Sick of industry buzzwords? July 2003 Help is here - new jargon-busting software. You may have seen recently that Deloitte Consulting launched a software program called Bullfighter that it claims will eliminate many of the buzzwords and jargon that still appear in many media releases and media articles. Deloitte was probably a grand purveyor of such words over the last decade, a claim acknowledged by its principal, Paul Lee, who noted that his firm was as guilty as the rest when it came to using ‘biz babble’. (They just can’t help themselves… now we have a new jargon phrase to describe jargon!) Bullfighter searches documents for jargon and unnecessarily complex language. Once installed, the Bullfighter toolbar appears in Microsoft Word and PowerPoint documents, and works much like the spell check feature… except this software identifies the bull, flogs the author for trying to use those words, suggests replacements and then assigns a Bull Composite score. There’s no doubt that this product is needed. Indeed, PR Influences identified the need to ‘cut the crap’ in articles as far back as June last year (‘The death of hyperbole?'). Yet, open up virtually any management or IT-type publication or listen to a sales spiel and you’ll find it riddled with words that may have sounded good when introduced, but mean absolutely nothing today. As an example, the author was being regaled about the features of a piece of software a few months ago. The product wrap-up went something like… "it’s got functionality, scalability, interoperability, repurposability… man, it’s so good it’s even got razzability!" It’s interesting comparing Deloitte’s top ten ‘bull’ words with those of the Buzzkiller site that we highlighted in our June 2002 issue. There are some similarities, but little cohesive convergence or synergistic ratification between them. BULLFIGHTER TOP TEN BUZZKILLER BUSINESS TOP TEN BUZZKILLER TECH TOP TEN Global  Leading Solution(s) Strategic  Synergy Robust Enterprise Leverage Turnkey Leverage Core competencies Interactive World Class                   Best practice Best of breed Empower  Bottom line Mission-critical Utilize (sic) 24/7 Scalable Synergistic Out of the loop Next-generation Repurpose On the ground Web-enabled Change Agent Benchmark B2B/B2C ‘Solutions’ seems to have replaced ‘outcomes’ as a pet hate. According to an article that came across our desk recently, we no longer have food, we have nutrition solutions and the cat we have at home is not a pet, it’s a loneliness solution. There’s little doubt that US tech-talk has been responsible for much of this verbal garbage. After all, IT has hijacked more of the English language and added meaningless but clever-sounding words than possibly any other industry. Think about it, ‘best of breed’ is about finding the best Old English Sheepdog or Rhode Island Red at a show. It’s not about describing a company (vendor) that only makes one type of product. And ‘turnkey’ (used by all sorts of marketing people) is really either a claw-like tool that dentists use to pull teeth, or the bloke in the prison who has the keys to the cells. One important, if somewhat obvious observation from Deloitte’s Bullfighter launch, was that the company found: "Straight-talking companies outperform companies that use vague, unclear communications." Regardless of what you feel a consulting company should charge for such an obvious conclusion, it is a step in the right direction. It really is up to us in corporate and marketing communication to eradicate as much of this meaningless and self-serving industry jargon as possible. Make it your ‘New FY04 Resolution’.

PR Influences Australian Public Relations Newsletter. Article: PR Tips: Sick of industry buzzwords?. Information Content: Tips & Hints