Jargon and Buzzwords

When I’m meeting with clients, speaking at industry events or teaching my digital strategy classes at NYU, I have to work hard to avoid the buzzword and jargon trap. I can tell when I’m not doing a very good job of it because the audience, no matter how small or large, starts to lose interest (and in the case of Saturday morning classes at NYU, fall asleep).

“One of the main mistakes is when leaders come up with a new vision but never translate that broad analytical vision into something people on the frontlines can actually execute. I was talking to an entrepreneur who wanted his employees to have a “mindset of customer service.” But if you’re an employee, when you hear that, all you hear is buzzword, buzzword, buzzword, jargon, jargon, jargon.” – Chip Heath

Like you, sometimes I’ll sit in meetings and listen to vendors pitch their products or services. I’m amazed at the amount of buzzwords and jargon they use. The presentations often feel like the vendor has somehow transported us all to a conference room at their headquarters where a team of designers, engineers, marketers and salespeople all sit around in a product development meeting tossing around nothing but buzzwords and jargon that only they can really understand. As I look around the room, I can see signs of confusion, boredom, or in some cases, frustration on the faces of the meeting participants.

Here’s a fun exercise. Visit the Web 2.0 Bullshit Generator or the Web Economy Bullshit Generator and crank out some cool buzzwords and jargon. Here’s what I came up with in just 15 seconds:

• reinvent real-time schemas
• deploy mission-critical web-readiness
• incubate impactful communities
• scale frictionless action-items
• engage data-driven network effects

Feel free to write them down and use them in conversations with your colleagues or better yet, the next time you’re in a vendor meeting, ask a few questions using the terms you’ve generated. Here’s one I’ll be asking: “Say Bob, what’s your approach for reinventing real-time schemas, especially as they relate to the way we incubate impactful communities in our business?”

Whether you’re teaching, leading teams or companies, working the front lines, or marketing shoes to millennials, you’ve got to communicate your thinking practically, free of buzzwords and jargon so your audience can latch on to whatever concept you’re trying to convey and fit it into their world – the way they need/want it to fit, not the way you think it should fit.

With a little conscious effort eliminating the buzzwords and jargon from your conversations, you’ll be on your way to more focused communications and better outcomes. Take it from me, there’s nothing like “eating your own dog food” for a new perspective on things. Really.

What do you think? Leave a comment.

Tagged as: communication, knowledge