Comments on: Cut the Corporate Speak

By: Rick

Rick — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 21:28:08 +0000

My email tagline:

At the end of the day, we’re boots-on-the-gound going forward on the critical path of applying our core competency and following best practices, thinking outside-the-box and using our bandwidth to dialogue with you in order to identify a right-sized, best of breed solution to your action items in order to harvest some low-hanging fruit for your mission critical deliverables while avoiding a paradigm shift. (Corporate-speak 2010 style)

By: My Blog » Blog Archive » Weekly Grab Bag – March 13, 2010

My Blog » Blog Archive » Weekly Grab Bag – March 13, 2010 — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 17:36:49 +0000

[...] Cut the Corporate Speak(WorkAwesome) - There is no quicker way to get somebody to tune you out at work then to start [...]

By: devesh

devesh — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 14:16:40 +0000

Hi Michelle,
i am a regualr visitor to your blog… every time i run out of ideas at workplace… or just want to read something new… grasp better ideas… just like your articles… i immediately shoot in at workawesome
crazy stuff here… i do learn a lot…yours is my most favorite bookmark site….

Devesh
India

By: Mike Fischer

Mike Fischer — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 22:31:31 +0000

My favorite (not!) phrase is “Space age technology”. Doesn’t that imply it’s from the ’50s and ’60s?

By: JT

JT — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:33:51 +0000

I’m sorry to read that ‘Mission Critical’ made your list! It probably is misused and abused all the time, but I work for an architecture firm that specializes in ‘mission critical’ project types, mostly data centers. In this case, the mission of the building is critical because there is no tolerance for downtime or system failure. (Would cost millions in lost productivity and potentially lawsuits against hosting companies).

Not entirely sure what the military has in mind though…

Do agree with ‘wrap your mind around _____’ In my line of work, that is virtually saying that ‘I don’t know, I’m stalling and can’t tell you that we haven’t looked at the problem yet.’

By: Julius

Julius — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 03:14:18 +0000

It is really important to use simple language and avoid these types of jargon, because they either lessen or weaken the substance of a site’s content. I think that everytime we’re writing something, we should ask ourselves “Is this the way I would say things in an informal conversation?”. This is what I do whenever I notice that what I’m writing is getting too “corporate”.

By: Tim Sanchez

Tim Sanchez — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 19:01:51 +0000

Very well written MIchelle. I enjoyed it.

I’m often told that I’m concise, to the point, even blunt in some cases. I always take that as a compliment.

Off to check out michelleburleson.com now.

By: Ben Brooks

Ben Brooks — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:57:48 +0000

Great thoughts, I have seen far to many websites that attempt to be clever when describing themselves. The only problem is that the only people that truly understand the cleverness, are the ones who wrote it.

By: Brad

Brad — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:42:04 +0000

Great post. I’m glad somebody put this into words.

At the end of the day (ha!) heavy buzz word usage indicates lazy writing. I think it’s that simple.

By: Domenick

Domenick — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:01:13 +0000

Nice and entertaining read Michelle. Alot of companies are like robots in some ways, they can’t help it, and I suppose those cliches and jargon messages and tag lines make them feel even better about themselves, something of stature, who knows. But you did make some valid points, small biz and entrepreneurs could take heed of this message.

“Tighten. Revise. Rewrite. It’s simple: don’t repeat words, ideas or phrases unless they add muscle to what you want to say.” – I like that. Once again good read.