Rummmblings about a new buzzkiller venture afoot. Instead of just dissing everybody, we'll be giving awards! True, most of the awards will be for worst-such-and-such and for most-pointless-so-and-so, but it'll be a step in the right direction.

One from Africa:

> From: Rosemary Ekosso
> Date: Mon, 5 Aug 2002 20:07:46 +0200 (CEST)
> To: teeth@buzzkiller.net
> Subject: Add Cameroon to US and Canada
>
>
> Hello!
>
> I think you should add Cameroon to your list of countries because I am right
> here in the heart of Africa with mosquitoes nipping at my ankles as I type.
>
> I am a conference interpreter, so while I hate buzzwords, I am forced to learn
> them becuse people insist on speaking like that.
>
> I'm sending mail by this means because I was unable to do so on your site. I
> suspect my server has legionnaire's disease, though I'm not quite sure.
>
> My pet hates:
>
> Good governance - it has now replaced plain old starvation as a reason for
> getting foreign aid.
>
> Interface - have even heard it used as a euphemism for intercourse of a more
> intimate kind.
>
> I tohugh I was was the only person below middle age who hated these things.
> Congratulations.
>
>
>
> Rosemary Ekosso
>
> Senior Translator/Conference Interpreter

[ed. note: Greetings, Rosemary!

It's great to hear from you, but terrible to hear that the buzzword pestilence has spread to the west coast of Africa. If only we could translate buzzwords into mosquito language and broadcast them over loudspeakers, the mosquitoes would stay away from conferences.

Thanks for the letter. ]

Here's a bunch of the sumbissions (sp!) we've heard recently. Chime in if you have any to add or if you think any of these folks are being a little too picky.
-----
-----
From: Lori Wilson
Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 14:48:30 -0500
Subject: submission

How about "revolutionary?" We nixed that word in an ad we were editing today. It really seemed overused to us and, if you have to say something is revolutionary, it probably isn't -- or you probably haven't kept up with your competition.

Thank you,
Lori Wilson

-----
From: "Des Walsh" (Australia)
Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 17:22:50 +1000
To:
Subject: going forward

going forward

as in

we expect significant upside going forward

they mean

we want you to believe we are going to make a profit next year even though
you know we've been losing money hand over fist for the past two years

What ever happened to
in future
next year

and so on?


Des Walsh
The WebArts Company
Sydney, Australia
www.webarts.net.au

-----

[editor's note: lots of submissions from Down Under. we *love* the Aussies and Kiwis]

Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 14:05:22 +1000
To: teeth@buzzkiller.net
Subject: word watch

Folks

I'm at B. School in Australia and send a regular email out to friends with my fav. outrageous jargon...i won't bore you with the usual (leverage etc).

My favourite past time at the moment is trying to use B. School jargon in everyday language. It's a hoot.

Here's some from the hit list:

"water-involved" - the water-involved are people who either own a filtration device and/or drink bottled water, but are NOT happy with the quality.

"effort neutral" - someone who does no goddamn work in a B. School syndicate group

"focuses on own scope" - as above

"at the end of the day" - good lord I'm sick of hearing this hackneyed phrase

"white/gray space" - eg The premise underlying the development of xxxStrategy is that "white/gray" space exists in the market around the provision of xxx services to mass/mass affluent customers and that xxx has competitive advantages and greater reason to tackle the opportunity.
interpretation (i think)
white space - market is wide open
gray space - it sort of isn't

"optimal abandonment rate"

"timing difference" - this was actually said by an Australian chairman asking his CEO "whether there was reason for concern about company cash flow or whether it was just a timing difference."! That is are we going down or are you just "technically" insolvent...

Best regards
Nicole Williamson

"talking cock" - means using B. School jargon

[ed. note: also describes a person who uses b. school jargon]

-----

From: Tom Ziegler
Date: Fri, 12 Jul 2002 11:43:05 -0500
Subject: From the Do not Eschew Obfuscation Department:

Buzzkillers,
I ran across this little gem while cruising the wires. I'm a writer for
Hoover's, which is a business information Web site. While I never get
pitches from pr twinks, I do have to navigate the goobbledy-gook of press
releases. Noticing the headline of the following release, I wondered just
what Avery Dennison does. A quick scan to the fourth paragraph revealed
that the company is "a global leader in pressure-sensitive technology and
innovative self-adhesive solutions for consumer products and label
materials."
You make stickers, you jerks.
Sincerely,
Tom Ziegler
Writer
Trade and Consumer
Hoover's Online

-----

From: "Guy Clapperton"
Date: Fri, 5 Jul 2002 17:18:49 +0100
To:
Subject: Submission

So I get this voicemail yesterday offering me some 'exclusive research' from Unisys. They're doing one to ones on Thursday and Friday. And they call back today.

Me: I'm confused, in what way is this exclusive if they're doing one to
ones?
They: Well, Unisys has commissioned this research (READS CORPORATE SPIEL WITH NO ATTENTION TO MY QUESTION).
Me: And 'exclusive'?
They: Well, (NAMES TWO TITLES) have it at the moment so it's under embargo until 8 June when they come out, and after that it's up for grabs.
Me: So in other words you're offering exclusive research, but basically it's exclusive to someone else...

And they still didn't understand why I might not be interested.

Regards
Guy Clapperton
www.clapperton.co.uk



-----

From: Chris Bell
Date: Mon, 24 Jun 2002 16:30:17 +1200
To: teeth@buzzkiller.net
Subject: Going forward

Greetings, Buzzkillers.

Do people over there say "going forward" when what they really mean is "at some unspecified time in the future"? I'm afraid New Zealanders appear to have picked it up from visiting US business people. It drives me nuts. Certain Martin Amis novels apart, time only moves in the one direction: Forward.

I thus nominate "going forward" for inclusion in the hallowed ranks of Buzz.

Chris Bell
Editor
MIS (Managing Information Strategies)
Fairfax Business Media
Newmarket
Auckland
New Zealand

-----

From: "Malecek, Chris"
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 2002 08:06:28 -0500
To: "'teeth@buzzkiller.net'"
Subject: Monument to Mendacity

The news release from Qwest announcing Nacchio's demise. Wow. The quotes
from Joe are priceless. He's proud of all that he's accomplished (would
that be the 92% decline in the stock, the $26.6 billion in debt or the SEC
investigation into accounting practices?)

By the way, it probably wasn't Qwest that insist Joe maintain his residency
in New Jersey -- and I'll bet he wasn't flying home on United.
--
Joe Nacchio said, "I am proud of all that we have accomplished in bringing
Qwest to this point. After criss-crossing the globe for five and one-half
grueling years to build Qwest, living in two different cities, and having
achieved our major goals, I have expressed my desire to spend more time with
my family and pursue other opportunities."
Nacchio continued, "The company's fundamentals are strong and it will have
enormous opportunities in the period ahead as Qwest reduces debt and as the
regional economy recovers. Operationally, Qwest's local service results are
at record highs, long-distance approval is within reach and Qwest has the
infrastructure in place to serve its growing market share in enterprise
accounts and to offer long-distance in its region almost immediately after
approval. I look forward to assisting in the transition."

-----

From: "David Kleinman"
Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2002 17:49:05 +0000
To: teeth@buzzkiller.net
Subject: Keeping it unreal

Oh, come now. At least half of the buzzwords used by publicists, hacks and
corporate flacks come from the de facto publicists, hacks and corporate
flacks who call themselves journalists. If you'd spend more time reading
something other than press releases, you'd know that it's the media itself
that has become a prime incubator for jargon and fluff. Just watch the
Washington press corps lob soft balls at the so called president after one
of his so called press conferences. Do something to help restore real
journalism - and the buzzwords will take care of themselves. This nitpick
aside, I find your site amusing, in an annoying sort of missing-the-point
sort of way.

-----

From: "Christopher Davis"
Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 16:55:36 -0400
To:
Subject: next level -- argh!!!

re buzzboard:
what about "next level"? argh!!! CD

kill! kill!

Nice job on the blogs, you guys. really filling it up. yeah!

I think it's good.

Waxler, Woolley: start throwing some blog posts up here.

We are lively-up on buzzkiller 2.0. This blog page is the final frontier.

We've had lots of new subscriptions in the last couple of weeks. Also lots of new submissions. Seems our site was mentioned in a newsletter whose name I'm trying to find right now. I'd like to give a little love back to them.

Our new site design looks a little bit like this blogger page here, except much cleaner, of course. Clarity is the goal.

Man. Somebody must have dropped a big fat rohypnol tablet into our drink. Nine months since we updated this thing. You know what they say: still waters run deep. What the hell does that mean?

Well, it's back on. In a big way. We just put up an all-new page of unbridled sneering and cheap shots aimed at the users of buzzwords and silly marketing argot. Dig it.

Update on the CNN thing: turns out it was the real deal. Mark from Polyvision TV Watching*, an excellent fellow, has decided to lay that VHS tape on us free of charge. It was actually CNNfn, where someone from eTour (the guys who brought Mahir to America) went on and talked about us and a couple of other sites. Groovy. That's why we got all those emails at the end of March.
Thanks for the tape, Mark. The chances that we'll offer the streaming video of the show on our site are slim, due to the technical limitations of the team. Ah, well. At least we'll have some fine times sitting around the TV and watching it at buzzkiller HQ, once we get that thing built.

*The company hooked us up with the tape and then asked us to not use their name. Okay.

We received an email this morning alleging that buzzkiller.net had been featured on CNN on Friday and offering to send us the videotape for $187.50. A day-late April Fool's trick?:

> >> From: Mark@polyvisiontvw.com
> >> Reply-to: Mark@polyvisiontvw.com
> >> To: teeth@buzzkiller.net
> >> Subject: Segment on CNN
> >> Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2001 11:02:56 -0400
> >>
> >> Hello,
> >>
> >> On Friday, Buzzkiller.net was featured on CNN. Our company, Polyvision TV Watching*, is a nationwide monitoring service that offers video clips and digital delivery to companies that are featured on television. I would be happy to send you a professional copy of the segment on VHS tape and via digital delivery. The cost is $120.75 for a VHS copy, or $287.50 for VHS with digital delivery (RealPlayer) which I can have to you as soon as this afternoon.
> >>
> >> If this is of interest to you let me know, and I can simply bill you for what you need.
> >>
> >> Thank you,
> >>
> >> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> >> Mark

> >> Polyvision TV Watching*
> >> www.pvisiontvw.com

*Name of company changed in exchange for them hooking us up with the videotape. We were saddened that they feared being mentioned on our site, but we really wanted the tape.

The site was mysteriously mangled. eEzD raised the alarm. Our main page, buzzsaw.html, had somehow disappeared. So had this blogger page. Hmm. We'd suspect foul play, but we can't figure out who on earth would have a motive to mess with the site. We fixed it. Oh, yes, we're taking precautions. You betcha.

[A-ha! This just in from "Steve Jones," the journalist who posted that ridiculous query to Prof Net on behalf of Vice Magazine. As suspected, "jones" was and agent provocateur, fishing for credulous buzzword-mongers -- and finding them.]

Date: Sun, 4 Feb 2001 02:02:06 -0500 (EST)
From: steve jones
To: redworm@buzzkiller.net
Subject: Vice Magazine ProfNet

Hello,

I just checked your site for the first time in a long while and I wanted to let you know that the ProfNet I sent for Vice magazine was indeed a load of hooey. I did it to see how many people would respond sincerely. In the end I only received two responses calling my bullshit, out of a total of roughly 20 responses. The rest were "legitimate" pitches.

I sent it for a story I was working on at the time, but never finished. If it ever makes the page, I'll be sure to let you know.

Best,
"Steve Jones"

[note: No wonder he abandoned the story. The obliviousness to buzz badness exhibited by 90% of his respondents would have been soul-crushing to anyone with an innate faith in human nature.]

[This stern rant astutely identifies buzzword abuse as the root of the recent tech sector meltdown]

Subject: You are not the only victims
To: teeth@buzzkiller.net
From: gordonrm@notes.cba.ufl.edu
Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 18:56:16

I would be less concerned than I am if the problems you identify were limited to incompetent flaks. After all, it's easy to ignore them, and, as most people do ignore them, they cause little harm.

Unfortunately, the problems have spread to the real world where real people try to raise real money and consume real assets that might otherwise be dedicated to something productive. These real people, many of whom otherwise are smart, waste their time producing business plans for start-ups that actually are based on useful, viable technologies but which go into the recycling pile because they tell us nothing meaningful about the technologies.

I don't know if this is because they view venture capitalists as Pavlovian-trained lemmings who respond best to buzz words or because they hire flaks to edit "marketing-oriented" business plans. Whatever the cause, the shame is that decent engineers with decent ideas that they could articulate reasonably well produce "polished" business plans that incite no interest.

Keep up the fun.

{Just in: an observation or two from the Great White North, pointing the finger at the media.
I must agree that once a buzzword makes the jump from press release or marketing materials to editorial territory, all is lost. I think the leading vector of lexical infection must be analysts. Analysts and consultants.}
Dear Buzzkiller,
Just a few random observations on the rise of buzzwords:
Do you think Wired magazine should take any responsibility for the dramatic rise in buzzwords since the early-1990s? That Wired Style Guide--published by Wired's book publishing arm HardWired--couldn't have helped anyone. It argued that jargon is *good*. Should they be held responsible for reparations--say, bundling a copy of Strunk & White's Elements of Style 3rd Edition along with Wired Style?
The current crop of e-business magazines (Fast Company, Business 2.0, The Industry Standard, etc.) have mastered the editorial voice of the
knowledgeable insider--the same voice pioneered by pop culture mags decades ago. Since they have to appeal to their audience of under-35 "e-preneurs" (gag) and older VCs who should know better, do you think we'll ever see plain English within their pages? Is there a way to force these mags to grow up, say, forcing the editors to read their own back issues so they can see how trendy and silly they sound in retrospect? I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
Just sign me,
Nostalgic for English in Canada

Here's a model pitch. It came from a real flack in NYC who surfs long Island and knows his way around the wheels of steel.
" You know of course mobile computing will enable end-users or early adapter road-warrior knowledge workers pervasive access to mission critical corporate data anywhere, anytime. Think about it - trade stocks and take a dump at the same time. Have sex with your wife and still track that shipping order to Singapore. Or email your wife with a wireless device that sends from your work email address while you have sex with your girlfriend."
Talk about making pitches relevant!

Having re-read the message below and having done a bit more investigating as to the nature of Vice Magazine, I believe that the message posted on ProfNet was a hoax, a trick, a trap. Therefore, this Steve Jones, if he exists, or his creator deserves props for tossing that spanner into the PR machine.

I added a bran-spanky new buzz term to the Buzz Board today, bypassing the on-deck circle. The term is "architecting," a degenerate gerund derived from a non-existent verb.

Added a page that shows where the site has been written about. It is too okay to end a sentence in a preposition, isn't it, Fight Club?

Also, the historical debate over the origin of the phrase "open the kimono" continues.

A reader writes: "Thank you for including 'solution(s)' as a buzzword that desperately needs to die. When I recently received a letter that used the word eleven times in 1-1/2 pages of text, I wrote the company in return and reminded them that another definition of 'solution' is something that is diluted or watered down. I then asked them if they appreciated having their products looked upon from that perspective.
The press certainly tends to proliferate buzzwords. I go crazy when I hear a journalist use the word 'literally' when he really means 'figuratively', for instance, which seems to happen a lot....
I believe that many use buzzwords to try to sound trendy and smart, but to me, they sound derivative and redundant. Thank you again for pointing out these overused terms"

You're welcome.

The following exchange provides a glimpse into the byzantine workings of the Buzz Saw filter and the ideology behind those workings. Bonus: some positive feedback from the Buzz Saw for a change.

>> From: "Andrew Sprung"
>> Organization: Andrew Sprung Public Relations
>> Reply-To: "Andrew Sprung"
>> Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 14:55:26 -0400
>> To: "The Buzz Saw"
>> Subject: Re: Giants crowd into e-comm services for small biz
>>
>>I believe the buzz saw is applied indiscriminately.
>
>Mr. Sprung,
>This is a serious charge indeed. The Buzz Saw is governed by a
>set of hand-crafted operational instructions which cause it to
>detect buzzwords and react. Ruthless, perhaps, but not
>indiscriminate.
>When the graphics-bloated page finishes downloading, you will see
>a list of terms that the Buzz Saw is instructed to regard as
>undesirable. One of the words,"rob*st," appears in your
>"Giants crowd into..." email. Another term, "best of bre*d,"
>appears in your "100,000 e-stores..." email (props to you,
>however, for lively use of the words "festooned" and "jacked").