Benson & Associates - Communications

Okay, I admit it. I do it. I’ve probably done it to you. And people are doing it right now – repeatedly and without shame. In boardrooms, cubicles and elevators all across Calgary, it’s happening at a rate of approximately 6 times per second. In fact, you probably did it within the last 10 minutes without even being aware of it. That’s right, we’re all guilty.

Guilty of dropping corporate buzzwords. (Gasp! The horror!)

The term “buzzword” is defined by Webster (the tv character, not the dictionary) as: “An often-used word or phrase that sounds more important than it really is, used primarily by people with low IQ’s to impress other people with low IQ’s.” Back in the Nineties, when corporate buzzwords began popping up like teenage acne, mucky-mucks used words like “methodology” and “paradigm” to bump up the syllable count (and obscurity) of their decrees. Buzzwords are to a speech what steroids are to a body builder – they bulk it up, but make it stupider. (that’s right, stupider. Google it.)

The ubiquitous nature of the buzzword in meetings and speeches spawned an underground game known as “Buzzword Bingo”. During this game, buzzwords like "incent", "proactive”, and "impactfulness” are preselected and placed on a bingo-like card in random boxes. Players sit in meetings and conferences and silently check off buzzwords as their bosses spout them; the first to fill in a complete line wins. The original conclusion of the game consisted of the winner shouting “Bingo” and subsequently looking for a new job. Now, the winner is encouraged to simply cough.

To generate your own Buzzword Bingo cards, try http://lurkertech.com/buzzword-bingo/

So what are the words we hate the most? The options are endless, so I stepped up to the plate and instigated the initiative to target the critical success factors collectively as a group with an action item to leverage our value oriented culture and a paradigm shift to facilitate a win-win situation.

I hope you’re on board.

Outside the box

Low-hanging fruit

Synergy (does anyone REALLY know what this means?)

Loop me in

Best of breed (Is this a dog show? Or a DOG AND PONY show – yup, put that on the list)

Incentivize

Mission-critical

Bring to the table

Value-add

Actionable items

Proactive

Bandwidth (as a tech. company, we are authorized to use this term, but only when speaking about ACTUAL BANDWIDTH)

So we at Benson & Associates apologize for any and all previous and heretofore use of corporate buzzwords, and, on a going-forward basis, promise that it will likely happen again. Our customer-centric help desk is always ready to engage in value-added executables, so pull the trigger and keep us in the loop with any mission-critical challenges you may have. 1-877-247-1664.