Buzzwords: Disrupting the ‘Disruption’

What is the business world without buzzwords? We find ourselves throwing out these terms that help us leverage or pivot or disrupt, or at least make us sound like we’re doing those things. But, does this insider-terminology actually make us sound more informed or do we cross the line of functionality and move into ‘trying too hard’ at some point?  

In an effort to look industry-savvy, we may even find ourselves throwing words into our presentations, proposals or conversations only to later realize that the client or individual had no idea what we were even talking about. 

Let’s do a deep dive and think outside-the-box when it comes to buzzwords. Can we unpack what they really mean? Let’s ideate for a few minutes and I’m sure we can drill-down to find what their core competencies are. Incentivizing our search may move the needle, but I’m not sure if fully understanding buzzwords is in our wheelhouse. I’ll reach out to the cohort to collaborate on this one. Let’s curate some content….

Sometimes buzzwords simply become a fast way to explain things to other business people – we speak the same language and using them can help to quickly get a point across. But, we need to be mindful that these ‘buzzwords’ are a useful piece of our vocabulary instead of making our communication more convoluted and less efficient. If you have to Google what a word means that you just received in an email, my guess is that the ‘buzzword’ missed its mark. 

Are your buzzwords really ‘disrupting’ anything?