Anyone want to host a meeting where we can meet-and-greet, get some face time, and perhaps spit-ball

When doing some research to write this entry (believe it or not, I do at least some research for these), I came across a list of “overused business buzzwords”. I skimmed the list and picked out the words that we use here in our company. Things like ‘at the end of the day’ and ‘best practice’ are commonly bandied about. Others that made the list like ‘conceptualize’ or ‘metrics’ are less frequently heard but still get said with semi-regularity. Anyone who’s walked into an office and spent more than an hour in meeting has heard a handful of these words tossed around.

I’m not even going to begin to guess why business buzzwords, especially metaphorical phrases like ‘throw under the bus’, came about. In this case, the origins are interesting but ultimately not important. For the purposes of this blog, let’s just say that I am getting tired of hearing things like ‘candidly’ or ‘fact of the matter’ when a phrase like ‘Let’s just be honest here’ works as well, are less brain intensive and even sounds refreshing, at least to me. I am just as guilty of using these words as anyone else. One in particular stood out that made the list; ‘cash neutral’. I had just said this the previous week in reference to another business. What made it stand out so much though is that it was to my memory the only time I’ve ever said the phrase, so to see it on an overused business buzzword list shocked me a little.

I know people use business buzzwords to create new and interesting ways to talk about old concepts like revenue and employee happiness; and perhaps to look smart. But sometimes, it’s just nice to hear a regular conversation about these topics with regular words. Nothing gets lost in translation this way, and everyone leaves the meeting ‘on the same page’ as everyone else.

Justin Huereña Staff Blogger

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