April 2, 2010
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Business Forecasting 2012
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Robert "Bob" Butler, CSTE
Last time, I talked about 9 business words I’d like to choke: Impactful. Leverage. Synergy. (Read the whole list here).
Why is this under my skin lately? Because as business on the social web becomes increasingly human (conversing on Twitter, and blogging, and on Facebook, and all that), it’s time we watch the words we use to express who we (and our brands) are.
As I said last time: It isn’t just me who feels this way, I discovered. A quick poll on Twitter revealed an astounding agreement on the business words we hear but hate. (And even sometimes use, try as we might to avoid it.)
Here are 8 more words and phrases that I’d like to ban from marketing, sales, corporate communications, business schools, blogs and boardrooms.
1. Incenting/incentivizing. Sales folks and mid-level managers love these darlings. You shouldn’t. Try: “encourage," "provide incentive."
2. Almost any word that ends in “-ize.” Including the one above as well as: “productize,” “monetize,” “budgetize,” “utilize,” “socialize,” “operationalize,” and even “optimize,” (although I know the search engine people will argue about that last one). Try: Finding a word that doesn’t sound like it was first uttered by the robot on Lost in Space.
3. Solution. Business people often use this word to describe or product or service they can’t otherwise explain. Try… um… “[software] product” or “service.”
4. Almost any word rooted in technology applied to humans. Including: “ping” to mean “follow up,” “bandwidth” to mean “capacity,” or “offline” to mean either “not working” or “outside of this already horribly long meeting.” Instead: Use words that describe what humans do, not machines.
5. A whole bunch of words that used to be good, solid words, and now have been overused to the point of meaninglessness: Robust. Granular. Box (but only when you are Out of the -). Strategic. Space (as applies to the market you are in). Traction.
6. Another class of words that individually are harmless, but mashed together become horrid: Buy-in. Mission-critical. Dial-in. Best-of-breed. End-to-end. Value-add. Next-generation. Face-time. Push-back. Net-net. Win-win. And low-hanging (as it applies to “fruit” when you aren’t talking about an actual tree or orchard).
7. Silly phrases. There are a zillion of these corporate-speak silly phrases: Run it up the flagpole. Eat your own dogfood. Out of pocket. When the rubber meets the road. At the end of the day. Peel the onion. Peel the grape. Open the kimono. Open the kimono at the end of the day while you are peeling an onion. But two I find particularly silly are “moving forward” (as opposed to what? Standing still? Spinning our wheels? Slamming it into reverse?) and “touch base” (because I’d like you to keep your hands off me. Can we just talk?)
8. Finally, here are two more I dislike: “Nazi” when applied to business concepts (as in “brand Nazi”) or “drinking the Kool-Aid” as applied to accepting ideas or concepts (sometimes, without understanding). Since these two phrases are rooted in unfortunate and regrettable events in history, using them seems offensive or (at the very least) in bad taste.
So what about you? What business words do you think we should ban?
Special thanks to those helpful people on Twitter who helped compile this list (and made me laugh):
Special thanks to those helpful people on Twitter who helped compile this list (and made me laugh):
@Brainzooming, @seemills, @jkgala99, @KellyeCrane, @AnthologyMonica, @adamkmiec, @followlinus, @mbbunnell, @debmaue, @useglobalreach, @alambchop, @irenekoehler, @kpedraja, @laceyhaines, @FromChristina, @johnmccrory, @evengenius, @2020_Innovation, @maddiegrant, @DawnPappas, @jmrichmond, @zoziku, @JenKaneCo, @tamadear, @adamkmiec, @jblock, @klingaman, @jamiewalker19, @patrickstrother (via @betsyschro via @LornaLyle)
BIO: Ann Handley is the Chief Content Officer of MarketingProfs. Follow her on Twitter @marketingprofs.
Image credit: jetheriot
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Robert "Bob" Butler, CSTE 1 year 7 months and 15 days ago
The mention of sea foam is a bit too close to my comment about "circle back around"; they are not in any way similar. I did not mean to imply they were synonymous. Oops.