More Bad Business Jargon

A regrettably continuing series.

Core
Almost as bad as key (when used, like core, as an adjective meaning ‘principal’ or ‘main’). Both have a distinct whiff of the 1990s to them.

My gut
Please, no one wants to imagine what your digestive tract is doing – much less what it is telling you.

Next steps
For the love of pity, can we stop talking about these at the end of every meeting? It’s not as though we can take previous steps at that point.

Action items would not be an acceptable substitute; it’s another piece of jargon. Tasks would work just fine, no?

Pivotal
Why, all of a sudden, are events deemed important now said to be pivotal? Besides being tiresome by its ubiquity, the word betrays an inherent teleological fallacy in assuming the inevitability of whatever resulted from a supposedly pivotal moment. This is rarely the case.

Please just say something normal like important or significant instead of this over-used piece of nonsense.

Scalable
Like a mountain, a fish that needs cleaning or a tea-kettle if your water is hard?

Better: adaptable, extensible, flexible, variable.

 Serial entrepreneur
Couldn’t this suggest someone who has left behind a trail of business failures masquerading as success? (A certain slum landlord turned real estate developer, TV personality and politician comes to mind …)

–Neil Guthrie (@guthrieneil)