On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 3:16 AM, Tom Morris <t...@tommorris.org> wrote:
> Mostly though, thanks to the Internet and multinational corporations, > godawful business jargon crosses all national borders. Words and > phrases like 'onboarding', 'stakeholders', 'mission statements', > 'platforms', 'proactive', 'sectors' and pretty much anything > 'strategic', for instance. Terms like "strategy", "mission statement" and "stakeholder" have concrete organizational meaning. Yes, they are also often used as part of marketing copy or organizational copy in ways that are unhelpful, because people who aren't good writers feel the need to plug holes by picking from the shared vocabulary of organization-speak. That doesn't make them meaningless, anymore than the fact that every idiot has an opinion on quantum physics makes quantum physics meaningless. Where I agree with you: It's the job of any writer to make their message accessible and understandable, where possible by using plain language. It's probably good to maintain a healthy degree of prejudice against "organizational jargon", just because it is so prevalent and often used poorly. However, organizational development and management are serious human endeavors that merit open-mindedness and willingness to discover and learn on the reader's part just as much as they merit clarity and brevity on the writer's or speaker's part. Being simplistic about the "corporate world" is no more charming or noble than is ignorance about any other field. -- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
