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I'm Drew Breunig and I obsess about technology, media, language, and culture. I live in New York, studied anthropology, and work in advertising technology.

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Debuzzing Buzzwords

Buzzwords are cheap. They’re vague and allow people to talk about things with an appearance of understanding.

This is both good and bad. Buzzwords are good because they help create momentum around a new idea or technology by allowing more people to participate than deeply understand the new concept. Eventually this benefit crosses a line: those who don’t understand concepts begin believing the hype and over promise what the concept can deliver.

At this point, it’s helpful to have some fallback words. Words which defang buzzwords and force you to pin down the vagueness of buzzwords to reality. From here, you can build and advance.

I propose the following changes:

  • Instead of “data” say “history”
  • Instead of “content” say “art”
  • Instead of “social” say “relationship”
  • Instead of “crowdsource” say “outsource”
  • Instead of “optimize” say “focus”
  • Instead of “engage with” say “care about”

In meetings and articles, start to swap these words in. Sentences that over-promise will become easier to spot and hidden gems will begin to emerge.

Any others to add?

28 notesShowHide

  1. sycamorehull answered: Instead of “mission statement” say “purpose”
  2. willemvanlancker answered: Instead of “simplicity” say “elegance”
  3. mbyhoff said: One more: Replace “defang” with “resheath”.
  4. infancia-prolongada answered: ?????
  5. detalhes-notados answered: oi mÔO
  6. dbreunig posted this