Word Crimes gone viral!

It's everywhere. Trite, silly marketing jargon is creeping beyond its boundaries and is now infiltrating the social media!

Word Crimes! Don't forget to send me your favourite offenders for inclusion on this year's Bull@%#$ Bingo!

The below is reprinted from theage.com's Executive Style column. For your cringeworthy enjoyment, I submit:

Mind Your Jargon

Jargon is bad enough in the business world but social media is adding a whole new layer of gobbledygook, and it is sending me around the twist.

My eyes glaze over whenever I hear talk about being on the 'same page', about 'going forward', 'key drivers', stuff that’s 'mission critical', taking the 'viewfinder' over the 'mission statement' and seeing what's at the end of the 'digital tunnel', with the 'low hanging fruit' and 'key drivers'. And the list goes on.

Forbes writer Christopher Steiner, puts it well: “For people bent on achieving superstar status in the business world, knowing one language is often not enough. Unfortunately the second tongue most popular to many American corporate types isn't Spanish, German, French, Italian or Chinese. It's jargon, a heinous amalgamation of terms with unknown origins and delivered with no explanation, irony or even a crumb of guilt.”

He then lists some of the worst examples: drill down (as in drill down to what? oil?), ducks in a row (how do you do that? have you ever had to deal with ducks? and if you ever manage to do that, what good comes out of getting the birds to stand in a straight line), price point (which is the same as saying price, so why the extra word?), think outside the box or square (why the box? what’s wrong with just thinking?), giving 110 per cent (as opposed to 100 per cent. that means you have to do more than what you are capable of. it’s ridiculous nonsense), synergise (sounds so much better than combining and streamlining), it is what it is (fair dinkum?), take it to the next level (what exactly does that look like?), solution (what exactly does that mean?), managing expectations (which usually means preparing people for the worst), and break down silos (as in getting people to talk to each other).

Vanessa Horwell at Media Post has her own list that includes terms like “proactive” (which the dictionary defines as creating a situation or taking control of it, rather than just responding which, when you think about it, is the opposite of sitting around and waiting for things to happen), and sole survivor (the word sole is redundant because a survivor is the one person who survives) and, one of my pet hates, non-essential personnel (which basically dismisses the grunt workers keeping everything going as unimportant).

Writing in the Harvard Business Review, author Scott Berkun says jargon feeds and encourages lazy minds. “To use these words with a straight face is to assume the listener is an idiot. They are intellectual insults. They are shortcuts away from good marketing and strong thinking since they try to sneak by with claims they know they cannot prove or do not make any sense. Marketers and managers use jargon because it's safe. No one stops them to ask: exactly what is it you are breaking through? … Pay attention to who uses the most jargon: it's never the brightest. It's those who want to be perceived as the best and the brightest, something they know they are not. They use cheap language tricks to intimidate, distract, and confuse, hoping to sneak past those afraid to ask what they really mean.”

And indeed it might be getting worse. Julian Fernando argues that social networking sites and blogs encouraging people to contract words, and in effect create a new language.

“Clearly, there is enormous potential for the clarity of expression to be diminished, and for what reward? 'U' is hardly more efficient than 'you', and even less efficiency is gained from 'da' (although by saving those one or two characters you might be able to add a smiley face somewhere). LOL achieves far greater efficiency gains, but what does it mean? For a long time, my mother thought LOL meant 'lots of love'. Are we really such a society of comedians that we all burst out laughing at every text message we receive? Or has it become a ridiculous catchphrase (or catch-all phrase) to express anything from uproarious mirth to mild embarrassment (or nothing at all, as in 'I went to the shops, LOL').”

If he’s right, it means that social sites like Facebook are creating a new kind of jargon, adding to all those business buzzwords, and fogging up our language up even more.

What are the worst examples of jargon, buzzwords and language mangling you’ve heard?

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/executive-style/management/blogs/management-line/mind-your-jargon-20110521-1exh3.html#ixzz1NwYOpACn

Committing Word Crime

This article originally appeared in MediaPost on November 10, 2010
Perhaps it's a little early for the annual Best Of/Worst Of lists, or a look back over the year just squandered. But why wait until December or even January to protest the overuse and abuse of words whose meanings have been diluted and diffused with every re-churned blog post, hash tag, social media release or hyperbole-laden marketing/PR piece?

Don't get me wrong, I love a good metaphor as much as the next writer, but can we push the envelope just a bit farther? Yes, it seems we can and so I would like to propose a collaborative effort with MediaPost readers to create an extensive list of the most meaningless words of 2010.

Following is my "starter-kit" of most meaningless word usage this year - your comments and additions are welcomed.

1. Leading
Add "thought leader" into this mix. Firstly, who decides this? Is there a contest? And who is on the panel? At least "4 out of five dentists" leaves room for discourse. Until there are legal ramifications for falsely claiming "leader," it is quite meaningless and nobody is fooled (for long).

I propose to replace this with thought-trailers; those who pick up the crumbs of the thought-leaders and do something useful with them. I also call it the "Hansel and Gretel method of creativity."

2. Social media
Although it's a useful "platform" (see #7) can we please stop talking about it now? Even my 87-year-old granny in Bulgaria has a profile, so cut it out. Now, show me the companies that are managing their social media presence in a meaningful, measurable and profound way, then we'll talk. In the words of my hero Anthony Bourdain, "Social Media This!"

Which brings us to ...

3. Strategic
Whose meaning is generally not stretched. Its usage does adhere to the literal definition, but like solution, it has meandered into the buzzword arena and through sheer overuse fails to instill confidence. To a word-weary customer, it could well flip on the trickery switch. Use sparingly.

4. Cutting-edge
Everything is cutting-edge, stop insulting our intelligence.

5. Offline
Simply put, this means "in reality." This becomes confusing to those of us who spend so much time here online (where the really interesting things happen.) The other day I had the pleasure of being driven as opposed to driving, and so could enjoy the scenery. Gazing out the window, I marveled at how three -- dimensional the clouds looked - until the driver kindly pointed out that they appeared that way because they actually were three dimensional -- in reality. I should be driven more often, it's enlightening.

6. Apps
More lazy nomenclature. MIS-apps? Per-apps? ...Apples? What's 3 more syllables in the great scheme of things? Find the time folks, find the time.

To continue reading, click here.

Let's Stuff ROI Rogers

I read an article in Forbes last week about a topic that makes me both cringe and laugh. It's about the nonsensical marketing jargon that has infiltrated our business communications and lexicon, and just how ineffective and ridiculous educated professionals sound when they fall prey to this lingo.

If you've ever sat through a meeting listening to the speaker rattle on about increasing ROI by thinking outside of box in order to take it to the next level - and how we can use our learning to create a synergy that will propel the paradigm shift needed to keep the next generation of thought leaders engaged....oh for goodness sake. Enough with the smoke and mirrors already!

A sound and direct command of language that communicates to an entire audience, not just the “initiated few” is the message that travels the farthest and has the greatest effect. (Not affect.) So cut the BS right now!

As speaking of BS, my agency updated a fun little game be used as entertainment at your next power pow-wow. We call it "Bull**** Bingo!" Click here to download it. Print it out and share it with like-minded colleagues. It's guaranteed to bring smirks and giggles.

What Are Words For?

From my column on Marketing Daily's "Beyond The Press Release" 11/11/09

What are words for, when no one listens anymore?" Do you remember that song? It came out during the same era of "Video killed the radio star." Okay, so I'm a child of the late 70s/early '80s, that prehistoric time when TVs had no remotes, when a huge VCR (remember the Betamax?) sat in the Hi-Fi center along with ABBA and Dr. Hook LPs, and a computer was something on which you played Atari Tennis or Pac-man.

Back then, we all learned to write in the same cursive script. At my school, we used a fountain pen with blue-ink cartridges that leaked all over your fingers, a constant reminder of the toils of the written word: Grammar was sacrosanct and there were no distractions in the classroom with iPhones, texts or IMing, only boys and passed notes. Back then, we didn't mess around with language to create new "isms" to suit a campaign or a whole new line of marketing buzzwords that would eventually be so passé, they became offensive.

It was a simple time, I admit, but we communicated with clarity. Real words, devoid of BS and convoluted meanings. We didn't have to create a paradigm shift to evangelize the next generation of social media influencers who would start deploying SMM platforms to strategically position thought leaders to take it to the next level. We didn't need to apply a holistic approach to Web 2.0 enhancements that would enable enablers to join the conversation and engage their audience by retweeting and Digging. We didn't even need to realign ourselves with a new media landscape to garner attention, augment a comprehensive results-oriented process that would deliver stellar ROI and increased awareness on a sentiment index to measure positive feelings out there in the blogosphere.

Nope, back then we didn't have to worry about using forward-thinking, innovative, disruptive technological advancements to deliver increased brand affinity and build synergistic partnerships that would transcend the status quo and bring about a sea change in performance-driven, cutting-edge, high-impact, integrated solutions with location-aware abilities to deliver best-in-class results. And we never once worried about the power of integrating scalable platforms to stimulate online conversations led by social media disciples who were eternally cautious practitioners of pre-populating devices and dashboards to solidify infrastructural advancements that would engender loyalty and strategic alliances.

We didn't even have to think outside the box to break through the clutter.

Know what I mean?

What I actually mean is that we're losing the meaning of our words. From the sublime to the ridiculous, truly. Our parlance is being reduced to symbols, acronyms and a series of hyphenated verbs-come-adjectives, as more people forget the communications basics: Say what you mean with clarity, brevity and intelligence. Instead, we've worked ourselves into a frenzied mash-up and indeed breakdown of "impressive" words.

Dumb, Dumber and Dumbest?

At the heart of every sales pitch, press release or marketing campaign is a message, one that is supposed to communicate an inherent and useful value for a product or service. For many, this act of communicating now requires oral gimmickry or just plain stupidness. Shame on us. It's taken thousands of years to create such a complex linguistic machine, and less than 30 to kill it.

It's not just English, or Americanese, however. The Real Academia Española is also facing challenges as the Spanish language adapts itself to absorb global language trends and cultural changes.

I agree that verbose writing is just as much of a turnoff in any language, but in our quest to sound more clevererer, bang out more messages faster, tweet and Facebook ourselves to oblivion, and send out communiqué littered with grandiose-sounding words, we've both devalued our language and the meaning of the words we use. And become a lot more brainless in the process. When we've reduced any number of words to WTF, OMG and LMFAO, which have entered a multi-generational lexicon and are creeping into regular business correspondence, what's left?

Anyone got a new word for that? Perhaps you'll find one in a game I recently updated called B#$%S^$T Bingo.

Feel free to send me your suggestions, too.