Buzzwords now have their very own "Wiki"
Wikipedia has now got in on the act as well - check out their buzzword wiki :-)
Buzzword Wiki
Buzzword Bingo
You may or may not have heard of the phrase "buzzword bingo"? Well, it is a fun game to play in boring
meetings - you can get your buzzword pdfs from the first two links below. The third link speaks for itself! Thanks go to Matt Walker
for these. He doesn't want you to know where he works - he just says "As for credits, name only please - this isn't company
related, it's a stove-pipe task that appeared from left field during a conversation with Pete that we had taken off-line :-)".
He's obviously a lot better at this than me.
Buzzword Bingo Card 1
Buzzword Bingo Card 2
Business Speak Generation Table
And check out our Wicked Links page for some other cool stuff.
Bollocks "In The Wild"
The below was sent by our friend, Matt Walker, who says: "I had to laugh today, I was reviewing a project
proposal document, and one sentence just make me laugh. I have never seen so many buzz words in 1 simple sentence…..I have
made the business speak words [bold] but this is the sentence word-for-word:"
"The strategic aim is to standardise the infrastructures to drive down operating
costs through supply based consolidation and leveraging group spend as well as exploiting best-in-class
technologies and practices to provide robust, scalable and agile services with excellent customer experience."
If you know what any of that means, be afraid, be very afraid!
Bollocks on CVs
The below was sent by our friend, Don, who says: "I spotted this on a LinkedIn profile today."
"Marketing professional with experience of implementing integrated marketing communications
to deliver a range of targeted campaigns."
...Then
"Brand development, delivery of direct marketing campaigns using online and offline channels,
website content management, event management and developing relationships with external marketing and design agencies.
"Clear as mud" writes Don. We agree.
Dilbert and Bollocksphere
From the Wiki entry for Dilbert:
In 1997, Scott Adams masqueraded as a management consultant to Logitech executives (as Ray Mebert), with
the cooperation of the company?s vice-chairman. He acted in much the way he portrays management consultants in the
comic strip, with an arrogant manner and bizarre suggestions, such as comparing mission statements to broccoli soup. He
convinced the executives to replace their existing mission statement for their New Ventures Group, "to provide Logitech
with profitable growth and related new business areas", with "to scout profitable growth opportunities in
relationships, both internally and externally, in emerging, mission-inclusive markets, and explore new paradigms and then
filter and communicate and evangelize the findings."
We here at Bollocksphere think Scott Adams and Dilbert are class. To read the whole Wiki
Click Here.
Bizpeak in the News
Even the Beeb are on about it: check these links out:
50 office-speak phrases you love to hate
Councils get banned jargon list
...and so is the F.T.:
A Surprisingly Good Year For Management Guff
Lexicon of Bollocksisms
I [Didi] decided to have a little fun with interpreting some of the classic terminology used by those that
dwell in the b0ll0cksphere and have made a table - have a look at the first link below. For the printer-friendly version,
Click Here.
| Buzzword | Didi's Interpretation |
| 1000 ft view | Isn't it about time we did this in metric? |
| A steer | Something that goes into beefburgers |
| Administration footprint | The effect of the US Government on the rest of the world |
| Aggressively dressed down | Being badly told off - or going in to work wearning pyjamas and slippers?
(the latter excludes home-workers like me who do this as a matter of course) |
| Bandwidth | As in "I don't have the bandwidth" - when saying you are "too busy"
isn't quite true,
in fact you are busy trying to beat some SOB at on-line poker |
| Banging for your buck | Is this just another way to say "breeding like rabbits?" asks our friend, Marcus. |
| Baselining | A new expression for a type of drug abuse? |
| Brochureware | I bet Tim Berners-Lee hates that one! |
| C-Suite | Second-second-hand living room furniture |
| Connect ear-to-ear | What's wrong with saying "speak on the phone"! |
| Cost-neutral | For when use of the phrase "it doesn't cost anything" just sounds too boring |
| Deliverable | Something that has been sitting in your drawer gathering dust and should
have been given to that client ages ago |
| Drill-down | Something that happens to you at the dentist |
| Embedded | I overslept but I'm not going to tell you that |
| Extended enterprise | Too many chiefs and not enough indians |
| Facilitate | Love the sound of your own voice! |
| Five nines | 45? Yes I can remember how to do basic maths |
| Focus group | Optometrist training course |
| Framework | Something on which to hang ideas that will never come to fruition
(perhaps because
no-one understands what anyone else is on about)! |
| Going forward | The phrase to add to a sentence to lengthen it and therefore make yourself
sound important!
|
| Go-to points | Places on a Monopoly board |
| Heads up | Something akin to "eyes down" to do with Bingo of the non-buzzword variety perhaps? |
| Helicopter View | Wow, things look scary down there! |
| HR | ... aka Human Resources. Our friend Dave writes, " when did the Personnel Department retire? It's a safe
bet never to trust someone who feels the need to put "human" in their job title.". Well said, Dave! |
| Impact | Yes, sh1t happens. Deal with it. |
| Insourcing | Getting a colleague to do your job for you |
| Intelligent membrane | Lets you know when it is time to go to the toilet |
| Interim CIO management | Uh oh, that must mean the company is fubar |
| Issue | For when use of the word "problem" will get you the sack |
| Let's take this offline | Thought bubble: "I am in trouble and I want to persuade you that it's your fault not mine" |
| Leverage | Well let's face it, the verb "to use" just sounds so boring |
| Linkage | Something to do with corporate bondage perhaps? |
| Low-hanging fruit | Our friend Marcus told me "Whoever says this
needs theirs harvested!" I agree. |
| Metrics | Something I think I did at school and that I can't remember |
| Move up the value-chain | Price yourself out of existence |
| Multi-sourcing | Getting just about anyone to do your job for you |
| Outsourcing | Getting another company to do your job for you |
| Paradigm shift | Well, use of "a change in thinking" will just prove you didn't pass
Bollocksphere 101 |
| Process model | Something you do in Visio |
| Procure | Pete found in the dictionary "to arrange for sexual partners for others",
so beware next time you use this word! |
| Procurement | But "purchasing" is just so passé |
| Pushing at an open door | Well, you just fall over! |
| Put the toothpaste back in the tube | What to do if you've argued with your spouse about squeezing the wrong end (of the toothpaste tube)! |
| Quick win | A nice fantasy |
| Rainbow views | The right-brained version of "helicopter ...". |
| Reach out to someone | Sounds more shrink-worthy than business-worthy to me! |
| Resources | ...but use of "People" implies responsibility and consideration is required. |
| Revenue stream | Throwing money down the toilet |
| ROI | The bean-counters have been doing creative accountancy |
| ROSI | The auditors have been doing creative risk analysis |
| Square the circle | Trying to fit a square peg into a round hole |
| Stakeholders | People that assist vampire-slayers |
| Stove-pipe task | I have no idea but Pete reckons this is a "Victorian hat manufacturer"
but I have no idea why (hats ain't my thing)! |
| Sweating the assets | When an accountant squeezes out as much depreciation to put against the
profits that they can so shareholders don't have to be paid so much! |
| Team player | A highly manipulative individual |
| Traction | Our friend Marcus says "Whoever says this needs it applied Torquemada style". We
couldn't agree more! |
| Transformational | A change in career |
| Transformational Agenda | Something they do at electricity service providers |
| Touch base | What may happen before a charge of sexual harassment! |
| Vendor-agnostic | A way of saying "vendor-neutral" for those that might believe in creationism |
| Walk-arounds | Skirting the issues |
|
