Language problem

One vendor gets confusingly direct while another gets disastrously funky. Dagenham's best gets to the bottom of another week in the channel

Regular reader(s) will know that I'm a man who values plain speaking and a clear and concise approach to the English language, particularly in my working life. As the east London area's most no-nonsense holistic software and services integrator, I call a solution a solution, and I don't care who knows it.
So I was pleased to see Mitel - sorry, that should be "Mitel® (Nasdaq: MITL; TSX: MNW), a leading provider of cloud and premises-based unified communications software solutions" - is determined to avoid jargon and acronyms and incorporate "simple terms and plain English" in its "new product naming architecture".
"In addition to providing end-user customers with solution clarity, Mitel's product names aim to increase awareness and a deeper understanding of Mitel's overall product offering among its business and channel partner ecosystem to help them sell more Mitel solutions," said the vendor, plainspokenly. "Bish, bash, bosh. Wallop. Simple as," it added, probably.
For what it's worth, the new, unjargonised and de-acronymed products are called MiCollab, MiVoice and MiContactCenter (no, me either).
Taking a leaf out of Mitel's book, I've gone for a simple, easy-to-understand name for my new business start-up bundle. I call it the Dodgi Integrated Computing Kit: Handsets, Email And Desktops. Or, for short: DIC... oh, wait a minute.

Dance of death
One channel argument that rages on is whether it's better to work for a vendor or reseller. As the MD of Dagenham's fourth-largest dealer, working on the bleeding edge of the factory seconds router market (and with an offshore account in the Caymans), I'm doing OK. But even I have sometimes pined to be a top vendor executive, creating my own IP, flying business class and earning seven figures in the process.
That was until earlier this month, when I - along with other UK partners - witnessed Cisco executives join an on-stage sing-along at the networking daddy's Worldwide Partner Conference in Boston.
"Datacentre is strong, we got it going on; Agents of change we wanna rock, Cisco is the partner who walks the talk", the house-band singer intoned as the switching juggernaut's top brass swayed awkwardly to an excruciating jazzy set piece that evoked New Labour's take on Things Can Only Get Better. It's safe to say I'm staying right where I am.

Ducking the question
My charming ways, easy-going attitude and heart of gold may have you under the illusion that I am something of a pussy cat, but I can assure you that's not always the case. When it comes to the recruitment process, I have no shame in admitting I take no prisoners. I've had my fair share of contracting chaos in the Dodgi empire over the years, so I've learned the hard way that a stringent hiring process is the only way to target timewasters.
That's why this week I was so pleased to have stumbled across recruitment firm Glassdoor's list of the toughest interview questions faced by candidates. Some of my favourites include "how would you fit a giraffe in a fridge?", "what is the most useful function in Excel?" and "would you rather fight one horse-sized duck or 100 duck-sized horses?".
Well, as effective as these techniques may be, I've found that nothing works better at sorting the men from the boys than a good-old-fashioned, bicep-flexing arm wrestle.

Loose lips
It's always wise to ensure you know exactly who is in your presence before you start having a very detailed conversation with a colleague about a particular company or individual.
My mate was at a vendor summit recently in a very posh place and was enjoying some top grub during lunch, when he heard two people talking about a sizeable channel firm and its recent woes, along with some very interesting insider knowledge. Bearing in mind these people were saying some pretty racy stuff, it's a good job my mate is the perfect example of discretion and decided to let it all go.
It could have been worse, I suppose. They could have been talking about this particular company within earshot of a load of journalists. Imagine that!