Rating corporate jargon
In the corporate world we have many special phrases. Now I rate them.
Synergy
Meaning: When you put two teams or products together, they can work better than either does alone.
An absolute classic. The first one that comes to mind for most people when they hear “corporate jargon”. Synergy has been a meme since before we had the word “meme”.
No one uses this one anymore. Once you make fun of something for 30 years I guess people stop using it. Luckily this process does literally take 30 years, so the other phrases on this page are still going strong.
Worse than its meme status, anyone who’s worked in a large corporation knows that putting two good working things together always results in one bigger thing that is bad and works poorly. Given such evidence, "synergy” is better understood as a curse word. If someone said I was synergizing, I’d tell HR.
In full rout, fallen from grace, defeated and retired, and was never true anyway: 0/10.
Low-hanging fruit
Meaning: Something easy to do.
I love this one. It is so evocative. We are all little sloths, waddling together through the jungle, having a good time, and every now and then there is some fruit that is not too high on the vine, so we reach up and nab it and totter on together. 8/10.
Move the needle
This one is good too. It brings to mind the needle on a car’s dashboard that tracks how fast you’re going. But it is typically considered rare to move the needle, with this phrase often appearing in contexts like “is this really going to move the needle?”. Introducing the idea of a speedometer, typically very easy to move, then using it in contexts that suggest that actually it is quite hard to move - this is itself an analogy to trying to get things done in large organizations.
Basic at first glance, but secretly meta: 7/10.
Let’s take this offline
One of the first Western victims of the coronavirus. This used to mean talking offline, instead of in a big meeting online. Now it means talking in a smaller meeting online, instead of in a bigger meeting online. There is no longer any way for corporates to express the concept of talking offline - if you say you want to talk offline, and let a bit of time pass, someone will ask you for a meeting link.
2019 rating: 7/10
2023 rating: -2/10
Taking a step back
Meaning: Move to a higher level of abstraction.
Very physical - everyone knows the feeling of taking a literal step back, how when you do, you can see a little more of the view in front of you.
Nerd types make fun of corporate jargon but when they (me) want to express moving up a level of abstraction, they say things like “moving up a level of abstraction”. No good! How many people even think about the word “abstraction”, and how many go even further, to the idea of “levels of abstraction”? Programmers definitely do, but others, I am not so sure. “Take a step back”, with its analogy to actual bodily motion, expresses it so much better, and makes talking about navigating the abstraction hierarchy part of everybody’s day-to-day vocabulary. 9/10.
Drill down
The inverse operation to taking a step back. Composing taking a step back with drilling down outputs the identity function. 9/10.