Friday Fun: The Buzzword Graveyard

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This morning, I tweeted that I really need to petition for the death of the phrase “game-changing”. It’s so overused, and most often complete hyperbole.

We do that a lot in business, don’t we?

Personally, I wish for Brass Tack Language: choosing words that actually say what you mean, without over-inflated crud that perhaps creates a vocabulary-starved individual to rubberneck for a second, but does little else.

As businesses, we’d all be better served to practice saying what we do well in the simplest possible terms, skipping all the crazy modifiers like “best of breed” and just rather telling it like it is. There are plenty of perfectly workable words that can get it done. Wouldn’t that be refreshing?

Alas, I’m pretty sure I’m smoking something funky if I think that marketers (especially) and the business types are going to stop the madness anytime soon.

So, let’s have some fun on a Friday, and create the Buzzword Graveyard here on BTT for all those words, phrases, and jargon that we love to hate. Here are my entries:

Game-changing

Best of Breed

Blue Ocean

Win-Win

I  know you have more. Or perhaps you’d just like to sound off a bit on irritating language junk for a while? Let ‘em loose. And happy Friday. :)

image credit: Qole Pejorian

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  • http://twitter.com/ncschp Nico Schaap

    Magical, especially when used related to technology. Yeah Steve, you know what I'm talking about. It's all bits and bytes, nothing magical about that…

  • http://www.arandomjog.com/ Joshua Duncan

    A few to add:

    - Out of the box

    - Paradigm Shift

    - Future-proof (has there ever really been such a thing?)

    Thanks,

    Josh

  • http://www.arandomjog.com/ Joshua Duncan

    A few to add:

    - Out of the box

    - Paradigm Shift

    - Future-proof (has there ever really been such a thing?)

    Thanks,

    Josh

  • http://twitter.com/mcintoshlee Lee McIntosh

    I'm really hating 'It is what it is' at the moment. A colleague keeps saying it in reference to projects, which makes it even worse as it sounds like we're jst accepting things and not fighting to do the right thing! Not quite a buzz word/phase, but needed to get that off my chest! Thanks Amber ;-)

  • http://www.honeybeeconsulting.com startabuzz

    Drill down.
    Epic.
    Awesome.
    Leverage.
    Rockstar.
    Anything-atti.
    Bandwidth. Please. For the love of GOD … do away with BANDWIDTH.

  • http://twitter.com/ckieff Chris Kieff

    Conflation- how can you con meaning negative, and flate meaning get bigger? It just doesn't make sense. Especially when it is supposed to mean to combine, which simpler and…well just better.

  • http://twitter.com/megfowler Meg Fowler

    Oh, I am so in.

    Going forward
    Think outside the box
    Push the envelope
    Leverage
    Bandwidth applied to scheduling
    “Solutions” as a term for anything you can't find the right term for
    Impact as a verb
    “it's not rocket science”
    ROI
    “Content is king”
    Transparency
    “The comments on my post are better than my post!” (A uniquely social media conceit)

  • http://civsourceonline.com BaileyMcC

    Yes! My adds:

    Value added
    Takeaways
    Action items

  • http://wordswillsaveme.wordpress.com Teresa Basich

    I request the death of 'synergy', and any conjugation thereof.

  • http://jorge.threefivesup.com Jorge Jaime

    “Be part of the conversation”
    “Businesses need to be more human”
    “Revolutionary”
    “Fail Fast”
    “Fail often”

  • http://www.grizzard.com/author/epratum/ Eric Pratum

    Overarching
    Circle back
    Huddle up
    OOF (how the deuce does that stand for “Out of Office”?!)
    Automagically (or maybe we need to use that more. I can't decide)

  • http://twitter.com/EllisTweet EllisTweet

    Overused words? How about collaborate & crowdsourcing? Often used as license to profit singularly for the contributions of others. In fact, I have an article coming up on this very topic in the context of the corporate environment. I'll send you a link via Twitter when it publishes.

  • http://twitter.com/jameswester James Wester

    Great topic! This is a game I could play all day! :)

    Curation – Congrats to the first person who pulled it out of Roget's, but it smacks of intentional smartitude now.
    ROI – No one in finance uses “ROI.” It sounds like someone discussing “points” in baseball.
    Back of the envelope – It's just another phrase for “half-assed,” right?
    And I have to second “transparency.” When I see it I know the person complaining about its lack is saying “Hey! You didn't spoon-feed me the information and I was too lazy to do due diligence.”
    Due diligence – Used by people wanting to appear smart.

    Love the site. Keep up the good work.

  • http://www.xtraxtra.com/ CHorner

    “Check out”–As in “Check out our cool new ____.” I'm guilty of using this one, and I now hate it. There's just no way to package “check out” without sounding like the ShamWow guy or some other salesman you want nothing to do with.

    I have a friend who wants the word “webinar” to die. He argues that everything is on the web now, anyways, so we should start making cutesy words that integrate web-speak.

  • Louise Thompson

    “paradigm-shifting”. I work in PR, not an alternate universe. Innovative does just fine as an alternative!

  • http://twitter.com/tamadear Tamsen McMahon (@tamadear)

    Authenticity–especially since we use it incorrectly MOST of the time.

  • http://tomhodgins.com tomhodgins

    I love how we threw all these words at the wall just to see what sticks.

    What a revolutionary idea, you're harnassing the wisdom of the crowds using social media and web 2.0 technology to show us just how far we've come in this digital age of communication.

    #1 hated word right now: social.

  • http://www.jeremymeyers.com/ Jeremy Meyers

    Let's follow up offline. In the meantime, can you socialize that content around?

    “Content” in general. like “I just built a website and i need a pound of content to fill my pretty CSS boxes!”

  • http://twitter.com/JohnKochmanski John Kochmanski

    A few more to add.

    - ladder up
    - viral
    - reach out
    - ping me
    - on brief

  • http://www.exari.com/community/community-network.html Adine

    Amber, You've said what so many of us are thinking. My most hated have been noted, but are worth repeating:

    Bandwidth
    Ping Me

    Both drive me nuts. Happy Friday! Thanks for helping us all vent.

  • Alice

    System, as in filing system, monitoring system, profitmaking system, ad nauseum

  • kreedy

    Paradigm Shift!!!!!!!!! OH YEA!!!! That one for sure needs to go away.

  • http://tr.im/renegade/ Robin2go

    Guru Guru Guru Guru Guru! (Oy!)

    Aaaaaand, I'm spent.

  • http://justinmwhitaker.com justinmwhitaker

    You guys are taking away everything I learned in Business School! What else do we MBAs really know other than some buzzwords and formulas? :)

  • @mckeenmatt

    I have a few:

    -Guru
    -Expert
    -Buzz
    -Beta
    -Iphone

    The list could go on I am sure. Great topic.

    Matt

  • http://twitter.com/dj_justjay Jason Arican

    I half-jokingly wrote a blog post about this very thing.

    In the end, I just find it weird that that we use euphemisms when we can just say what we mean. I realize that it is just part of language as a whole… it just seems a lot more rabid at work.

    Anyway, “low hanging fruit” needs to go. Like right now.

  • http://timbursch.com timbursch

    Content is King!
    Engage in the conversation.
    Status update

  • http://justinmwhitaker.com justinmwhitaker

    My candidates:

    Anything “moving the needle.” Which needle? Why does the needle need to move?
    Right Size. Just say you are firing people and be a (wo)man about it!
    The Box: Inside, outside, thinking outside of it..did anyone ask the box what it thinks?
    Game Changing: The game has never changed. The game is making money. Do you really want to change that?
    Value Added. How do you know you are adding value, when you don't even talk to the people perceiving the value?
    Innovative. Your product/service isn't. Unless it's profiled on Fast Company. Then it's already passe.
    Going viral. I don't mind viral as a description, but I hate it as a strategy. You can't “go viral”. It either happens, or it doesn't.
    Authenticity/Transparency. I like the concepts, think they are where business SHOULD go, but too buzzwordy. How about just saying honest, real, trustworthy?

    That's off the top of my head.

  • http://www.jeremymeyers.com/ Jeremy Meyers

    Not that i'm a fan of 'moving the needle' but the context for the reference is the needle on an audio VU meter, like this.

  • http://twitter.com/fsampson Fred Sampson

    “at the end of the day”
    “reach out” as a verb for outreach

    “innovation” is so overused as to now be meaningless
    and I don't know what “design thinking” means any more

  • Menchacakhan

    Leverage= I am going to take your ideas and use them for my own benefit. RIP Leverage!

  • http://twitter.com/fsampson Fred Sampson

    “at the end of the day”
    “reach out” as a verb for outreach

    “innovation” is so overused as to now be meaningless
    and I don't know what “design thinking” means any more

  • http://twitter.com/dj_justjay Jason Arican

    Ping me- I love that. When “Information Superhighway” died, it should have taken “ping me” with it.

  • http://twitter.com/eeUS VickyH

    I'm going to go a little off topic and say that the use of these buzzwords are very irritating, but I get enjoyment from idiots using them in the wrong context and very discreetly correcting them. It's my little brain game.

    That just 'how I roll' :-)

  • http://twitter.com/thompsonpaul Paul Thompson

    Action.

    It is not a verb.

    No really, it isn't. And therefore an adjective like actionable is just as ridiculous.

    Low hanging fruit drives me batrshit now too – and I've been guilty of it in the past.

    Seems to me what most of these come down to is trying to sound cooler or smarter instead of building a reputation for clear communication, which is a helluva lot more valuable to me.

  • http://twitter.com/thompsonpaul Paul Thompson

    Actually, in this case “con” means “with” and it is a real word that means what it says. But you're right – much more effective to just use your word combine.

  • http://twitter.com/thompsonpaul Paul Thompson

    In my experience, “content is king” translates to ” we have absolutely no strategy here so were just gonna shove as much at the users/clients as possible and hope something works.”

    “Quality contextually valid content is king” might be closer to reality, but it just doesn't seem to have the buzzwordy panache to it.

    Paul

  • http://twitter.com/cathyannsauer cathy ann sauer

    Can't believe this isn't in here yet “touch base” or worse “touching bases.” Yeowww. Gives me the heebie jeebies.
    Love the one about future-proof :)

  • http://twitter.com/cathyannsauer cathy ann sauer

    Can't believe this isn't in here yet “touch base” or worse “touching bases.” Yeowww. Gives me the heebie jeebies. Love the one about future-proof :)

  • http://twitter.com/cathyannsauer cathy ann sauer

    Sorry, I burped.

  • http://twitter.com/Delivra Delivra

    World-Class

  • http://twitter.com/Delivra Delivra

    World-Class

  • Jesse Ciccone

    LOVE this thread! Trying not to duplicate…

    at the end of the day
    take it offline

  • http://twitter.com/jmamills Jen Mills

    Ideation. Ugh.

  • http://www.brandnewmarketingblog.com Julie Oliveri

    “The New Standard…”. We have a running joke about that one here.

  • http://twitter.com/erica_swanson Erica Swanson

    Transparent
    Authentic
    Engaging

    Ugh.

    If you have to actually USE the words, you ain't it.

  • http://twitter.com/nicksargent Nick Sargent

    “Synergy”: Burn it with fire

  • http://twitter.com/DarthGarry Garry Polmateer

    Take this Offline
    Wrap your head around
    Bandwidth
    Couch
    On the same page
    Guru/Ninja/Dragon Slayer

  • http://www.brandnewmarketingblog.com Julie Oliveri

    “The New Standard…” We have a running joke about that one here!

  • http://www.educationtrainingsolutions.com Jan Schwartz

    Fun topic! I'm sick of:
    cutting edge
    and a bunch more that were already mentioned

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