The mother of re-invention

No company wants anyone to think what they're doing is fleeting or transitional — that they're nothing but a flavor of the month or a flash in the pan.

“We don't use the term ‘incubator’ a whole lot.”
— Rick LeFaivre, managing partner at ideaEDGE, a San Diego incubator (page 32)

These days, no telecom company wants to be permanently associated with anything they're providing or making or using for fear that what they're providing or making or using will eventually be associated with failure. In other words (in case you require more), no one wants to be painted into a corner, stereotyped, labeled, pigeonholed or typecast.

At the same time, however, no company wants anyone to think what they're doing is fleeting or transitional — that they're nothing but a flavor of the month or a flash in the pan (or, worst of all, a flavor in the pan). To be relevant, they make up names that aren't actually words (Q: “Do you know why Agere went on a Qwest to put Accenture on the Verizon? A: Avici!”) and attach a generic description.

Take DSL providers, for example. Or should I call them competitive local exchange carriers? No, because even though they are, they don't want to be considered the ugly stepchildren of the Telecom Act. How about just competitive carriers? Still has that legislative ring. But I can't call them DSL providers because the letters D, S and L are now scarlet, right? I could call them integrated communications providers, but since most of them are — or were — really only offering one service (DSL) that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Let's see… Most of them are shells of their former selves anyway. It probably would be rude to call them “failed experiments.” So I'll just call them “financially challenged.”

Speaking of financially challenged, fixed-wireless service providers quickly shirked that technology-oriented label (some not soon enough, apparently) when it turned out not to be the best money magnet. Most of them didn't care to be called CLECs either because they were leery of being lumped in with the underdogs. Some of them just wanted to be called broadband service providers, until the word “broadband” suddenly fell out of favor due to overexposure. So then they were just “service providers,” but that was boring, so they went bankrupt.

Recall, too, that all telecom companies are acronym-happy — although they don't seem to care whether the acronyms that describe them are pleasing to the eye or the ear. They like three letters, which explains LEC, BOC, MSO, IXC, ASP, ICP and ISP. And they would prefer their acronyms be pronounced as one syllable rather than by their initials, which explains why my suggestion that all telecom service providers simply refer to themselves as “fast universal carriers” failed to garner much support.

Then there are the incubators. This issue devotes six full pages to profiles of several telecom industry incubators, the first half-page of which is used to explain why these companies don't want to be called incubators. Presumably they don't like the association with chickens, nests and Flip Filipowski. By the time the magazine went to print, however, it was too late to heed the companies' requests to change all uses of “incubator” to either “emerging entity enabler” or “sugar daddy.”

I sympathize with every company that feels wrongly categorized or wishes the label it chose at the beginning didn't prove to be quite so sticky. I would prefer people refer to Telephony as a business publication (or, better yet, an “intelligent content catalyst”), but many still insist on applying the old “trade rag” designation — which, for some reason, always makes me think of bartering grease monkeys.

And while I don't mind when readers respond to my columns using descriptors like “dull-witted hack” and “insufferable gasbag,” I prefer the acronymic ring of “abhorrently simplistic scribe.”

Contact Jason Meyers at jmeyers@intertec.com