Business talk

Many people working in large companies speak business-buzzwords as a second language. Business language is full of pretty meaningless words. I Don’t Understand What Anyone Is Saying Anymore article tells that the language of internet business models has made the problem even worse. There are several strains of this epidemic: We have forgotten how to use the real names of real things, acronymitis, and Meaningless Expressions (like “Our goal is to exceed the customer’s expectation”). This would all be funny if it weren’t true. Observe it, deconstruct it, and appreciate just how ridiculous most business conversation has become.

Check out this brilliant Web Economy Bullshit Generator page. It generates random bullshit text based on the often used words in business language. And most of the material it generates look something you would expect from IT executives and their speechwriters (those are randomly generated with Web Economy Bullshit Generator):

“scale viral web services”
“integrate holistic mindshare”
“transform back-end solutions”
“incentivize revolutionary portals”
“synergize out-of-the-box platforms”
“enhance world-class schemas”
“aggregate revolutionary paradigms”
“enable cross-media relationships”

How to talk like a CIO article tries to tell how do CIOs talk, and what do they talk about, and why they do it like they do it. It sometimes makes sense to analyze the speaking and comportment styles of the people who’ve already climbed the corporate ladder if you want to do the same.

The Most Annoying, Pretentious And Useless Business Jargon article tells that the stupid business talk is longer solely the province of consultants, investors and business-school types, this annoying gobbledygook has mesmerized the rank and file around the globe. The next time you feel the need to reach out, touch base, shift a paradigm, leverage a best practice or join a tiger team, by all means do it. Just don’t say you’re doing it. If you have to ask why, chances are you’ve fallen under the poisonous spell of business jargon. Jargon masks real meaning. The Most Annoying, Pretentious And Useless Business Jargon article has a cache of expressions to assiduously avoid (if you look out you will see those used way too many times in business documents and press releases).

Is Innovation the Most Abused Word In Business? article tells that most of what is called innovation today is mere distraction, according to a paper by economist Robert Gordon. Innovation is the most abused word in tech. The iPad is about as innovative as the toaster. You can still read books without an iPad, and you can still toast bread without a toaster. True innovation radically alters the way we interact with the world. But in tech, every little thing is called “innovative.” If you were to believe business grads then “innovation” includes their “ideas” along the lines of “a website like *only better*” or “that thing which everyone is already doing but which I think is my neat new idea” Whether or not the word “innovation” has become the most abused word in the business context, that remains to be seen. “Innovation” itself has already been abused by the patent trolls.

Using stories to catch ‘smart-talk’ article tells that smart-talk is information without understanding, theory without practice – ‘all mouth and no trousers’, as the old aphorism puts it. It’s all too common amongst would-be ‘experts’ – and likewise amongst ‘rising stars’ in management and elsewhere. He looks the part; he knows all the right buzzwords; he can quote chapter-and-verse from all the best-known pundits and practitioners. But is it all just empty ‘smart-talk’? Even if unintentional on their part, people who indulge in smart-talk can be genuinely dangerous. They’ll seem plausible enough at first, but in reality they’ll often know just enough to get everyone into real trouble, but not enough to get out of it again. Smart-talk is the bane of most business – and probably of most communities too. So what can we do to catch it?

2,693 Comments

  1. Tomi Engdahl says:

    IT-ALAN TOIMITTAJALOUKKUUN ON YKSINKERTAINEN RATKAISU, JOTA VAIN HARVA OSTAJA YMMÄRTÄÄ HYÖDYNTÄÄ
    Kun it-projektin kustannukset paukkuvat ja järjestelmien jatkokehitys on kankeaa, löytyy taustalta usein toimittajaloukku. Digitalentin Talent Projects -toimintamallin avulla yritykset välttävät toimittajaloukun ja ottavat inhouse-osaamisen sekä it-ratkaisujen ylläpidon ja jatkokehityksen omiin käsiinsä motivoituneiden junioriosaajien avulla.
    https://www.digitalentconsulting.fi/fi/blog/it-alan-toimittajaloukku-ratkaisu?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=some-jatkuva&fbclid=IwAR3l2S27MPmiHLuBf9N6-9m0PBqfNZDoDWc6cnw-bhsfudpJOz2tp2suNP4

    Reply
  2. Tomi Engdahl says:

    London-Based Hedge Fund Closes After Betting Against GameStop, Becoming One Of First Meme Stock Casualties
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2021/06/22/london-based-hedge-fund-closes-after-betting-against-gamestop-becoming-one-of-first-meme-stock-casualties/?utm_campaign=forbes&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_term=Gordie

    A London-based hedge fund that took on heavy losses betting against GameStop in January has closed its doors, the Financial Times reported Tuesday, becoming one of the first casualties of retail traders’ piling into unpopular or heavily-shorted “meme stocks” that saw some financial mainstays lose billions.  

    Reply
  3. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Do This. Do That. How To Tell Good Advice From Bad
    https://trib.al/M3Dep2u

    Let’s face it. If you’re looking for advice, you’ll find no shortage of it.

    Reply
  4. Tomi Engdahl says:

    A positive mindset will allow you to thrive and grow, but a negative mindset can lead to stagnation and frustration. The good news is that you have complete control over your mindset as long as you’re willing to put in the work to change it.

    How A Success Mindset Can Help You Thrive In Business
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/ashiraprossack1/2021/06/24/how-a-success-mindset-can-help-you-thrive-in-business/

    To thrive in business, you need to have the right mindset. A positive mindset will allow you to thrive and grow, but a negative mindset can lead to stagnation and frustration. The good news is that you have complete control over your mindset as long as you’re willing to put in the work to change it.

    As Graziano explains it, “Manifesting means making something happen now, bringing your thoughts to fruition, or bringing your goal to fruition.” Nothing “woo” about that. In fact, it’s the fastest way to cultivate a positive mindset and bring more success into your life.

    When you change your thought process, you’re actually changing the neural wiring of your brain. This is the power of positive thinking. Graziano points out that “whatever you are thinking on the inside is reflected on the outside.” If you’re thinking positive thoughts, you’ll begin to find more positivity around you and start looking at things in a different light. If you’re thinking negative thoughts, you’ll simply see negativity around you.

    Reply
  5. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Word of the day: “Englishable”
    Usage: I had to summarise a 17 page I.T report in order to make it more Englishable for non I.T directors.

    https://www.facebook.com/groups/it.humor.and.memes/permalink/6341277009231363/

    Reply
  6. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Why extroverts have their own extreme language
    13 May 2021|Language
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/reel/video/p09hg3dd/why-extroverts-have-their-own-extreme-language?utm_source=taboola&utm_medium=exchange&tblci=GiBxK1nLX9aWX9oGqSuMPoeMAOqr6tUv_raMMgwGoxbnCSCMjFQogpCAuszfk4L0AQ#tblciGiBxK1nLX9aWX9oGqSuMPoeMAOqr6tUv_raMMgwGoxbnCSCMjFQogpCAuszfk4L0AQ

    There’s no doubt that the English language loves extremes, and the modern conversations are full of it. From ‘Frankenstorms’ and ‘mega’ to ‘landmark’ and ‘awesome’, just how did such linguistic supersizing take over? The answer may lie in how the extroverts amongst us need mental stimulation.

    Reply
  7. Tomi Engdahl says:

    How to stop dropping the ball and start engaging more effectively
    https://www.membrain.com/blog/how-to-stop-dropping-the-ball-and-start-engaging-more-effectively?utm_content=171392169&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&hss_channel=fbp-193082674075165&fbclid=IwAR2n_PXnosdRu5Hle7V5yenKBfx7FQ9Hp6Dy3-dK1CI5pr3vYKbea1KhJpQ

    Sales and customer success (CS) teams need to know which relationships to nurture, who has been engaging with these people (and who hasn’t), who already has relationships with someone else in the company, and which contacts are, or can become, “ambassadors” within our prospects’ and customers’ organizations.

    Most CRMs do not provide easy visibility into these questions and, as a result, key relationships get dropped or ignored, while salespeople and customer success representatives waste time on the wrong people and wrong conversations.

    Reply
  8. Tomi Engdahl says:

    “There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing and be nothing.”
    — Aristotle

    Reply
  9. Tomi Engdahl says:

    4 Physics And Chemistry Concepts That Would Level Up Your Way Of Thinking About Startups
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/abdoriani/2021/06/30/4-physics-and-chemistry-concepts-that-would-level-up-your-way-of-thinking-about-startups/

    Reality is complex, so in order to comprehend it, we use abstractions. We cannot hold the whole terrain in our mind – every single tree or blade of grass. Instead, we create and use maps to represent it in a resolution that’s manageable for our cognitive capacity.

    Reply
  10. Tomi Engdahl says:

    How to Win More Deals by Making Better Human Connections
    https://www.membrain.com/blog/how-to-win-more-deals-by-making-better-human-connections

    People like to do business with people they trust. Unfortunately for sales professionals, salespeople are often the last people anyone trusts

    Reply
  11. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Kaupat syytävät tietokoneita, drooneja ja puhelimia suoraan paketista silppuriin – EU pohtii, miten lopettaa järjetön tuhoaminen
    EU vähentää jätettä, mutta direktiivit eivät ulotu siihen, miten kauppa hävittää myymättä jääneet tavarat. Ranska on säätänyt asiasta lain.
    https://suomenkuvalehti.fi/jutut/ulkomaat/eurooppa/kaupat-syytavat-tietokoneita-drooneja-ja-puhelimia-suoraan-paketista-silppuriin-eu-pohtii-miten-lopettaa-jarjeton-tuhoaminen/

    Oman ongelmansa muodostavat jätteet, joiden ei pitäisi olla jätteitä lainkaan. Brittiläisen ITV-uutiskanavan 22. kesäkuuta julkaiseman dokumentin mukaan Britanniassa amerikkalainen Amazon-verkkokauppa tuhoaa vuosittain miljoonia täysin uusia elektroniikkatuotteita, jotka ovat jääneet myymättä yhtiön varastoihin tai palautuneet asiakkailta. Tämä on alkanut Britannian ollessa EU:n jäsen.

    Reply
  12. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Iceland Tried A Shortened Workweek And It Was An ‘Overwhelming Success’
    https://trib.al/sOFroLa

    Reply
  13. Tomi Engdahl says:

    How Much Do I Charge to Make Parts
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cb44JCAS_Kg

    A complete breakdown of how much to charge for parts. Labor, markup, tax, cost…. the whole works!

    Reply
  14. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Etteplan Webinar: Why translations can make or break you…
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xz-nTMNSPvg

    A webinar about the success factor translations can play in your attempts to achieve business goals. We will discuss to what you need to pay attention to when selecting the right translation partner

    Reply
  15. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Why Data Culture Matters
    https://www.datacamp.com/community/blog/why-data-culture-matters

    This blog post summarizes how and why data culture is a variable in any successful analytics endeavor, the meaning of data culture, and how it is an extension of organizational habits

    Reply
  16. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Is Your Sales Process Backwards, Upside Down or Stupid?
    https://www.membrain.com/blog/is-your-sales-process-backwards-upside-down-or-stupid?utm_content=172582699&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&hss_channel=fbp-193082674075165&fbclid=IwAR0sCJsIM_X_R6GOnX70SdwmBxS0PAzhxtHNxgQ6IUBVdvq42uIv9NvmMHY

    Retail is all about browsing and at this store, they forgot about making it easy to buy and replaced it with making it difficult to get started. Brand stupidity.

    Let’s take upside down, backwards, rule breaking and stupid and use those four conditions to dissect sales processes.

    The very poor conversation to meeting ratios are an example of a serious combustion point with this scenario. There are many reasons for these unacceptable ratios that companies invariably find ways to justify (see my article about Why We Should Blow up the BDR Role). While inexperience and ineffectiveness are the two most obvious reasons, another significant reason is the use of BANT which stands for Budget, Authority, Need and Timing.

    While it’s smart to have account executives working qualified opportunities, it’s upside down, backwards and stupid! A decision maker has no incentive to answer qualifying questions this early in the sales process before there is some compelling reason for them to buy what you have. In other words, while you want to start the sales process with a decision maker with authority, you start with whom you start and go from there. You can’t qualify a prospect’s ability to buy or get to the actual decision maker until there is enough urgency for them to take action! At that point, they’ll ask you what you need from them! When it’s done at the right time in the sales process, it’s much easier!

    Another problem with most of the sales processes is the sheer number of steps that have nothing to do with selling. For example, Marketing has worked its way into the sales process and while the lead generation work flow is important, it does not belong in the sales process. A signed contract is an acceptable final step in the final stage of the sales process but the steps that legal undertakes are part of the legal team’s process, not sales.

    Sales processes tend to emphasize three major steps – prospecting, presenting and closing – but seriously lack the actual selling-based stages and milestones. If we wish to sell value and create urgency, a consultative approach is required. Without it, the conversation will invariably turn to price and your attempts to sell value will go right down the drain.

    In this case, the sales process is not upside down or backwards, it is inside out – the inner core is missing!

    salespeople are multiple-time-offenders when it comes to following the new sequence of milestones in the sales process. Salespeople LOVE to skip steps. They break the rules!

    The single best example of upside down, backwards and stupid occurs when considering the limitations of certain CRM applications and/or the limitations of the integrators who customize those applications. Your sales process must be integrated into your CRM application so some companies, acknowledging the various limitations of their CRM/integrators, include only those simple steps that they can get into their CRM. You can’t dumb down your sales process because of limitations in your CRM!

    Reply
  17. Tomi Engdahl says:

    The Labor Shortage Is Why Supply Chains Are Disrupted
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/billconerly/2021/07/07/the-labor-shortage-is-why-supply-chains-are-disrupted/
    Pervasive supply chain disruptions result mostly from labor shortages, with transportation bottlenecks a much lesser factor. Here in the United States, imports totaled $2.3 trillion last year, compared to GDP of $20.9 trillion, Ships continue to be delayed in their arrivals and unloading at U.S. ports, but that’s not nearly as great a problem as the labor shortage.

    Reply
  18. Tomi Engdahl says:

    ”Insinöörin työ on taidetta, myynti on tiedettä. Insinööri improvisoi ja rakentaa sellaista, johon asiakas ihastuu tai sitten ei, eli taidetta.”

    Kauppa on se, joka kasvattaa
    https://www.hs.fi/visio/art-2000008082522.html?share=5ab2d0411c62fb191297254788ace4fd

    Myyntityö on dataan ja analyysiin pohjaava tiedettä, kirjoittaa Mårten Mickos ja kertoo HS Visiolle parhaat vinkkinsä myynnin kasvattamiseen.

    SUOMI on köyhä maa, mutta sen ei tarvitse sellaiseksi jäädä. Vaikka “kauppa” on germaanista alkuperää oleva lainasana, pystyy suomalainen myymään, jos hän oikein haluaa. Pitää vain ensin haudata vanhat käsitykset myynnistä.

    Kuten sen, että hyvä tuote myy itsensä. Ja että tuotteen pitää olla täydellinen jo lanseerauksen hetkellä. Tai että myynti olisi ala-arvoisempi, improvisaatioihin ja silmänkääntötemppuihin perustuva ammatti. Tai että markkinointi tarkoittaa mainontaa. Tai että insinööri se vasta jämpti on.

    Reply
  19. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Here’s how to make your brand into something everyone is talking about – the padel way
    https://www.membrain.com/blog/heres-how-to-make-your-brand-into-something-everyone-is-talking-about-the-padel-board-way

    the new hype: Padel. It’s like tennis, but you play it on a court surrounded by plexiglass, and you can bounce the ball off the walls as part of the game. It’s all the rage in Sweden and other parts of Europe right now, and it’s quite a lot of fun.

    Any time something goes truly viral, whether online or out in the real world, there’s always an element of magic that’s hard to put a finger on (and often decades of prep work.) But there are also always certain elements that we can learn from.

    1. Reduce entrypoint friction
    2. Be so appealing people can’t stop talking about you
    3. Make it scale

    Reply
  20. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Research Finds A New Trick To Telling If Someone Is Lying: Their Voice
    https://trib.al/2jgPusi

    The recent pandemic of misinformation has made us recognize just how important it is to know if someone is telling us the truth. Some lies in 2021 are easy to recognize, like space lasers starting wildfires in California or lizard people controlling the world. But other lies are less obvious.

    Now researchers have identified a built in mechanism our brain uses to detect when someone is telling us a lie: their voice. Not only did the researchers find that our voices betray a particular sound signature when we tell the truth, but that our brains also pick this up in other people automatically.

    It’s all about prosody. Prosody refers to the qualities of our voice: how rhythmic it is, and were we stress tones. You might think of prosody as the musicality of a voice. If that’s still confusing, than think of an adult speaking playfully to a child. Their voice goes up and down with a sing-song quality. On the other hand, if a voice lacks prosody we would call it flat and expressionless.

    If the researchers are right, and there’s a natural encoded way of telling the truth or lying in humans that crosses culture, this could be incredibly helpful for evaluating what people tell us. However the study used three western languages, which does not eliminate the possibility that this is a western way of lying, and not common to all cultures in the world.

    But the most interesting finding was that the different prosodic signatures or honesty or dishonesty immediately impacted the working memories of the listeners. The listeners brains automatically registered a perception of whether the speaker was truthful or not, even when the listener wasn’t being asked to determine honesty.

    Reply
  21. Tomi Engdahl says:

    People Don’t Want to Be Compared with Others in Performance Reviews. They Want to Be Compared with Themselves
    https://hbr.org/2018/03/people-dont-want-to-be-compared-with-others-in-performance-reviews-they-want-to-be-compared-with-themselves?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=hbr&utm_source=facebook&tpcc=orgsocial_edit

    People hate performance evaluations. They really do. According to a survey of Fortune 1,000 companies done by the Corporate Executive Board (CEB), 66% of the employees were strongly dissatisfied with the performance evaluations they received in their organizations. More strikingly, 65% of the employees believed that performance evaluations were not even relevant to their jobs.

    This is unfortunate considering the amount of resources that organizations devote to conducting performance evaluations.

    on average U.S. organizations spend $3,000 per year, per employee. This implies that billions of dollars are spent across the country because more than 90% of American companies provide performance evaluations at least once a year.

    Why are employees so frustrated about the way they are evaluated, despite all the time and money being spent on these evaluations? What are organizations missing? We believe that one clue lies in the fact that 71% of the American employees thought that their evaluations had problems in the domain of fairness.

    Fairness is at the heart of enhancing employees’ work experiences.

    Then, the remaining question is this: what are the specific things that organizations can do to increase perceptions of fairness during the process of performance evaluations? Our research, recently accepted for publication in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, suggests that an important driver of the fairness in performance evaluations is the reference point managers use to appraise their employees’ performance.

    Our findings demonstrate that employees consider temporal comparison evaluations to be fairer than social comparison evaluations.

    Employees whose performance was compared with another person’s performance believed that while delivering such evaluations, their manager failed to account for specific details of their performance. Thus, they considered the evaluations to be less accurate. They thought that their evaluations were less respectful, perhaps because they felt like they were being treated like another face in the crowd.

    The employees — both at the top and the bottom — might have perceived the evaluation processes as less fair. Past research on fairness suggests that such consequences can be very costly to organizations, especially in the long run.

    By emphasizing how their performance has changed over time instead of how it fares against other people’s performance, organizations can offer what the employees want — individualized treatment — and thus achieve the goal of offering fair evaluations, which are much more likely to be embraced rather than met with scorn.

    Reply
  22. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Julia Thurénin kolumni: Minua ei huvita tahkota rahaa vain muiden taskuihin
    https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-12020277

    Myös palkansaajan pitäisi hyötyä siitä, kun firmalla menee hyvin. On aika keskustella siitä, miten yritysten omistajuus ja voitot jakautuvat, kirjoittaa Thurén.

    Reply
  23. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Take This Office and Shove It “You Want Me Back? I Quit”
    https://mishtalk.com/economics/take-this-office-and-shove-it-you-want-me-back-i-quit

    Despite a rise in Covid Delta cases, companies are starting to summon workers back. Employees prefer more flexible office schedules.

    Reply
  24. Tomi Engdahl says:

    How to get remote onboarding right
    https://futurice.com/blog/how-to-get-remote-onboarding-right?utm_source=ig-fb&utm_medium=ig-fb-paid&utm_campaign=futu-remote&fbclid=IwAR1bH_BeYlbOiAx7Pzgs6qadeyOAVzMCAwx698AW7nea2G_Vk417LdUvqQ8

    Onboarding plays a crucial role in welcoming new employees and helping them start their journey at your company on a positive note.

    Reply
  25. Tomi Engdahl says:

    What Is Digital Transaction Management and How Does It Work?
    https://penneo.com/blog/digital-transaction-management/

    What’s the point of storing digital documents online if you still rely on printing, faxing, scanning, and ink-pens when they need to be signed?

    Many organizations have traded their filing cabinets for cloud-based DMS, their client and employee paperwork for CRMs and HRMs, their spreadsheets for ERPs – yet they go back to pen and paper when it comes to identity verification, approvals, and auditing. In other words, they cut their digital transformation at the best part – missing all the upsides of digital transaction management.

    This article explores the opportunities provided by digital transaction management solutions and the advantages for businesses in terms of the efficiency and security of their document-based processes.

    What is digital transaction management (DTM)?
    Digital transaction management (DTM) means leveraging a set of electronic tools and practices to optimize routine document-based tasks. The expression is generally used to refer to the category of cloud services designed to manage document-based transactions.

    DTM solutions go beyond the benefits of secure record filing provided by document management systems (DMS). It’s about shifting from management of documents to management of document transactions with a variety of processes – including signing, identity verification, control, and secure routing.

    A DTM software helps achieve faster, easier, and safer business processes thanks to built-in capabilities such as electronic signature, digital authentication, and workflow automation.

    Reply
  26. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Big tech companies are at war with employees over remote work
    CEOs want workers back at their desks. Employees and the virus have other plans.
    https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/08/vaccines-reopenings-and-worker-revolts-big-techs-contentious-return-to-the-office/

    All across the United States, the leaders at large tech companies like Apple, Google, and Facebook are engaged in a delicate dance with thousands of employees who have recently become convinced that physically commuting to an office every day is an empty and unacceptable demand from their employers.

    The COVID-19 pandemic forced these companies to operate with mostly remote workforces for months straight. And since many of them are based in areas with relatively high vaccination rates, the calls to return to the physical office began to sound over the summer.

    Reply

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