Aug 26 08
Ping This
By Julianne Manske
I have a confession to make. After months of mocking it, I used the word ping.
For awhile now, I’ve been aware of this word and a little unclear on its meaning. If you’re asking me to ping you, do you want me to email you? call you? IM you? If so, why don’t you just say that instead?
Ping has rapidly increased in trendiness, and I’m hearing it more and more. (I recently passed a woman on the street wearing a Ping Me shirt. Isn’t that reason enough to stop using it?)
My irritation is not limited to the word ping. I’m opposed to all corporate speak that prevents people from saying what they mean or uses jargon to cloud an otherwise clear message. Asking someone to ping me today could lead to talk of shifting paradigms tomorrow. And, at that point, suggesting that we use synergy to incentivize our team isn’t too far off.
Although these buzzwords rub me the wrong way, they’re generally quite harmless. What’s not harmless, though, is when corporate speak and jargon gets in the way of what you are trying to say. So here are some good rules of thumb:
- When writing, use short sentences, simple words, action verbs, and concrete nouns.
- Reread what you’ve written—or when possible, have someone else read it—to check for clarity.
- If there’s a simpler way to get your message across, use it.
- If you’ve included unnecessary jargon, delete it.
- If you find yourself writing in clichés, stop it.
If there are other buzzwords that bother you, please leave them in the comments. Or just ping me, and I’ll loop back so we can touch base offline.
Tags: corporate communications
this is a hoot…ping me later so we can discuss:)
here’s a way to make the annoying-ness of corporate buzzwords entertaining… recently a customer talked about “buzzword bingo” - making 5×5 grids of these buzzwords and marking them off bingo style (on conference calls or something similar)… even better - here’s a website that generates these boards for you! http://www.robietherobot.com/buzzword.htm