Any doctor or lawyer worth his billable hour will tell you that the medical and legal professions are inseparable from their technical jargon. Legal cases aren't dropped, they're nol prosed. Potential jurors aren't questioned, they're voir dired. Perhaps the extreme case applies to governors, who don't refuse to sign an inmate's death warrant, but rather issue a stay of execution.
PR practioners are just as guilty of doublespeak and convoluted verbage, but as professional communicators, the practice, or rather bad habit, is far more ironic. This columnist is often just as guilty of jargony journalism.
Sometimes I wake up in a cold sweat anticipating the press releases I'll have to weed through in the morning with such that read something like this:
"Leading Company X unveiled today new pioneering technology that facilitates how companies interact with their publics in the era of globlization, making Company X the first entity to offer this kind of cutting-edge application, in a network environment, that meets the multi-faceted needs of diverse users and those in virtual settings driven by market influencers." I jolt out of bed, scrambling in search of a red pen.
To convince you, I researched the matter by hauling home a stack of magazines, newsletters and press releases amassed in my cubicle, everything from the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication magazine and DM News to PRSA's Tactics, to do my own informal research on how often this PR gobbldygood rears it's ugly head. Now I know why Webster's has published a separate "New World Dictionary of Media and Communications," but I can't think of why anyone would want to propagate the habit.
For your linguistic edification, I offer a sampling of the terms and phrases I came across that left me utterly baffled, and some of the made up words I come across so often now that there ought to be royalty fees paid to the wordsmiths who coined them (even spellcheck knows that "globalization," and "prioritize" are made up words and that "disconnect" is a verb, not a noun.)
Here's a rundown of some of the worst offenses:
- Companies no longer fire employees, they reorganize or downsize or rightsize, which turns those who once handled PR into those who head up change communications. Translation: if you still have a job, just be thankful.
- Those in integrated communications take the inside-out approach when they examine the awareness-interest-desire-action (AIDA) hierarchy. Translation: you need to analyze the effectiveness of your messages to determine what will prompt consumers to change brands.
- This is taken verbatim from a press release: "Value-Added vs. Volume-Driven Srategy to Capitalize on Industry 'Crisis of Confidence.'" I still have no idea what this means.
- Communicators are change agents, not to be confused with secret agents. Translation: Your job, plain and simple, is to keep up with the constantly volatile business world of today. Remember rightsizing, downsizing and reorganizing?
- One of my personal favorites is reputational capital. Translation: trustworthiness.
- PPPP, which stands for picture, promise, prove, push. Used in conjunction with AIDA, it's used to cinch a sale. (But I also think this model works in a dating setting); and
- My favorites - next to knowledge management and Burson Marstetller's contention that the firm is managing perception - were serendipity communication and storytelling communication. Translation: it's as tough to put a value on credibility and visibility as it is to tell stories that grab someone's attention.
The problem with jargon is that the very reason these words become useful - to explain common theories, practices and concepts - is the very reason they lose impact. Those who should explain exactly what it means to "build reputational capital," instea instance, instead lecture people on how to "harness reputational capital." A vicious circle that doesn't tell me a thing.
The best way to find out if you're guilty of the love of jargon is to allow someone outside the PR field read what you write. If they walk away with some fresh information, the battle's won. If you can't communicate your ideas clearly to someone outside of your own field, you can hardly call yourself a professional communicator.
I could go on, but I have to venture into the world of Pagemaker with a crucial goal in mind that affects my career. That's merely a nice way of saying that I'm on deadline and have to lay out PR NEWS.
Resources
In addition to the volume by Webster's, these resources can help you stay clear of cliquish cliches:
The New Doublespeak: Why No One Knows What Anyone's Saying Anymore by William Lutz (HarperCollins, 1996)
The American Business Jargon Dictionary is available online at http://www.usca.sc.edu/folsom/bjquotes.html
The Transitive Vampire: A Handbook of Grammar for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed by Karen Elizabeth Gordon (Timers Books, 1984)
On Writing Well by William Zinser (Harper & Row, 4th ed., 1988)
Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr., and E.B.White (Macmillan, 3rd rev. ed., 1981)
The Marketing Dictionary at http://www.buseco.monash.edu.au/Subjects/MKT/MTPonline/Dictionary/