Technology Basics
This is the name for the physical components of a computer things you can actually touch, like the keyboard, screen, and processor.
What is hardware?
This is the word for the fee a consulting firm charges a client for their services.
What is a billable rate?
Short videos up to 60 seconds are the signature content format on this app.
What is TikTok?
This term describes storing your files and data on remote servers instead of your own device.
What is the cloud?
The three most widely used LLMs right now.
ChatGPT (OpenAI), Gemini (Google), and Claude (Anthropic)
Consultants use this two-by-two matrix, made famous by a Boston firm, to analyze a company's product portfolio by market share and growth.
What is the BCG Matrix (Boston Consulting Group Matrix)?
Before a project begins, a consultant and client sign this document to make sure both sides agree on goals, scope, and expectations.
What is a contract (or agreement)?
This platform, owned by Meta, is the world's largest social network by users.
What is Facebook?
HTTP and HTTPS are examples of these, the rules that govern how data is sent across the web.
What are protocols?
When someone uses AI to create a fake but realistic video of a person saying something they never said, it's called a what?
What is a deepfake?
Often abbreviated ML, this subset of AI allows systems to learn and improve from experience without being explicitly programmed.
What is machine learning?
This is the name for a potential new client that a consulting firm is trying to win business from.
What is a prospect (or lead)?
This term describes when a social media post spreads rapidly across the internet.
What is going viral?
This term refers to malicious software designed to damage or gain unauthorized access to a computer.
What is malware?
The EU passed this landmark law in 2024 to regulate how AI can be used, the first major law of its kind.
What is the EU AI Act?
This term describes the maximum speed at which data can be transferred over your internet connection.
What is bandwidth?
This concept that a company's technology should directly support and accelerate its business goals is central to what technology consultants advise clients on.
What is IT/business alignment?
Elon Musk owns this platform, formerly known as Twitter.
What is X?
Wi-Fi and cellular data are the two main ways a phone connects to this.
What is the internet?
Many workers worry that AI will do this to their jobs, replacing human labor with automated systems.
What is automation (or job displacement)?
HTTP and HTTPS are the same except HTTPS uses this to keep your connection secure.
What is encryption?
This sales concept describes the series of stages a potential client moves through from first contact to signed contract and is often visualized as a funnel.
What is a sales pipeline (or deal funnel)?
This term describes the hidden system each platform uses to decide which posts show up in your feed.
What is an algorithm?
Global spending on protecting computers and networks from attacks exceeded $200 billion in 2026.
What is cybersecurity?
This term describes AI systems that can set their own goals and take actions in the real world without constant human input.
What are AI agents (or agentic AI)?