Meaning Guide

Stopping jargon before it starts

I just posted some thoughts on the origin of business jargon over on LinkedIn that you may find interesting. In a nutshell, just because the person with the whiteboard marker happens to be socially dominant, you mustn’t stand by and let them produce meaningless jargon that the rest of the organisation is going to have to live with.

I think this is doubly important if you happen to be some kind of visual practitioner. There’s a particular joy that comes with being seen as the creative / designer / right brain in the room, which is that you can play the “naïve artist” card.  The “naïve artist” gets to ask the question “what does that actually look like?” over and over in hundreds of different ways, which is possibly the best way I know of turning waffle into meaning (assuming, that is, there’s meaning to be made).

Subscribe to new content:

Categories

Subscribe to new content:

Follow: