[wordup] the trouble is they think it's cool

[Adam Shand]

From: Brett Shand <brett at earthlight.co.nz>
URL:  http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php3?table=old&section=current&issue=2001-05-05&id=663

Business and the English language

Clint Witchalls, a 35-year-old business analyst, on the horrible,
clich-ridden language of the modern business world.

If I pick up a marketing brochure and it says, 'The only thing constant in
today's world is change' I toss it in the bin without a moment's
hesitation. What is it with business people that they're so lacking in
imagination? Even when they want to be imaginative they draw on trite old
phrases: 'Let's think outside the box.' I'd rather see you in the box, six
feet under, along with all your marketing collateral.

A couple of years ago, someone came up with a novel idea for whiling away
time in meetings. It was called 'bullshit bingo.' Once you'd checked off
all of the business-speak clichs (vertically markets, value added, level
playing field, etc.), you shouted out BINGO! It was the only way to stay
awake during Monday morning breakfast meetings. Without it, you'd find
yourself face down in your plate of desiccated croissants. Sadly, the
people who were meant to be pilloried into oblivion by this game are still
alive and well and several rungs up the corporate ladder.

Persistent manglers of the English language should be placed in the stocks
and pelted with hardback editions of the Oxford English Dictionary. My
boss should be the first to get a dictionary on his bonce. His current
favourite phrases are: hygiene factor, value proposition, due diligence,
ducks in a row, tick in the box, and, most offensive of all, across the
piste. Sometimes, when he gets over excited, he does a bit of mixing and
scratching: 'We really need to get our ducks in a row going across the
piste if this value proposition is going to fly.' In my mind, I cleave his
head in two with a razor sharp katana. Banzai!

Sometimes words creep into business patois from the strangest circles. How
the hell did holistic--a word previously favoured by Chinese herbalists
and Ayervedic practitioners--get into common usage amongst the men in
sharp suits? As in, 'We need to look at our network protocols
holistically.' Why not massage a bit of essential oil of sandalwood into
the coaxial cables while you're at it and realign the web-servers along
the ancient meridians so that they can pick up some positive chi. It's a
shame the twain had to eventually meet at such an ugly confluence.

And then there are the soundbites: what gets measured gets managed, he who
owns the relationship owns the customer, content is king, etc. These poop
drops of wisdom stay in circulation until they're white and brick-hard,
and only a fool would dare question their veracity. An outburst of: 'What
do you mean 'content is king'?' could see you banished to the
middle-kingdom wearing sackcloth underpants and a bell round your neck.
It's best to nod sagely and include the latest mantra in your own
PowerPoint presentation at least twice to show you're a team player who
gets the bigger picture (or 'the helicopter view' as it's now referred to
by management consultants up and down the country). The famous
pointy-head, Richard Dawkins, even came up with a theory of how crap ideas
spread and persist in spite of the lack of any empirical evidence to
support their truth. He called these ideas memes. Like genes they compete
to get copied, but unlike genes their competition is for space in your
memory, and for the chance to get into magazines, television programmes,
and your next presentation to the board). The belief that there is a God
is an example of a meme. It is particularly virulent idea and, in spite of
any supporting evidence, has thrived for millennia. Another is, 'Sacking a
third of your workforce is a good way to sustain a company through a
recession.'

A recent phrase I came across that had me hissing and spitting like Steve
Irwin's cobras was 'empathetic disengagement'. A software vendor used it
during a presentation to our marketing staff. With their fantastic
'customer relationship management' software you can gather terabytes of
customer data in your 'data warehouse' and 'mine' it for useful
information (yes, more mixed metaphors), such as, 'Which are my least
profitable customers?' These time wasters--the old lady who always insists
on using the human tellers at the bank instead of the ATM--can then be
'empathetically disengaged', ie dumped. I enquired of the vendor how one
went about disengaging ones customers. Apparently, the trick is to price
them out of existence. Charge the old lady 20 for speaking to a human
instead of interfacing with a machine. So you see, these new phrases are
more than just annoying, they're insidious. It is our duty, as responsible
citizens, to stop the rot. Next time someone touches base with you or
moves your goal posts, punch them in the face.