Buzzwords! They really are all-powerful. They can defeat Lord Sauron. They can stop the White Walkers in their tracks. They are our only hope of restoring balance to the Force.

But perhaps the buzz has gone to my head.

We all use buzzwords, consciously or not. As a business writer, I sometimes have to sprinkle a few into articles to be taken seriously by my audience. But it can be taken to extremes.

Let me explain:

The iterative process of writing demands collaborative synergies that seamlessly blend stakeholders together in a proactive and sustainable manner. By leveraging an integrated and strategic approach to achieve scalable mandates, sustainable outcomes will benefit cross-disciplinary environments.

Does that clarify things for you? Probably not, but it surely floats off the tongue and sounds convincing if you aren’t paying much attention.

I regularly interview people who sound just like that. They can only talk in buzzwords. They are the business equivalent of politicians. They are all about sounding good, not saying anything. Good luck trying to get any useful information out of them.

Many software marketing folks are guilty of this heinous crime. They get grooved in to corporate messaging to such a degree that they can’t say anything else. One client can only come up with a single story idea. I ask for a story concept, they give me XYZ. Six months later, he critiques one of my stories saying we should say XYZ. He is unable to say anything else, or present the data in a different way.

Years ago, I had to interview a series of enterprise software companies. I found the marketing guys full of superlatives and hype. Yet they struggled to tell me what their software did. In some cases, it boiled down to something as simple as being able take spreadsheets and translate them into other formats. It might take me a 20-minute interrogation to get them to spit out such a fact. One guy I interviewed was very happy at the end of the call. He finally found out what his company did. All they had taught him was the hype, not the actuality.

Let me be even more clear: by directing attention towards omnichannel influencers, a next-gen paradigm shift can bring about a radical transformation in core competences among customer-centric engagement silos.

Now do you get it? It’s a win-win outcome for sustainable diversity.

How to get real:

1 Don’t fall for your own hype and stop trotting it out blindly without real understanding.

  1. Find out for real what your company or client does.
  2. Skip the buzzwords
  3. Come to terms with the fact that your product may not have the power to defeat Lord Sauron, stop the White Walkers in their tracks, or restore balance to the Force.
  4. Start promoting your product with reality on the problem it solves.