Business Buzz Words & DoubleSpeak - Page 2

Maybe it's just because I'm college age and the saturation of the word has gotten to me, but I really, really despise the word "internship." One reason is that it's a self-important euphemism for "mindless busywork that nobody else wants to do;" (they're not even worthy of being called jobs) and when people brag about "interning" on Capitol Hill or Wall Street, they're just trying to sound like it's a big deal that they're one of many do-nothing's at some bigshot place they only got access to because of family/social connections. I really hate being lectured on their alleged importance, even though they really don't teach any substantive skills that one couldn't learn by himself and are only for building future patronage potential (I refuse to call it another buzzword I hate, "networking," let's call it what it is, irrational emphasis on familiarity instead of attention to merit).

"no non-sense" means that I have no valid argument so I'll try to pass this as obvious. You must accept anything that's "no non-sense". Dictatorship made word. Mathieu

My, my.   Aren't we the cynical bunch this morning.  Having a tough Tuesday, guys? "Internship" is only "self-important" if you're the one who got it, as some of them are very hard to come by.  Don't kid yourself into thinking that you won't learn anything from grunt work, though.  I once turned a $15/hr temp job into a $140/hr consulting job in 12 mos many years ago, specifically because of the "grunt work" that I learned as a temp, and I'm not the brightest bulb on the tree.   Maybe I'm taking this thread much more seriously than it was intended?? Win-win (derived from Covey's 7 Habits) is not "self-serving" at all.  In its entirety, the philosophy is "Win-win or no deal." i.e. "If we can't all come out of this looking good, then let's not do it."  The self-serving philosophy would be, "Win at all costs". OK, I just don't get this one AT ALL.  The whole concept of leverage - in both physics and business - is to accomplish more with less.  Is this not the model of Effeciency? Some of these just sound like you guys hate "business" and "businessmen" in general.  I don't understand.  Like I said, maybe I'm just taking it too seriously. I WILL, however, agree that the use of "dialogue" or "interface" as a verb meaning "talk" really bugs me.  And the use of "leverage" when a simple "use" would suffice I find silly as well. OK, I'll get back to work being a "(very nasty name)" as Steve called it, in order to develop some "sustainable growth".  God forbid a company should desire to grow or develop new business..??

I agree with Jill, some of these terms are rather straight forward. That being said, my pet peeve is the use of corporate lingo where a 'common' word would be much more accurate. Some good ones were already touched upon (uhhh..I mean mentioned), but my biggest pet peeve is "I feel..." in place of "I think". I don't care what or how you feel, tell me what you think or know.

OK, I'm back from lunch and not quite so cranky   I'll join in the fun with a few of my favorites from "buzzword bingo".  BTW, anyone still have that little game lying around? "Net-net" - a term the former accounting consultants use in lieu of "result". "out of the box" - I get tired even THINKING about this one. "at the end of the day" "bandwidth" - when referring to anything other than technology (such as one's schedule/workload) Not really a business buzzword, but bugs me anyway, "Very Unique".  It's either unique or it is not.

"That's fair" = screw you, snotwipe

stakeholder steering committee deliverable owner-employee right-size rationalize

I'm also going to throw in "new paradigm" and "paradigm shift". What do these mean. As to internships, I have to disagree - I spent a summer interning at a TV Station when I was in College and picked up valuable experience, skills and contacts that benefit me to this day. In fact, I was hired for a paid position at that same station about two years after college (and after several other paid positions.)

I was going to respond to this ASAP, but first I had to touch base with HR back at the puzzle palace to get the sign-off from the suits. My understanding is that HR confabbed with the end-users from the focus group, whom retail pigeonholed to determine if the marketplace could absorb any value-added upcharge. Apparently, there's a bottleneck in the supply chain for this, and I couldn't work it in until just now, IAW those delays. My response is: "at this point in time"

Mr Checks, Bradford and RJMan ~ Were you all just on my conference call??

Yes, "˜owner-employee' is just dumb "˜Stakeholder' only works when speaking in financial terms, and then only regarding certain considerations, such as shareholders "˜Sustainable growth' can also be applied to keeping profits at record levels quarter in, quarter out; how much can one company make? How much is enough? Must every quarter be better and more profitable than the last? There is a reason why antitrust laws exist... "˜Push the envelope' another term for "˜how far are you willing to push legality and morality to get what you / we (generalized to represent more than one, a group, organization, etc...) want?' this can be applied to both business and politics (which are really one and the same at this point, no?) "Policy shift" changing the rules mid-game to suit your changing requirements / wants and screwing people over in the process; try this tactic while playing poker in Vegas, see how the casino reacts Jon.

i am reading The Tipping Point now (yeah, i know it's been out for 2+ years already), and i have to say it's pretty fascinating. i can see why many people latched on to that phrase, instead of just sticking with the good old 'straw that broke the camel's back', or 'the tide has turned', or 'one toke over the line sweet jesus'. STRATEGIZE. god i hate that word.

Paradigm shift actually is a legitimate academic term, coined by Thomas Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Long story short, he argues that transitions of scientific history occur in the forms of changes in the framework under which science itself operates. The set of fundamental governing principles constitutes the paradigm, but over time, as research and theories accumulate, a paradigm can become questioned, and if enough evidence is accrued, science itself can enter a new paradigm, where a new view becomes the accepted mainstream and throws everything under a new umbrella. These "paradigm shifts" are responsible for revolutions in scientific theory. A classic example is the change from the geocentric to heliocentric model of the solar system. I'm sure I'm way oversimplifying that since I've only read excerpts, but that's a very limited summary. Of course, it is true that morons in the generic office setting have sadly co-opted it as a buzzword to make themselves sound smart, as is true with a lot of academic terms. I still stand by my internship comment, by the way, though I'm betting having that awful word shoved in my face ad nauseam as the result of being a college student is the primary factor.

sorry - I actually use a lot of these on a regular basis. leverage - basically using a small thing to achieve a bigger thing, just like in the physical sense. "I can leverage my relatinship with so and so to get in to meet with his boss" core competensies - what a unit (person, company, team) knows how to do, and what they should stick to. "our core competensies lie in distributing capital equipment, why mess around with single use products?" skill set - a group of skills, pretty straight foreward. if you have a guy who knows how to calibrate a widget, and that happens to be a rare and expensive skill, then that is a very important part of his skill set. C suite - a great way to discribe the guys at the top, who are at the head of their department, and don't have to go to anybody else, in their dpartment, for executive decisions. band width - in my area, this is very important. when I talk about a sales organizaiton, I talk about focus and band width. focus is how much importance they put on the relevant product (if they represent 2 products, the focus on each should be high, if they represent 2000, the focus will be low. if they represent 10, then it all comes down to how much mind share the product has). bandwidth is how much resources. if they have alot of sales people, they have good bandwidth, if not, they have poor badwidth. bandwidth times focus equals how well they will represent the product line. deliverable - this is a great word. we have a meeting, we walk away, what do I expect to get from the meeting? that is the deliverable. if you said that you will check something out for me, the email I get with the answer is the deliverable. the fact that you checked, if I don't get the email, doesn't help me. paradigm- I like this one, always have. it is a very interesting concept, with no really good replacement. sorry, I like them.