On business jargon and lost opportunities
Related to my recent article on business jargon, Gene Weingarten of the Washington Post has a column about his experiment in using PR jargon to talk to PR professionals.
So I decided to call the PR people who issued these releases and tell them that The Washington Post wants to write a big piece about their little story. (To PR people, in terms of arousal, this is like mainlining pheromones.) Then I would tell them that I just had one teensy little question to ask, and once they answered it, we’d be good to go. The question would be written like their press releases. When they failed to understand me, I’d say, “Well, too bad. I guess I just can’t do the story.”
Things didn’t quite go as planned, though.
Me: Vis-a-vis the implementation of SAP technology, what is the source-related derivation of the acronymically based identifier of the service entity, and how does it operate so as to enhance production and profitability or, alternatively, improve the business model of the shelf-stable protein supplier of which Clarkston is now a client?
Angelia: So you’re asking me what SAP is an acronym for and how it helps Bumble Bee?
Me:
Angelia: Hello?
Me: You understood me?
Angelia: Sure, it was very clear.
Here he was looking for a quick laugh at poor Angelia’s expense, and she—and two other PR flacks that he called—didn’t play along. They understood what he was saying.
The problem with Weingarten’s column is simple: he forgot that, for PR people, that kind of language is natural. That’s what they speak.
And he lost a huge opportunity by not telling them that their “native” language leaves him—and pretty much everyone else—saying “Look, you’re really cute, but I can’t understand what you’re saying.”
Roy Jacobsen
in Elsewhere on the Web, Humor, Jargon
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