Observe and report

Dear Corporate Folks:

One of the best things about my job is meeting new people and finding cool opportunities for students. As a result, I’m getting to know my hometown of Atlanta and its residents even better.

There is a big difference in terminology in the higher education world versus the professional world. I go back and forth between the two, so I hear plenty of jargon in both.

I went to a presentation about Atlanta’s workforce last week. Plenty of discussion of past, present and future.

While it was interesting and productive in general, I heard a ridiculous amount of lingo.

Here’s a taste:

• “We have to incent someone to learn new skills.” Please. No. Can we just provide an incentive? Or encourage someone?
• “I talked to someone offline.” Good LORD. Can you just talk to someone? Let’s leave “offline” for tech.
• “We wanted to internship these students.” Internship is a noun, not a verb.
• “Pre-skilling,” “re-skilling,” “up-skilling” and “out-skilling.” Oh. My. God. Can we just say “training” instead?
• “Workstream.” I’m OK with “workforce” (barely) but not “workstream.”
• “Internal ecosystem.” Really? This is unnecessarily complex. Company culture is slightly better.
• “Thoughtware.” Barf.
• “Growing social capital muscles.” Can we not?

The visual aids were just as ridiculous.

I’m not a fan of cloudy communication.

In fact, one of my dissertation advisors yelled at me for not “elevating my language” like standard scholarly journal writing. I replied that the “elevated language” is why most people don’t like to read these journals. Especially professionals in the industry of interest.

So.

No need to be clever.

No need to obfuscate. (Hee hee!)

Just be clear.

KTHXBYE,
Beth