Corpspeak! 2

[eyeswideclosed]

My company never used it much before but lately I'm hearing "going forward" a lot, this could lead to worse things, like "win-win" or (horrors) "talking points", it's a slippery slope! Like drugs! I must kill it now before it gets bigger! Then we are all doomed! Doomed I say!!

 

[sbudzynski]

Hey, I'm new to corpspeak, it was all just english to me...

I say win/win when I choose bunks with my college roommate!

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Steve Budzynski


"So, pass another round around for the kids. Who have nothing left to lose and for those souls old and sold out by the soles of my shoes"

 

[eyeswideclosed]

You see?? It is becoming so prevalent people now think it's english! This is more serious than I thought...I'll have to call a steering committee meeting to determine the best use of our core competencies and key enablers to address this problem...er, issue.

 

[sbudzynski]

yeah call them. don't forget about rapspeak, techspeak, countryspeak, carsalesmanspeak, sportspeak, teenspeak, politicalspeak and so on....

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Steve Budzynski


"So, pass another round around for the kids. Who have nothing left to lose and for those souls old and sold out by the soles of my shoes"

 

[IknowMe]

I would challenge the thinking of Competition vs. Achievment, which is the embodiment of Win-Win. Competitivness worries about how well "you" do compared to "the other guy". Why not focus on simply doing *genuienly* the best that you can do?

How do you take implied competition out of the word win? If Win-Win could be described as something as simple as splitting an apple equally why not just call it a tie? Wouldn't doing the best I could mean aquiring the whole apple, would that still leave room for a win-win situation? Because if not I'll gladly drop -win and settling for just a win.

Wow, I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time.
I think I've forgotten this before.

 

[KornGeek]

I hate it when someone around here says, "That program has issues".

Magazines and newspapers have issues, programs have problems.


I actually agree with saying that programs have issues. "Problems" has a very negative connotation and implies (if not flat out states) that the program is doing something wrong. "Issues" is a more general purpose term that can mean many more things. Some examples:

1) Five different people have five different opinions about how a report should be formatted. The program has an "issue" that needs to be resolved by either choosing one format, implementing all five, or other creative solutions.

2) A report isn't displaying the expected output. The program has an "issue" that could be an actual problem with the program, a problem with the data, or that the expectations were simply off.

3) An end user calls and states that a feature doesn't work. The program has an "issue" that could be a problem where the feature doesn't work, the interface isn't clear enough, or that the end user is not qualified to be using the program.

My software hasn't had a single bug in years. It's had plenty of issues though. ;-)

 

[flapeyre]

Issues" is one of those corporate euphemisms that I positively loathe. Just another way to muddy the waters.

Feles mala! Cur cista non uteris? Stramentum novum in ea posui!

 

[Scott24x7]

See, what this is ALL about is the complexity of human language, in this case with focus on English. Which was what my initial point, at sighting that many circles or "cliques" have their own language (jargon).

And again, my point was, whether someone is using the terms correctly or not, its to each of our benefit to understand what the DO mean, as I prefer an approach that is "Unconditionally Constructive" (Maybe that will get picked up as the next 'corp speak' term). So that I am clear, it is "Stuff that is good for me regardless of whether others reciprocate or not". In this case, if I understand your Jargon, and you don't understand mine, I will have an advantage. I'd rather be educated as to the meaning of the words, regardless of if others are using them correctly or not. I can't get the world to use a screwdriver properly, so there's very little chance I'll be able to control their language...

(And please don't mistake not knowing how to actually SPELL a word for what it means.



Best Regards,
Scott

"Everything should be made as simple as possible, and no simpler."

 

[snuv]

OK, next time someone uses "synergistically" at me in a presentation, I will say that I dont understand and ask for an explanation. I will report back on further developments.

"If it could have gone wrong earlier and it didn't, it ultimately would have been beneficial for it to have." : Murphy's Ultimate Corollary

 

[Thadeus]

A) I was looking for another job because I needed more challenge.
B) Unknown to me, my manager was looking too, but for other reasons. She found one.

Now my department needed a manager and the owner wanted to hire from the inside... I was offered the position making the owner happy and presenting me with the challenges to make me happy...

How did I lose in this win/win? Why would I call it a tie?

~Thadeus

 

[2ffat]

IMHO, win-win in CorpSpeak doesn't mean the same thing as in regular English. Win-win in CorpSpeak usually means, "I right, you're wrong! I win, you lose! You're a LOSER!" ;-)

James P. Cottingham
-----------------------------------------
^{I'm number 1,229!
I'm number 1,229!}

 

[tsdragon]

What about the others in your department who might also have wanted the manager position? Did they win too? By definition, if someone wins, someone loses. There is no such thing as a true win/win.

Tracy Dryden

Meddle not in the affairs of dragons,
For you are crunchy, and good with mustard.

 

[jsteph]

If you want to find out how all those corp types get these phrases, check this out:

http://www.dack.com/web/bullshit.html

-Jim

 

[eyeswideclosed]

TheManiac, I think you're way overanalyzing this, corpspeak is just using bs phrases instead of plain english, it's nothing to do with the "jargon" of a particular field, there is no "field" in this case, it's just bs people making up crap to impress people instead of just talking normally, I know of no programmers/technical people that talk like this, it's usually marketing/project management/political type people, I believe it all stems from insecurity, which is the root of most evils anyway.

 

[Thadeus]

Tracy, by your definition there is no 'win'.

 

[CajunCenturion]

win/win or lose/lose?

As in most things, it boils down to perspective and attitude. Every situtation can be viewed as a win/win, depending on your attitude and perspective; while at the same same, the same situation can be viewed as lose/lose from a different perspective and/or attitude.

--------------
Good Luck
To get the most from your Tek-Tips experience, please read FAQ181-2886
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[eyeswideclosed]

What is "win-win" in plain english? That is the issue, not that it actually exists, in plain english one would say something like "this is good for everybody" or "this will make everybody happy", it is the replacement of plain english with bs marketing terminology that is the problem. I asked somebody at a meeting yesterday if they meant "from now on" when they said "going forward", I got a blank look for a couple of seconds then they said "oh, yeah".

 

[sbudzynski]

I guess I haven't been subjected to corpspeak yet...

Thank goodness!

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Steve Budzynski


"So, pass another round around for the kids. Who have nothing left to lose and for those souls old and sold out by the soles of my shoes"

 

[Scott24x7]

EWC,
Why is it that there is a problem with finding more than one way to say the same thing? Why does the English language have more words than any other language on the planet?
I found it interesting that even MS Word's thesaurus came up with this:
Paradigm
Example
Model
Pattern
Standard
Archtype
Exemplar
Prototype

Why would we need so many words to descirbe the same thing?
Instead of saying snow, should we say "Crystaline particles of water formed in the upper atmosphere, in conditions below the freezing point of water, each with a unique shape, and are hexagonal" Oh, I guess if I were useing "Plane English" instead of hexagonal, I should have said "And has six sides"...

I've stated before. What you deem as "corp speak" actually does have meaning when used by the right people with the right meaning. Because you don't understand it does not make it useless. Because other's use it incorrectly does not make it useless. What it does do when used properly is saves heaps of time having to descibe the concept you are conveying to those who already know what you mean.
Virtually every object or concept known to man can be summed up that way. This is the whole issue of why between different languages, there are some things that simply "Do not translate"... there is no single word that is equavalent in some cases from one language to the next, and one is left with the need to have to describe the concept instead.

It's no more or less relvant than the common popular "short hand" of modern SMS systems: C U L8R




Best Regards,
Scott

"Everything should be made as simple as possible, and no simpler."

 

[sbudzynski]

Maybe instead of having a problem with "corpspeak" you should have a problem with peoples word usage just to sound smart..

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Steve Budzynski


"So, pass another round around for the kids. Who have nothing left to lose and for those souls old and sold out by the soles of my shoes"

 

[IknowMe]

Thadeus,

I've never heard win-win used in the context that your situation describes. I do see how this could be a true win-win situation. But your example doesn’t demonstrate the context that I normally would see the word used with.

Based on my experience with the word I understand it as a fanciful way of saying that two parties have reached a point of compromise agreeable to both sides.

I would use the term as follows:

“Whether we give away the hardware and charge more for the software or charge more for the hardware and give away the software it’s a win-win situation”.

I think this shows the difference between our understandings of the word. Now that we’ve both learned a new perspective I’m willing to call it a win-win if you are


Wow, I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time.
I think I've forgotten this before.