Die, buzzwords, die

This week, a Toronto newspaper ran a story with a headline containing a buzzword that is one of my most detested — “win-win” — so it’s obvious the battle against meaningless phrases must continue. On our side, we have sites that make fun...
War on weasel words

War on weasel words

The quest to rid employee communications of buzzwords and management-speak can never rest, so it’s always encouraging to find support. Of course, it’s unlikely those who speak in “methodologies” and “strategic imperatives” will read...

Fads spread like kudzu

Here’s one for communications guru Les Potter, ABC: Krudzu: Any proliferating management fad — or simply dumb concept — that overtakes and eventually strangles a company or organization. (From Buzzwhack.com.) Why Les? Because we had  a discussion...

Inclusive language

Some of the writing I do for Big Client #1 goes to American readers as well as Canadian. All along, the articles have gone on separate pages, so we stuck to American spelling with things written specifically for the U.S. page and Canadian spelling for the Canucks. Now...

Get control of your e-mail

A smart reminder from Jakob Nielsen in his most recent Alertbox: “…the best way to boost your productivity is to switch off IM, Twitter and the like and refrain from checking your email more than once per hour. Even the shortest interruption costs you...

Where were the other voters?

Of course the world is buzzing today with the good news that Barack Obama will be the new president of the United States. I’m hopeful it will mean good things for the neighbours, too. What strikes me about this election (besides how painfully long it dragged on)...

Say what you mean

(I posted this earlier today, but a hard drive failure on the server hosting my site washed it away. So apologies if it shows up twice. To make up, I’ve added two bonus errors!) We all make mistakes, but in this business, you need to work hard to keep the error...

The scream

If I have to write about another “enterprise-wide end-to-end process” or “methodology,” I may scream. The good thing is, in a home office, there are few in earshot to hear the noise. You’ll be glad to know I am working hard to not include...

Joining the scrum

Is this a new HR term? I’m talking about “scrum” as a way of describing a manager (sorry, “leader,” as this particular client now calls the management level)/employee communications session. The old use of scrum relates to rugby....