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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!
- Linkedin most overused Buzzwords 2011 - Indians go from "DYNAMIC" to "EFFECTIVE"! (trak.in)
- Creative, Effective, Organizational - 3 of the 10 Most Overused Buzzwords on LinkedIn (socialtimes.com)
- The 10 Most Overused LinkedIn Profile Buzzwords of 2011 (mashable.com)
- Buzzwords 2011: Who's been 'creative' and 'effective' this year? (linkedin.com)
- Harvard Business Review Discovers Buzzwords (technoverseblog.com)
- 2011's most overused resume buzzwords (cnn.com)
- The Most Over-Used Business Buzzwords Of 2011 (forbes.com)
- Coaster Acronyms: TTD is the New LOL (coasterguy.wordpress.com)
- Collaboration Is Misunderstood and Overused (blogs.hbr.org)
- Marketing Flubs and Small Business Secrets (smallbiztrends.com)
- Are You Scared Yet? It's Frankenspeak Day! (mpdailyfix.com)
- Ten Buzzwords To Take Off Your LinkedIn Profile Now (newsfeed.time.com)
- Every boardroom needs an SOB (theglobeandmail.com)
- What's the future of search? (bakarfactory.wordpress.com)
- Typinator: Why Write Out Everything Yourself? (mac.appstorm.net)
- : Alphabet Soup (nytimes.com)
- Woot! OED Added New Tech Words (neatorama.com)
- Unacceptable Abbreves and Other Grammatical Turn Offs (forevertwentysomethings.com)
- 5 ways to be a top presenter - meet the FiRST framework (remotepossibilities.wordpress.com)
- WTF and other rural text messages (ruralcommunication.wordpress.com)
- Mesagraph Launches Search and Discovery Platform - And Plays Buzzword Bingo (diversity.net.nz)
- The 7 Iconic, Transparent, Empowering Business Buzzwords That Need To Die (bjconquest.com)
- Twitter vocabulary (tfollowers.com)
- Bizzwords App (thepulsemagazine.onsugar.com)
- Planking, Charlie Sheen and Stupid Acronyms: A Facebook Memeology of 2011 (wired.com)
- Oxford Dictionary Defines Sexting, Cyberbullying (wired.com)
- Albert Edwards On The BRICs As A "Bloody Ridiculous Investment Concept"... And A China Hard Landing (zerohedge.com)
- "Turdistan" - Comical Generics, Acronyms, Ad Nauseum... (madmarketingtactics.blogspot.com)
- LINGOVATION, LINGOVATIONS - Definitions, Examples and Links (aboutdouglascastle.blogspot.com)
- 15 Fascinating Statistics From Marketing Grader Data (hubspot.com)
- "Creative" is most overused buzzword for 2011 (sfgate.com)
- Ten Buzzwords To Cut From Your LinkedIn Profile (forbes.com)
- 10 Buzzwords to Avoid on Your Resume (money.usnews.com)
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' "
