Top 10 Buzzwords Better Left in 2004

Have you ever heard a word so many times that it starts to lose its meaning, and you can only focus on the fact that it makes no sense? Here's my top 10 list of words I'd like to see disappear in the new year:

10. Best practices: Loose translation for, "We're not sure what the very best way to do this is, so we've come up with a few pretty good ones."

9. Get it on your radar: This phrase is often used to warn others you will need their help, but you're waiting for a time when they're in a better mood. 

8. EOD (End of Day): Code acronym for "never go home." If your boss asks you to get it done by EOD, it usually means the end of YOUR day has just gotten a few hours longer.

7. FYI (For Your Information): This is a great way to avoid communication. All you have to do is forward a 10-page email thread that makes no sense and type "FYI" at the top. Then it's up to your coworkers to use their secret decoder rings to try and make sense of it all. 

6. Action items: This is another way for a meeting leader to get other people to do things for them. What's funny is the more action items you have, the longer projects take to get done.

5. Pushback: Another word for "Let's try it and see if anyone complains."

4. Think outside the box: This is a way of saying, "Don't think like you normally do -- pretend you're someone smarter."

3. Bandwidth: I remember when this just had to do with TVs. Now it means, "How much work can you take on before you start thinking about jumping out the window?"

2. We can take it offline: Often individuals will say this in a meeting -- have we become so technologically involved that we think we're online? I loved The Matrix, but maybe we're too technologically connected.

And the number one word I'd like to never hear again:

1. Ping: This word is often used to say you will contact someone. It is derived from the way computers talk to each other -- let's leave the pinging to machines and rely on simple communication methods like phone, email, text, fax, page, Blackberry...

Sure, there are some helpful buzzwords in the business world -- but most of them are just annoying. Here's a great site where you can actually nominate buzzwords to be whacked. But we can't forget that without these words, we wouldn't have buzzword bingo.

Do you have any words you use in your line of work? If so, drop me a line, loop me in, shoot me an email and we can regroup after the holidays.

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