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It stopped my multi-touch gesturing fingers in their trackpad tracks. One of those rare occasions when social media pushes your pause button and makes you think. A tweet caught my eye long enough for me to physically write it down on a piece of honest-to-goodness, gen-u-ine paper (well, a sticky note counts). @hunterwalk tweeted, “Your brand is not your logo, name or tagline. It’s the promise you make to your community.” Read the rest of this entry »
I was out of the office last week attending the funeral of my grandmother. In her mid-eighties, this woman had survived the Great Depression, raised 5 children and lived long enough to dote on and enjoy 13 great-grandchildren. Over the years, she hosted countless parties and holiday gatherings for huge numbers of people. Her door was always open, and there was never a better hostess. However, what many of us remember most about my grandmother are Sunday dinners, where it was “just us.”
Even during these simple Sunday meals, Grandma insisted on setting the table with the “good” dishes. When her kids or grandkids would ask why or complain about having to do the prep and clean-up that went with that task, she always had the same answer: “We do this because your family is the most important company you will ever have.” Read the rest of this entry »
Using Lingo in Business Communications
Imagine you have just walked in on a conversation-in-progress between long-time friends when one references an inside joke that prompts rolls of laughter. You might smile politely, if not a little uncomfortably, and wait for one of them to explain the “you had to be there” moment. Although the story won’t prove to be all that funny (because you really did have to be there) there is no expectation that you should get the location joke without a point of reference. You are an outsider.
Inside corporate jargon is a lot like a location joke, and if you are the outsider who doesn’t get it, you could be missing (or misunderstanding) critical information. Conversely, if you are the offending party using undecipherable business-speak, you could be unwittingly alienating the people with whom you are trying to communicate.
So what is proper business etiquette surrounding business-speak? Is it incumbent upon the outsider to get up to speed, or should the acronym-happy insider have more consideration for his audience? As with all social mores, it depends entirely on the situation.
Effective communication is about creating clarity and understanding. If you are a new employee, then you had better dive in and learn the company lingo. If you are a potential customer, then you should expect thoughtful communication that you can clearly understand without the need to interrupt to ask for definitions. When creating marketing collateral, corporate jargon that refers to internal structures or product nomenclature (that is not a registered trademark) can easily confuse your audience and should be avoided entirely.
Rules of etiquette are created to ensure that everyone feels comfortable and knows how to behave in specific situations. If your spouse or your grandparent wouldn’t understand corporate-speak, don’t use it when addressing them or anyone who isn’t part of your field. And above all, don’t assume your clients or customers understand your vernacular; you need to use theirs. It’s polite, and it will help your business.
With all the great debate swirling around primaries and parties this season, I have become oddly intrigued by a rather unusual issue, one that has absolutely nothing to do with my politics. Read the rest of this entry »
Long before I joined the VantagePoint team, a bug crawled out from between the cushions on a couch in the middle of our art department during a daily traffic meeting. This one bug surprised the unsuspecting account executive who sat on the couch that morning—who, in turn, forever dubbed this couch, “the bug couch.”
I’ve never actually seen a bug descend from this couch, yet I still call it “the bug couch” like my colleagues and carefully eyeball the cushions before taking a seat. And last week, when a new account coordinator joined our team, what did we do? Warned her of the bug couch, of course!
My point? This otherwise clean, well-structured, comfortable couch had one bug many months ago, and its personal brand may never fully recover.
Life is cyclical for marketing professionals. Each February, I am filled with excitement and pride in my profession as new Super Bowl ads are rolled out, and, conversely, each December I cringe as I watch and listen to the parade of commercials aimed at informing people about all the things they simply cannot live without, or must give to loved ones if they truly want to demonstrate their yuletide affection. Read the rest of this entry »
Sometimes when people talk to me in the biz or in the office, my eyes glaze over. My mind blocks all incoming communication and I fixate on one thing — a solitary word. Not because of boredom or my being uninterested in the topic at hand, but due to the word or words that were just spoken. Odd words. Words that normal folk don’t use. Words that are created within the four walls of an organization — business speak and corporate jargon. And even some that are created within subsets of a business that the rest of the company doesn’t understand. Really? This happens? Yes. I’ve seen it over and over again. Read the rest of this entry »
A colleague and I recently had the opportunity to join one of our newest clients — Henny Penny, a foodservice equipment manufacturer based in Eaton, Ohio—for one of their on-site product training courses designed for distributors and other stakeholders.
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