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Sunday, December 18, 2011

Buzzwords And Acronyms Kill Presentations - And They Can Destroy Reputations, Too...

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TechRepublic's Daily Digest recently featured a collection of corporate buzzwords that businesspeople absolutely hate...even those of us who sometimes use them in order to avoid being overly verbose (my specialty) or to sound as if we are "in the know" and "state-of-the-art," as well as in the general swing of business. Incidentally, most businesspeople, generally speaking, are brought to the point of nausea by unexplained acronyms, especially when they are used in rapid-fire mixed clusters. You actually trivialize yourself from an executive or statesman down to point of being a lower-level techie or geek by the excessive use of buzzwords and unexplained acronyms. Your communication should convey information without boring or belittling the listener.

Yes indeed: buzzwords and acronyms can kill presentations and destroy your reputation as well. Ironically, many high-falutin' jargonophiles (a Lingovation which I've invented quite spontaneously), think exactly the opposite -- and it represses their successes. Good thing that you're reading this article.

Ironically, the world's wealthiest and most powerful leaders, decision makers and investors dislike these affectations most of all. They are either not conversant in such short-speak, or become angered that you, as a presenter are actually talking down to them -- don't belittle an important connector, mentor or investor by being too damned hip. You should not sound like a talking text message -- at least IMHO [chuckle]:

Most despised corporate buzzwords

Do you have a particular buzzword that you hate? Here's a whole list of them! Read more

Douglas E. Castle for SENDING SIGNALS!
Related articles dealing with the unsavory aspects of buzzwords, shop-lingo, and acronyms [although Zemanta proved very feeble in assisting me in getting some articles about annoying acronyms to add to this resource list:
The most effective way to use buzzwords and acronyms (in speaking) is sparsely, selectively, and with a definition to precede each one. A slight pre-emptive apology is a dignified touch that might score you some points: For example, "For our purposes today, instead of repeatedly saying 'Bend Over, Her It Comes Again,' I'll be using the acronym 'BOHICA'. If someone laughs (particularly a decision maker or your father-in-law to be), you've actually used the whole thing to your advantage.

In writing, the simplest approach is to simply define the term upon its first appearance, and follow it by the acronym that you'll be using thereafter. For example, "On you've established the system, monitoring, or follow-up, is extremely important. For the balance of this chapter, when referring to 'Follow Up' I will be using the simple acronym 'FU' " 







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