Straight Talk: How Buzzwords Are Putting the Brakes on Adoption

Collaboration, social media, Enterprise 2.0 – while all of us forward-looking companies are trying to out-buzzword each other, we’re alienating our potential customers with jargon that only confuse and intimidate. Let’s discuss how shifting our message to focus on solutions and benefits will help drive the adoption of Web 2.0 technologies from the consumer up to the enterprise.

Jen Grant is the vice president of marketing at Box.net, where she is responsible for leading brand strategy, sales marketing, public relations and product marketing. She was recently named one of Silicon Valley's 40 under 40 in the Silicon Valley Business Journal.

Prior to Box.net, Jen spent four years at Google where she was head of marketing for the Apps team responsible for Gmail, Calendar, Talk, Blogger, Reader, Picasa, Orkut and OpenSocial. In addition, she built out the Google Apps Education Edition marketing team to support sales to CIOs at universities and reach out directly to students. Earlier, Jen developed the marketing, education and outreach strategy for Google Book Search and led the marketing team in successfully swaying public opinion and improving relations with publishers. In 2007, she received a Google Founders Award - the most prestigious award offered at Google.

Prior to Google, Jen was a product manager at Stata Labs, which was acquired by Yahoo in 2004, director of marketing at Thin Multimedia and a co-founder at DealMaven, which was acquired by FactSet. She received her MBA from Wharton and earned her bachelor's degree from Princeton.

  Box.net provides a web-based platform for content management, file sharing and collaboration, providing an easy way for businesses to access, manage and share all of their content online. Nearly 3 million users and 50,000 businesses use Box to simplify document management, accelerate productivity and connect employees, partners and customers with a familiar interface anyone can use. Through its open platform, OpenBox, customers can use their Box content with dozens of integrated third-party applications and services as well as customize it to meet the specific needs of their industry or business. Ultimately, Box.net gives people the ability to access, share and collaborate on all their content from any place, any device and any application.