I’ve been meaning to share a funny story with you.
Last week, Mark Ragan, Jim Ylisela and I finished up the “Advanced Writing and Editing” seminar with an encore presentation in Chicago. We drew about 65 people, and it was a fun two days.
One of the highlights, for me, was a conversation I had with two women during one of the breaks on day one. We had been covering jargon and buzzwords, and how to get rid of them in your communications, when these two ladies approached me on the break.
“We have to tell you this story,” they said, already starting to giggle.
Their story is one for the ages.
They work for a fairly large company . . . and like any large company, it has its fair share of useless jargon. And while these two women put up with it, like most communicators, they also get fed up with it, like most communicators.
One day, they got fed up and made the decision to fight back . . . at least a little.
“We decided to invent a jargon word and see if we could feed it into the corporate lexicon,” one of the women told me. “We were curious to see how far up the corporate food chain it could get.”
I fell in love with both of those women right there, on the spot.
The word they invented was:
Refarkel.
Of course, the definition of refarkel is a little vague—as any corporate buzzword definition should be. But a general meaning, from what they told me, is that it means to radically recreate something, or do totally something over, or take another, dramatically different approach to something, or something like that.
So you might say: “If we’re going to go to the market again with that product, we’re going to need to refarkel the marketing plan.”
In that case, refarkel would mean to “blow up and start over again.”
Well, these two anarchists and rabble rousers started inserting refarkel into meetings. They started using it in casual conversations. They basically peed into the corporate river and watched it spread.
And spread it did. Before long, they heard the word coming back to them. Which, of course, would have been satisfaction enough. But it got better.
The coup de grace, whatever that means: The second-most-senior-level executive in the entire organization actually used refarkel in an interview with a journalist.
“While it validated our experiment, it was also a little scary,” my new friend told me. “But thank God, the journalist didn’t use the word.”
Thank God? No!! The best thing ever would have been if the journalist used the word, and other organizations picked up on it, and it spread like wildfire . . . like empowerment, or world-class, or synergy, or any of the other useless corporate words and phrases.
But alas, we’ll have to be happy that refarkel is still making the rounds at that one particular organization.
Which of course gives me an idea. Why don’t we start coming up with some words out here on Corporate Hallucinations, and try to virally spread them through the corporate world.
Wouldn’t it be fun if we saw an interview with a CEO in the Wall Street Journal, and he used a word that we came up with out here?
I’ll start the inventing, with two brand-new words. Now, remember: They have to sound kind of business-like, or they won't fly. But they also have to be a little bit ridiculous, otherwise it won’t be as funny.
Here’s my two words. Feel free to start spreading these, or contribute your own out here.
Analocity. Pronounced anal-ah-city.
Meaning: The degree to which your product, brand, or service has a favorable reputation in the marketplace.
Sample usage:
Marketer: “The analocity of our foot cream product is at an all-time low. If we’re going to penetrate the vertical markets of our enterprise customers and nudge that anolocity number up, we’re going to have to refarkel the entire marketing campaign.”
Word number two:
Taint Spot. Pronounced: Taint Spot.
Meaning: The number you need to hit, in order to judge something a success.
So, for instance, you’ve all been in meetings when executive types are showing bar charts, and those charts with jagged lines that look like mountain ranges, right?
Well, if one executive had a chart like that up on the screen, here would be a sample usage:
Executive (pointing to one of the peaks on the chart): “As you can see, the closest we got to our overall sales Taint Spot was the first quarter of 06. And we still missed it by 21 percent. It doesn’t make sense, because focus-group research shows our analocity at an all-time high. And as you all know, if the analocity is there, but you’re not hitting the Taint Spot, something is wrong in the sales chain. Now, you tell me: What do we need to refarkel in order to hit the Taint?
Okay, now go out into your organizations, and start spreading the word. Let’s see how long it takes for these babies to make it.
Or . . . come out here and start up some words of your own!
Comments (14)
"Dilbertize."
Meaning: To satirize wasteful bureaucracy and management incompetence for the purposes of emotional health and organizational correction.
Application: "This face-to-faced training for supervisors might work, but my guess is that the employees will just Dilbertize it."
Posted by patrick williams | September 24, 2006 11:12 AM
Posted on September 24, 2006 11:12
A chain of weekly suburban newspapers I once worked for liked to say their products were "unsubstitutable" in the market.
Posted by Laura | September 25, 2006 11:15 AM
Posted on September 25, 2006 11:15
Gee, Steve, with your history I expected "analocity" to have a MUCH more interesting definition - something to do with the rate at which ...
Posted by Tim | September 25, 2006 12:34 PM
Posted on September 25, 2006 12:34
Grokability: The ease (or lack thereof) with which your end users are able to intuitively understand X, where X is something generally unfathomable such as your website navigation, your corporate report, or the voicemail menu.
Example: "We need to increase the grokability of the customer service automation routines, so we can more easily maximize the customer experience while minimizing the exposure of our intellectual capital."
Translation: Fix the menus so we can spit most-likely-irrelevant information at people without letting them actually talk to someone.
Posted by DeAnna B | September 25, 2006 3:45 PM
Posted on September 25, 2006 15:45
Am I the only one that has noticed a bit of a disturbing trend in the last coupla blogs towards the *ahem* ass-ular region? It started innocently with the blogging in bed piece, I think, and has now manifested itself magnificently with anal-ocity and "Taint" references. Tremendous.
This was the best line in the good-but-not-great "Dodgeball":
"We gonna get our taints handed to us!"
"What's a taint?"
"I dont know... sounds bad!"
Ill have to mull over an appropriate new word. I notice the entries so far take an existing word, and gussy it up a bit. I think we need to go off the map here a bit. A difficult challenge...
Posted by Neruda | September 26, 2006 12:40 PM
Posted on September 26, 2006 12:40
Speaking of maps, Neruda - on the solar system scale, what's the name of that planet between Neptune and the recently-demoted Pluto?
Posted by patrick williams | September 27, 2006 11:43 AM
Posted on September 27, 2006 11:43
Patrick--hehe, my 9 yr old and I have lines we trade on that subject: Mommy, where are you going? I think I'm going to fly to Uranus. Well, you better take a flashlight, I hear it's pretty dark in there.
Of course, no one thinks it's as funny as we do.
Posted by laurel | September 27, 2006 12:50 PM
Posted on September 27, 2006 12:50
It's pretty funny, Laurel. At a bus stop by my apartment, there's a bench with a sign: "Put your Ad on This Seat." Some kid spray-painted over it: Changed the "D" in "Ad" to two SS's.
I'm at the point where I'm grateful for any sign of literacy and wit among the younger people.
Patrick
Posted by patrick williams | September 27, 2006 6:10 PM
Posted on September 27, 2006 18:10
This is like reverse Balderdash...how fun!
My submission is
omnitterant
(om-NI-ter-ant...the last syllable is like ant, the insect)
An exact meaning I cannot formulate - something like a consistent repetition - omni lends the word some credence, I think.
Usage:
In reviewing our responses to the quality assurance questionnaire, we charted an unprecedented omnitterant positive trend. This indicates that we are delivering what our customers expect. Great job!
Make sense? Of course not. I just made it up! If I ever see this word in print outside this blog I'll pee myself.
Posted by Rebecca (token IT Goddess) | September 28, 2006 11:25 AM
Posted on September 28, 2006 11:25
How about "chopportunity"? As we all know, the word "problem" is always a no-no, and since every problem is therefore either a "challenge" or an "opportunity," this could be the word to describe a problem sooo bad, that only greatness can come of it.
Usage at board meeting: "Gentlemen, our CEO has transferred all our reserves to his private bank account in Lichtenstein, our headquarters have been burned to the ground and several members of our IT department have been convicted of using our equipment to manufacture crack cocaine. This is an unprecedented chopportunity for our organization, which will allow us to leverage our synergies and effectively realign our strategic focus."
Usage in employee pub headline: Rightsizing: A Chopportunity for Success
The possibilities seem endless.
Posted by Jill (Play-Doh Queen from RI) | September 28, 2006 12:26 PM
Posted on September 28, 2006 12:26
How about "chopportunity"? As we all know, the word "problem" is always a no-no, and since every problem is therefore either a "challenge" or an "opportunity," this could be the word to describe a problem sooo bad, that only greatness can come of it.
Usage at board meeting: "Gentlemen, our CEO has transferred all our reserves to his private bank account in Lichtenstein, our headquarters have been burned to the ground and several members of our IT department have been convicted of using our equipment to manufacture crack cocaine. This is an unprecedented chopportunity for our organization, which will allow us to leverage our synergies and effectively realign our strategic focus."
Usage in employee pub headline: Rightsizing: A Chopportunity for Success
The possibilities seem endless.
Posted by Jill (Play-Doh Queen) | September 28, 2006 12:26 PM
Posted on September 28, 2006 12:26
Well, inevitably: To "Crescenzoize."
Meaning: To correct harmful bureaucracy, bad writing and speaking, and professional recidivism, through incidental satire, reforming standards of professional excellence, passion, and examples of communication excellence.
Application: "You know when Nixon resigned saying, 'Mistakes were made'? Let's Crescenzoize it: He might have said: 'I made mistakes. I used my office and the powers of the federal governement to betray trust, corrupt the Constitution, and send the country into a two-generation nightmare of leadership crisis.'
"God only knows what will happens next for this country's leaders in my aftermath. I'm sorry I acted out of fear rather than service. I resign."
Nouns and verbs, Steve, nouns and verbs. Keep at it
Posted by patrick williams | September 28, 2006 6:23 PM
Posted on September 28, 2006 18:23
oooooh triple word score. I LOVE the word recidivism.
Points for Patrick.
Posted by Rebecca (token IT Goddess) | September 29, 2006 7:46 AM
Posted on September 29, 2006 07:46
I hate the word "recidivism" because I can never pronounce it right on the first try. Never. I have to slow down like a three-year-old toddler and sound it out. Not the best look for a communicator.
That and wolf, which seems simple enough, but inevitably comes out of my mouth as "woof." Embarassing. Thanks for bringing it up, Rebecca...I'm going to eat dirt now.
Posted by Eileen | September 29, 2006 11:30 AM
Posted on September 29, 2006 11:30