Tag Archives: biz speak

Engagement Doesn’t Equal a Guaranteed Win

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By Jason Menard

Perhaps the term engagement gets a bad reputation because we’ve been so bad at defining what it means. I have some suggestions, but the one thing I do know is that engagement does not mean the equivalent of a guaranteed win.

It’s a topic that I think we’ve discussed almost ad nauseam, with little sense of resolution. But that may be a result of not truly understanding what engagement is, socially and politically.

That’s the problem with using empty, Biz-Speak-type words. They’re too open to interpretation and allow arguments to persist in an environment devoid of parameters. I have been quite vocal in my dislike of the term engagement, but the truth is that I really just dislike the way it’s been defined – or undefined as the case generally is. Continue reading →

What Happens in the Board Room Should Stay in the Board Room

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By Jason Menard

When it comes to trying to connect with their audiences, business spokespeople need to paraphrase the old (and somewhat overused) Las Vegas tag line: “Whatever happens in the board room stays in the board room.”

Too many people – and this condition is not the exclusive domain of business types – are afflicted with the belief that using big words makes one sound smarter. There are many insidious reasons for why this started: from the Bullshit Baffles Brains theory to the “We Don’t Want to Tell the Truth, So We’re Going to Spend 15 Minutes Filling the Air with Empty Words” but what’s now happened is that good, solid, hard-working people have contracted this disease. Continue reading →

How Occupy London Can Go About Occupying Londoners’ Hearts

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By Jason Menard

Earlier this week, the Occupy London movement sent out a Tweet requesting help from more experienced volunteers to help them craft a message – which is a fantastic showing of self-awareness from this group as too much of their message is being defined by outside interests.

Occupy London is a polarizing group – and that polarization comes from their lack of anything tangible to which the average person can relate. You either agree that everything needs to change, or you see this as rudderless, aimless, misplaced, self-serving behaviour. Continue reading →

What if We Stopped Filling Space with Empty Words?

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By Jason Menard

Empty words plague sports and business writing alike, so when it comes to providing value to the audience, why do we prize who says something over what they say?

Earlier today Doug Smith, a Toronto Star sports writer/columnist, wrote an insightful blog post under the heading “Talk is cheap and sometimes not necessary,” in which he examines the value of canned quotes over author-penned insight.  Continue reading →

Too Many Marketing Words Obscures Pearson’s Users’ Message

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By Jason Menard

You know the old adage about what you should call a spade? Well, run that tool through a marketing department and it’ll be time to call a spade an efficiency-increasing earth adjusting implement.

And in the case of a Toronto Star article that ran today discussing the Greater Toronto Airports Authority, the fog created by biz speak can run the risk of creating a tool that ends up doing the wrong job for its users. Continue reading →