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0 pointsfriendlybus6y ago0 comments

You don't need 'more' meaning. These words are windows into a world of thinking about problems in a different light. I spoke to a developer who brought up the idea of disrupting Steam. I don't think that's going to happen this decade, the discussion around the idea was a good place to integrate some thoughts about gaming networks and game sales platforms. That is a productive outcome.

The author of this article is nearly vindictive in her complete portrayal that these words are vapid buzzwords that children use to appear adult and bewilder and fake their way through a paltry corporate existence.

You take away these words and people stop thinking out loud and with each other about productive ideas, analyses, directions and workflows that come from using all of the English language and not just what The Atlantic deems is above fakery.

Articles and corporate minded speech crimes like this make being your own boss mandatory, given you want to own your own mind and speech.

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pas6y ago

The op-ed (or the author) is right, that when this kind of language is used for big corporate broadcasts it always comes off as slimy, fake, long, inefficient fluff filled around sinister double-speak.

And it also got right that when workers hide behind this language others (and the work too) usually suffer.

Of course there never is "all general business speak". Every big company has a local lingo full of bullshit, acronyms, abbreviations, phrases and so on. HR, legal, CSR, marketing and sales - so basically pieces of broadcast style communication has a lot of similarity in them, but .. that's it.

friendlybusOP6y ago

This language is supposed to represent a clear and discussed idea for people to implement and unify around. As soon as the clarity on the meaning is lost, yes it becomes a slimy conformist tool for passing the buck, hiding in the shade of the CEO's bird wing.

Whether or not people are awake to what these words are meant to mean, they still have an impact. Mission statements and company wide training getting you to repeat the words they wish you to say, has an impact on you.

Disrupting and breaking things gives lower rungs of the organization license (when misused) to interrupt progress and deflect technical debt. The further you get from what it is supposed to mean, it can be applied more broadly and in a less targeted fashion, undermining it's original purpose but still having an effect.

Those broad and diluted changes in behaviour that stems from these annoyingly 'untouchable' and 'business speak' words can be beneficial. Were you to need to skip the investment in making proper technically complete products and instead needed to move quickly and could tolerate accruing technical debt, then "installing" the words disruption and breaking things and other buzzwords changes how people talk to each other, how they think in English whilst at work and how they behave when they are unable to guide their own actions past or around certain words.

Railing against buzzwords isn't going to disappear them, taking them out of your conscious perception is only going to make them stronger in directing the flow of business by amplifying the effect of the new wave of words you can't say whilst everyone around you focuses on 'stupidity' instead of 'alignment' (for example). In that case building large systems with less technical debt and more single-purpose easy-to-maintain pieces is much easier when you don't care how 'disruptive' people are and instead care when they are stupid enough to introduce technical debt.

Another day, another past set of cultural tools erased and new ones installed. Say hi to the new boss, same as the old one. It's amazing watching the internet and culture at large walk in conformist lockstep.

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