Feature

Buzzwords: Why Doesn't Anyone Speak Plain English Anymore?

Tech speak has infiltrated our business and personal lives—and it's not going away anytime soon.

By Bob Weinstein

September 24, 2007 — CIO —

Like it or not, buzzwords have invaded the business lexicon and have spilled over into our everyday conversations as well. They have become part of our business communication process. We don't speak plain English anymore, but rather a strange patois that combines English, business speak and tech speak.

It's no surprise that many senior managers and HR professionals worry that employees and job candidates have lost the ability to think for themselves and to find their own words to express themselves. Buzzwords are everywhere in every industry—and technology industries manufacture new ones every year.

Among them:

Greenwashing. Used to describe the actions of a company, government or other organization that advertises positive environmental practices while acting in the opposite way. Wikipedia says the term is generally used when significantly more money or time has been spent advertising being green rather than spending resources on environmentally sound practices.
Smishing. A mobile version of phishing, according to Wikipedia, it's a scam that tries to trick users into handing over confidential details online and installs a Trojan horse.
Craplets (also crapware or bloatware). Craplets.org defines craplets as "those little unwanted 3rd-party programs that come installed on your Windows computer when you buy it."

Last year Mobile Enterprise Weblog named "seamless mobility" as the hot new tech buzzterm. What does it mean? The weblog defined it as bridging the worlds of voice and data. "It converges fixed and wireless networks," it added, "and it integrates between the enterprise and the carrier network."

That's only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. There are also dozens of buzzwords created in the corporate world that have infiltrated everyday conversations. A few favorites include:

At the end of the day; bottom line; disconnect. When you get right down to bottom-line thinking, at the end of the day, there seems to be a serious disconnect between marketing and sales.
Mission critical. We can't lose sight of the fact that next quarter's sales targets are mission critical.
Buy in. Let's hope our regional managers buy in to our expansion strategy.
Grow; core. Our stockholders expect us to grow our core businesses by at least 25 percent this year.
Strategic partners; value proposition; same page. Thankfully our strategic partners are on the same page regarding our value proposition.
Proactive. We're going to second-guess the problem by taking a proactive approach.
Value-added; no-brainer. We're giving our customers a no-brainer, value-added incentive for buying the improved version of our software.

Then there are the buzzwords that are out of favor and soon to enter the buzzword hall of fame or be buried forever. A few that were popular in the mid- to late 1990s include: