marketing department will reach out to potential clients to tell them about our new software offering.”
reorg = (n) reorganization; (v) reorganize; a shift of employee project teams and work groups through the company; “After the latest reorg, Vicky was not sure which of the two all-hands meetings to attend.”
report (v) = to be directly responsbible to someone in the chain of command; “As the team manager, Charlotte reports to Ashwin on her team’s accomplishments, goals, and needs.”
reports (n) = number of people who report to one; “The CEO has only 12 direct reports, but he regularly encourages all the employees worldwide to contact him directly.”
resources (n) = money, people, time; “Resources are always strained at the end of the fiscal year.”
restructure (v), restructuring (n) = see “reorg”
RFE = request for enhancement; programming term for a change order or work order
RIF = reduction in force, layoffs; pronounced “riff”; “We lost six people at the last RIF”; “Five of 14 team members were RIF’d in late January.”
ROI = return on investment; “He spent 40 hours last week on a project that brought in only $10; the ROI was clearly not optimal.”
RTFM = read the f’ing manual; used in email aliases and discussion groups to indicate that another person’s question is too basic and the answer is findable with very little research
scale (v) = to expand as needed; the term is generally used only in the positive, “to scale up,” “to scale well”; “When the number of customers suddenly grew from 100 to 10,000 in two weeks, the small ISP had to scale in a few days.”
SRU = self-registered user
silo (n) = formal or informal division within a company; farm metaphor for tall cylindrical storage units for harvested grain. The term carries a negative connotation, implying a lack of communication between parts of the company: “Let’s get our engineers and our marketers out of their respective silos and get them to work together in cross-functional teams. It’s a win-win.”
sync up, synch up (v) = to synchronize, to meet; see “1:1″ and “F2F”
synergies, to align (v) = see “align synergies”
takeaway (n) = what one takes away from a meeting, an article, and so on; the message that the audience receives
TBD = to be decided, unknown for now: “The software launch date is set for February, but the exact date is TBD.”
Thanks for your interest. = I’m done, good-bye.
thx = thanks; “Too busy to type the full five letters, she wrote ‘thx’ at the end of her email message and omitted her name.”
throw it at the wall and see if it sticks (v) = to try a new idea, initiative, or process, with the possibility that it may fail. Note: Do not use this expression when talking with customers or news media.
ticket (n) = the official queue number of a formal request for help from a support team, also known as service ticket or trouble ticket; “Brian went to the tech support web page, typed in the problem he was having, and received a confirmation email with subject line of ‘Service ticket 11076.’”
TOI = transfer of information, brain dump; “Before she moved into a new position, Mary did a TOI with the person who would take her old job.”
top of mind (adv) = uppermost in one’s thinking and actions; “‘Although creativity is important, I want you to keep profitability and ROI top of mind,’ the CEO exhorted.”
tweak (n, v) = to make tiny adjustments (v); tiny adjustments (n); “Roger, I need you to tweak this copy to punch up the call to action”; “Engineering will need to make a few tweaks to the software before the launch.”
UE = user experience; the study of how a computer user works with what appears on the screen
UI = user interface; the method that a computer user uses to interact with a software program; “Which is better for users, a flashy UI that lights up, blinks, and plays a video, or a plain and simple UI that asks the user to do only one thing?”
underwater (adv) = extremely busy; “When Jennifer stops answering her email, you know she’s underwater.”
unfortunate (a) = very bad; “‘Your missing that deadline was unfortunate,’” said the vice president. ‘We lost a client because of the delay.”; see “disappointing”
UX = user experience; the study of how a computer user works with what appears on the screen
*Disclaimer: IANAL and make no claim that these definitions are accurate throughout the world of high tech.
