Angie McKaig - E-Business Consultant and Entrepreneur
Corporate Speak2010.01.13
I was looking through one of my contacts' online resumes the other day, and came across this little nugget:
"Central responsibility for managing departmental and interpersonal relationships in order to identify and utilize resources"
What does that mean? Why do so many corporations and, by extension, their employees talk like this - to each other, and to customers? If there's one thing missing from my life since running my own company full time, it's been a dearth of corporate speak. I tend to be much more direct in my everyday dealings, and that's on purpose, folks - frankly, I think that business language is just as ripe for a good usability makeover as everything else businesses do.
I've been looking for new career directions lately, and this topic has hands down been one of my biggest concerns. After five years without adding -ize to the end of many words, I'm worried that I won't fit in - or won't sound as accomplished as I actually am, since I use rather simpler language.
Luckily, the folks at 37 Signals have something reassuring for me today: a oh-so-timely post about weaselwords and the absurdity of corporate speak.
They link to a lovely little site called Weasel Words which sums it up far better than I:
"Management-speak has triumphed. It has made much of our everyday language dull, dimwitted and meaningless. To sound professional, you must express everything in abstract nouns, and each noun in terms of another one; you must talk about synergy and strategy, uptake and outcomes and outputs and inputs, key performance indicators and drivers and customer experience - even if your 'customers' are in fact patients in a hospital."
Exactly.
