Webster?s: Jargon (n) - Confused, unintelligible language; gibberish; hence, an artificial idiom or dialect; cant language; slang.

Every job or profession has its own jargon; we use it all the time whether we like it or not, and despite all the best endeavours of the Plain English Campaign. Often it is a defence to make what we do sound special ? perhaps deliberately unintelligible to the outsider.

What kind of jargon do we dislike the most? It is undoubtedly the techno-babble that passes for trying to explain a product or service in the technology sphere.

Think what it does to the potential investor going through scores of business plans a week and barely capable of spending more than a few minutes on each. Why should he spend time trying to understand terminology he has never come across before? It doesn't say much for your organisation's ability to make itself attractive to either investors or customers down the line. If you cannot be bothered to explain your offering in straightforward terms, it implies a lot of things about your company - and most of them are negative.

There are around 50 companies floated on OFEX today who could loosely be said to be in the technology area. They are the lucky 50 who managed to explain their product or service in a way immediately intelligible to outsiders. But think how many fail to get funding because they do not bother to explain clearly what their company does.

Jeremy Carr, corporate finance partner at Ford Campbell Chartered Accountants who advises a group of high net worth individuals on funding technology firms, says he has no doubt whatsoever that a lot of projects fail to find funding because they are not easily understandable.

"Technology funders are not generally keen to talk about the functionality of a product. They want to know if there is a market and if they can make money," he says. "If it doesn't grip them on the first page of the business plan then they will turn off.

"We turn down lots of companies regularly because we can't understand them. With manufacturing you can see something tangible, but with technology you are often dealing with intangibles which are difficult to understand as a layman."

Examples of jargon getting in the way are legion. There was the CEO of the stumbling software PLC we worked for who told 1500 staff at a kick start meeting that in his view they had spent years creating problems for, and confusing, clients; now it was time to explain things in layman's terms.

Then there was the Cambridge tech firm seeking US backing who we were despatched to go and interview because potential investors knew they had something good to offer - but they hadn't a clue what it was.

More recently there was the technology company who had in fact developed a $30 plug in for a video recorder which allowed satellite viewing. They toured around a dozen VC organisations incapable of explaining what the thing did until they were rescued by a PR company who actually translated their offering into plain English. The VCs had assumed their product was a niche offering while in reality it had a potential market of 80 million users.

An associate in bio tech funding claims the issue is not as bad in that sector as it was 10 years ago - because so many companies in the sector learnt the hard way and today most presentations get to the point quickly. But then biotechnology deals with tangibles - it is aimed at solving an existing human problem.

The issue is all the harder for technology firms who may be in the process of developing a product but who need to create a market demand for that product. They have the idea but they may not be able to express what it can do in that market.

Garth Shephard is CEO of Envisage a consultancy specialising in creating clear, coherent messages for technology companies. He says, "no matter how big and successful they are, high tech companies seem to be singularly incapable of plain talk." Envisage works with researchers and entrepreneurs in the computing and telecomms sector to forecast where new technologies will lead us. In writing reviews, producing likely usage scenarios, and researching case studies Shephard says, "we come across countless examples of gobbledy-gook. Companies either try to be all things to all people, or resort to jargon. Very seldom do they hit the button with something crisp, clear and on target."

Shephard is no stranger to technology. During his career, he has been responsible for many ground-breaking technological developments. "Even being an insider," he says, "you still have to walk through treacle to get to gold. Two companies who do completely opposite things will describe themselves in identical, generic terms. So unless you actually do what we do, quiz them from a technical background, then translate it in lay terms and repeat it back to them, what they do remains a state secret."

To prove his point, Shephard gave us three examples from public websites of well-established multi-national, high-tech US businesses. "Yes, this really is their ?elevator pitch?," Shephard says, shaking his head. "I challenge anyone to know what they are selling from these descriptions."

• 'P' enables organizations to monetize their voice and digital transactions. Enhanced by a full suite of prebuilt integrations and optional product modules that extend the platform to meet the needs of vertical markets, the network platform provides the competitive advantage needed to enable innovative business models.

These three companies are all in competition with each other in a crowded, but growing market. Like all companies, they will have to change and reinvent themselves to stay with the market as it evolves. It is vital that growing high-tech companies position themselves effectively so that their salespeople and their customers can have a worthwhile dialogue.

Arie de Geus famously discovered that the average life expectancy of companies, of any size, is only 12.5 years. So, being able to position and reposition your company unambiguously against a moving market is a never-ending battle.

LIVEpr works with Envisage Ltd, a consultancy specialising in creating clear coherent messages for technology companies to overcome the jargon nightmare.

Geneva hosts the world's largest telecommunications trade show.