Don't believe everything you read

During the back half of the 1990s, I was in charge of corporate marketing at Cyrix, a Texas-based microprocessor company, and at National Semiconductor, the company that bought Cyrix.

Today, I looked at some of the CNET news stories I was quoted in back then. I couldn't believe some of the blustery crap that spewed effortlessly out of my mouth.

Everything we did was the fastest, most powerful, most highly integrated, lowest cost, blah, blah, blah. The processor gods blessed everything we designed. Customers were lining up around the block. Intel was the devil incarnate. Advanced Micro Devices was just a lowly also-ran, doomed to forever live in Intel's shadow.

As the story turns out, Cyrix imploded and National Semiconductor blew I-don't-know-how-many-billion dollars cleaning up the mess. Intel's still the world's largest semiconductor company, and AMD--well, AMD at least survived.

The point of the story is this: At any given time, there are hundreds of executives out there promoting their stuff. They're really good at spinning a story and making a pitch that makes you feel like you've got to have whatever it is they're selling.

These folks aren't bad; they're just doing their jobs. And some of them are so good at it they can sell ice cubes to Eskimos.

When I was much, much younger--long before I turned to the dark side--I dated a woman named Dawn. Dawn was the ultimate skeptic. She used to say, "I don't believe anything I hear and only half of what I see."

Well, if Dawn read some of the garbage I sold to an unsuspecting public in the '90s, it wouldn't have taken her two seconds to hit Delete. And I'm sure she doesn't have a whole lot of patience for all the hype surrounding today's high-tech gadgetry, either. As for what she might think of the blogosphere, well, let's just not go there.

Smart girl, that Dawn.

The moral of the story is this: a healthy dose of cynicism may save you from buying a whole bunch of unnecessary ice cubes.

[Ghatotkacha]

"These folks aren't bad; they're just doing their jobs." What self-serving nonsense! Lying to the public IS bad, regardless of whether you think it is your "job" or not. The problem with the solution that Mr. Tobak suggests - cynicism - is that genuine claims will not be taken seriously either (yes, sometimes new stuff IS better than existing stuff). A better solution would be more accountability and enforcement of a set of standards, similar to what advertisers must adhere to.

[nicmart]

Caveat emptor isn't exactly a new thing. The wise remember it, the foolish buy the hype.

Nothing new. People have themselves to blame for loving the book because the cover has some shiny objects on it. People are too lazy to read up on things themselves and let others tell them how to feel about a product or concept. Anything apple makes must be a great product so I must get in line and buy it at all cost. Don't matter what it does.

I remember way back when, there was a review of the (at the time) 3 major camera manufacturer's latest SLRs. They used 3 reviewers. 5 pages later "what a coincidence" each of the reviewer chose a different camera as the best one. I'm sure it had nothing to do with the 3 manufacturers having loads of ads in that magazine as well.

[ShawnKing]

" I couldn't believe some of the blustery crap that spewed effortlessly out of my mouth."

How do we know you've changed?

That sounds facetious but it's honestly not meant to be. You portray yourself as a lying crap weasel "Way back then" with the unspoken line "but you can trust me now!" buried in your story.

To paraphrase you, "At any given time, there are hundreds of (journalists/bloggers/reporters) out there promoting their stuff. They're really good at spinning a story and making a pitch that makes you feel like you've got to have whatever it is they're selling."

A healthy dose of cynicism shouldn't be reserved *just* for marketing executives.

[stobak]

ShawnKing has an excellent point! How do we know I've changed? Well, I haven't. The only difference between me then and me now is that I'm no longer head of marketing for a company. I'm not selling anything. The blog is mostly for fun and to perhaps share some experiences and perspectives that may (or may not) enlighten folks. That's about it.

Steve Tobak