101 Web/Business Clichés That Must Die in 2009
Posted: January 2nd, 2009 | Author: Agitationist | Filed under: buzzwords | Tags: buzzwords, corporate, linkbait, neologisms, soul-crushing, trends, useless | 9 Comments »Ready for one more new year’s resolution? Here are 101 web/tech/marketing/business words and phrases not to use in 2009. First, the prime offenders of 2008:
- Web 2.0
- Game-changer
- Tipping Point
- Outlier
- Agile
- Monetize
- Tribes
- Cloud computing
- Webinar
- Tweet
- _______ Rock star, e.g “ActionScript Rock Star Needed!”
- Perfect Storm
- Next-generation
- Space, e.g. “the ______ space”
- Domain hacks, e.g. del.icio.us
- Beta
- Clarity
- Enterprise, i.e. the company
- Solution, i.e. whatever we can sell
- Around, e.g “clarity around our enterprise solution”
- Best practices/______-compliant
- Mission statement
- Transparency
- Software as a Service
- Scalable/extensible/robust
- Change agent
- Green/eco-/sustainable/environmentally friendly/carbon footprint
- Bubble
- Strategic/tactical
- Engage/reach out
- Dialogue/narrative
- Widget
- Meme
- Status update
- Social media marketing
- Mobile social networking
- Personal branding
- Mashup
- Micro-anything , e.g micro-funding, micro-blogging
- Crowd-sourcing
And some oldies that need to die a quick, painless death already:
Touch base, proactive, Six Sigma, viral, stakeholders, circle back, take this offline, ROI, macro-, at the end of the day, outside of the box, low-hanging fruit, 110%, 24/7, reach out, corporate DNA, take it to the next level, manage expectations, throw him under the bus, top of mind, push-back, on message, bring to the table, step up, it is what it is, “having said that”, sound bite, bailout, come together, pay it forward, mission critical, turnkey, user-friendly, well-positioned, leverage, drink the Kool-Aid, my two cents, closure, due diligence, back in the day, go-to, meltdown, grow your business, high-level overview, win-win, going forward, value-added, 80/20, core competency, A-game, drop the ball, best of breed, in the pipeline.
OK, time to throw you under the bus. What clichés would you like like to ban in 2009?
Some of the above have been offending for many years now.
But the ones whose time and meaning have run out:
1. Solution
2. Widget
3. Mashup
4. Web 2.0
5. Unified Communication
The ones that will soon be out staying their welcome:
1. Software as a service
2. Grid Computing
3. Extensible
4. Developer friendly
5. Customer first
You’re right, most of these have been around since circa ‘06, or even longer.
I was *this* close to including “platform”.
I agree on killing “webinar”, with a tray!
Remember, some people actually need stupid phrases like “personal branding” (which by the way looks even mores stupid spelled with a capital P. Just look: “Personal branding”.
I also want to hack “web tv” to pieces.
looks to me like you’ve got em all!
webinar truly must die. and agile just cracks me up.
Although id have to disagree with ‘grow your business’ which seems like a pretty plain and uncolourful way to say something meaningful!
Be really original and give us some better words with the same meaning. Can you?
For example, what else would you call a seminar on the web besides a webinar?
I hear teleseminar far more than I do webinar.
Is there a better word for either of these?
Janis, how about simply “presentation”, “meeting” or “seminar”? We don’t specify the medium for those; it seems very old-school to affix “web” to indicate that we’re not together in person.
Then again, I haven’t shown up in person for anything in a long time, so I’d have to add “web-” to everything I do…
Ali, my problem with “grow your business” is the use of “grow” as an active verb with an object – it’s a bit like saying “I’m growing two children”…
All I know is that if I interview one more metal band who tells me that their new record is “heavier, yet more melodic” than anything they’ve ever done, I’m gonna leave my carbon footprint in they ass.
I know I’m a little late, but “grow” actually is legitimately a transitive verb – consider “I’m growing lettuce, tomatoes, and cabbage”. It does bother me in the context of “growing a business”, but it’s not strictly incorrect.