OF BUZZWORDS, JARGON, SLANG ...

These days, there’s lots of press about the use (or mis-use) of words.  Journalists and writers complain.  Business people urge all to be conversational and precise.  Teachers, of course, have a field day.

Every day, slang takes over our talk and thinking.  Just think of a few:  Deep dive, end user, leverage, low-hanging fruit, synergy.  “It’s the deck that touches base with our aspirations, and further expands our bandwidth.”

Yeah, we could go on and on.

But we’ll spare you.   Psychologists galore have examined corporate and techno speak, concluding that it’s a:

• ·       Shorthand to communicate more quick and efficiently
• ·       Way of indicating you’re a member of a certain club or
• ·       Need to sound important.

Even better, some good Ph.D. doctors at NYU analyzed the use of abstract language, revealing that its use leads listeners to believe the speaker is lying – more often than if concrete words were spoken.

Bottom line, jargon is muddy and meaningless.  It creates a language barrier in cultures that, quite frankly, don’t need any more.

Complaining, though, won’t get us anywhere. 

Our solution?  Let’s get well-known public figures and CEOs to start talking and writing with clarity; after all, many of us act as their ghostwriters.  Start a campaign with role models everyone respects – perhaps a Jimmy Carter or Tim Cook or (you fill in the blank).  Headline it with quotes from Richard Branson (among others):   “It is far better to use a simple term and commonplace words that everyone will understand, rather than showing off and annoying your audience.”

Hey, we can dream, can’t we?

QUIX PIX = CHAT STAT

It had to happen.

Brands are getting into the emoji business, big time.

These graphics, originally created to add context to text, now live by themselves.  Ford promoted its latest Focus with ‘em.  Unilever’s Dove just rolled out a series of curly-haired faces, customizable by skin tone and hair color.  Domino’s uses its visual as a way to text an order. 

Entrepreneurs are making the most of this emo-design, from a 2013 “translated” edition of Moby Dick housed in the Library of Congress (yeah, called Emoji Dick) to software that suggests emoji as you type.

What’s more, e-statistics are seductive.  As is the psychology behind these hieroglyphics.  Like these:

• The richer the array of emotions, the happier and healthier the users.
• People who use emoticons are more popular and influential than those who don’t.
• Children today recognize corporate logos before they can read.

Now, speaking through pictures is, in short, an almost necessary adjunct to our social media conversations.  Plain language doesn’t cut it anymore.

Perhaps we need to blame Paul Rand who created a rebus of the IBM logo (think:  eye-bee-M).  Or networks like Facebook and Instagram that thrive on communicating in cartoons.  Even Apple which, late last month, announced its first emoji with a cause – against cyber-bullying. 

We have zip against winkies and smileys.  Certainly, as visual communicators, we can’t complain about the explosion of new pictures.  What we miss, really and truly, are the conversations between people, among groups, that rely on faces and sounds and tones and gestures to communicate.

WORDS THAT STICK

Change is our middle name.

Yet, because we began our careers as writers and journalists, words are near and dear to us.  So, from time to time, we wear our linguistic hats and probe into the nature of language.  Which, sorta, kinda, is part of change.

Lately, fellow wordsmiths (or smithies, we suppose) have wrestled with the notion of permanence, that is, which of the new lingos heard and invented will last more than Andy Warhol’s 15 seconds.  Twerking, selfie, catfish, lean in:  All have precedents and other meanings attached.  Twerking, it’s said, was a Nawlins’ figure of speech two decades ago; selfie belongs to our compatriots Down Under (and even earlier, if you believe the Princess Anastasia myth).  Mash-ups and phrases, like cronut and Boston strong, seem to have more legs than others.

What makes for word permanence?  More professorial minds than ours cite five factors, from frequency and diversity to unobtrusiveness.   Others say it takes 40 years for slang to become embedded into our dictionaries.   To avoid theorizing, the venerable American Dialect Society (yes, Virginia, there is one) votes on its Word of the Year every January; believe it or not, 2013 was the year of “because” … as in “because nachos.  Because politics.  Because science.” 

No comment.

Instead, we see two factors that count for language stick-to-it-tiveness.  One, a word that’s inextricably linked to a physical object or unforgettable event.  Think “drone” and “9/11.”  And two, an appendix that can transform any plain-Jane ordinary adjective or noun into something new and different.  After all, consider what adding “nado” and “gate” does to shark and water … among others.

Why the concern with lastingness?   Because change.  It’s what we do.

WORTH [OUR] WHILES

It’s been some time since we heard of value propositions.

Obviously, a business and its strategy are lost without one.  Yet figuring out how to prove that we, denizens of intangibility, deliver value is tough.  And wiser heads than ours haven’t yet cracked the code, seeing as we – marketers, designers, branding gurus, communicators – are usually among the first to be RIFed and our work, eliminated or cut back.

Some of the more apparent extra value options offered by one agency head:

• Generate ideas in new ways.  All well and good (and something we fervently believe in and practice), but where’s the revenue?  Unless, of course, it’s built into your contract … as both consultants and practitioners.
• Go above and beyond.  That got us in pretty hot water years ago; billing software couldn’t account for all the hours expended.  Then again, that premise should be built into mindsets and behaviors … balancing is the key.
• Drive results that make a difference.  Okay, that’s our mission, our mantra, our zeal.  Problem is, many outcomes are anecdotal.  Others rely on squeaky numbers that not everyone buys into.  And still others target changes in behaviors and attitudes, shifts that take a longer time to calculate.

Questions we can ask ourselves in an honest aside:  Do we talk about our services in memorable headlines?  Why do our customers choose us over another Jane and Tom?  Is our language (argh!) accessible … and jargon-less?  Have we strengthened our case with all the usual suspects, from customer testimonials to results, as well as the more unusual benefits?

There’s much more on this topic, trust us.  Watch this space … for a while.