BackMonday 8th March, 2010
(Guest post) Bat up your nightdress? Not likely
This week, someone sent me a meeting appointment for an Ideation Session. Erm, what?
I’ve worked as a copywriter for a big, American company for 4 years now. So I’m fluent in the language of ‘business speak’. (Or, as I’ve affectionately renamed it, Corporate ****. Fill in the blanks – you’ll be right.) But ‘ideation’ has recently moved up my own personal chart of words (is it even one of those?) which is just unnecessary. And ridiculous. And usually used by someone who’s not particularly clever to pretend that they are, in fact, rather clever.
Circle back, reach out… fall over
But the invitation to this session of ideating (sounds like it’ll hurt) is just the tip of the corporate-speak iceberg. I’ve ideated ‘against’ particular topics and ‘circled back’ on others. I’ve ’touched base by end of play’ and am often advised to ‘reach out’ to my fellow colleagues to ensure that we’re all ‘singing from the same song sheet’.
Seriously – some of these phrases just sound plain rude to me. Don’t even get me started on ‘low-hanging fruit’.
Luckily for me, the person I report to is the Plain English Campaign’s number one fan. Not only would I be laughed at if I started sentences with ‘Going forward…’ I think it could jeopardise my bonus.
So I’m encouraged to have fun with the barrage of unnecessary jargon that’s fired at me daily. Corporate Bingo is the best way to liven up a dull meeting – if we need to be ‘proactive’ about an issue, that’ll get us 10 points; if it’s an issue we need to ‘cascade’, that’s a 20. Let’s do a Mexican wave as an energiser to celebrate!
Synchrobloodymeshing
Laughing at these words and phrases, and the people who use them, certainly makes the working day more entertaining. (Best done inwardly, or not at all, if the CEO’s involved). I’ve started challenging my peers when they use convoluted language, and recently asked a colleague what he meant by ‘syncromeshing’. He wasn’t entirely sure.
But the one that takes the business biscuit, and which appeared in an email from someone fairly important a few weeks ago, concerned a problem that could’ve been disastrous but turned out not to be. It was, apparently, a ‘bat up our nightdress’.
I’m not sure whether that’s a good or a bad thing. And as for the fact that we also, collectively, appear to be sharing one nightdress, well, that’s another post entirely…
Today’s guest blogger is Vicky Sandison. Vicky is a copywriter for a toys and games company and, in her spare time, swears on Twitter.
Couldn’t agree more. I worked in the third sector (another phrase I don’t like) from 2000-2006. As you say, a lot of it is to do with people sucking up to the people with the money.
Jargon aside, it’s a shame how many charities have become client organisations of government… though it makes it a double pleasure to get involved with a good one.
Comment left by Ben Locker on Monday 8th March, 2010 at 4:22 pm
True, the use of this kind of language is code for being professional and familiar with the workings of business. But it’s still meaningless!
The relationship between government and the charitable sector is completely transformed. I work for a charity, my post is part-funded by DCSF. It’s very common and would be completely unrecognisable to the average punter who donates to charity.
Having said that, it has its uses. We achieve a massive amount in partnership with government to support the work of local authorities, so it can work very well.
Comment left by Lucy Sweetman on Monday 8th March, 2010 at 4:34 pm
Bat Up our Nightdress? That is absolutely brilliant. I shall use it at our next team meeting.
I’m afraid this kind of nonsense is getting all the more prevalent in the third sector too. I think it’s because we’re doing more work with government in all its shades and government spends too much time at the water cooler with business. It’s an endless circle of meaninglessness where these kinds of words and phrases end up excluding our “end user”. See what I did there?
Bring back the pretty, the poetic, the expressive.
And anyway, who on earth wears a nightdress these days?
Comment left by Lucy on Monday 8th March, 2010 at 4:18 pm
The problem is, people love jargon. I love it myself. I often regret that I can’t use all the design and prepress terms I got to say when I worked in publishing (ozalid, rainbow, imposition, double in, black on, white out, dot gain, trapping, leading, kerning, bitmap, vector etc). As a consolation, I have got all the TLAs* from the online world – SEO, PPC, PDF, ASP, PHP, FTP, API etc.
Jargon defines your culture, and people want to feel part of a culture. But I guess they should think about the kind of culture they’re creating – and how it looks to outsiders.
* Three Letter Acronyms
Comment left by Tom Albrighton on Tuesday 9th March, 2010 at 2:44 pm