Those that know me know I hate buzzwords. I have written on the subject twice in the past few years. My all time favorite hated buzzword still remains "Sweet Spot" – yuck! Crain’s Chicago Business listed their most annoying buzzwords for 2004- "synergy" and "paradigm". Shruti Date Singh relates something her boss recently said :
"At the end of the day the incremental paradigm shift will create a win-win solution for redeployed people on the runway who are trying to think outside the box"
Accountemps listed the following words as the buzziest and my comments in parentheses:
"At the end of the day" (why can’t we just say, "in conclusion")
"Metrics" ( I thought we were still on the decimal systems here?)
"thinking outside the box" (One of my most hated ones)
"Take it offline" (are we ever truly ‘offline’?)
"Redeploy people" (let’s face it, we fired them)
"On the runway" (I fly a lot, I have sat on the runway for a long time and gone nowhere!)
"win- win" (I rarely see this)
"Get on the same page" (maybe today we should say, are we looking at the same screen?)
"Accountability Management" (actually, I have no idea what this is!)
"Core Compentency" (Why can’t we just say what we are good at?)
"Bandwidth" (I agree with this one and there never is enough!)
Happy New Year, Barry.
Interesting points. I detest buzzwords, too, but find myself using them at times.
Why?
(1)Sometimes people expect them. Strategic planning clients feel you don’t know your stuff unless you use a term like “core competency,” for example. If I try to use other words, they correct me with an air of “don’t you know this term?”!
(2)Sometimes when you are writing in short spippets for a blog or an e-zine, using a cliche or buzzword here or there is a shorthand way of getting a message across. People merely scan such writing — they don’t read it in depth. They look for buzzwords so that they don’t have to work too hard to figure out your message.
Best,
Anita Campbell