Generally, businesspeople never use a specific term when a vague one is available. It keeps people from pinning us down.
“Business” itself was once a hazy enough term, until someone thought to call it “space.” So I’m no longer in the communication business, I’m in the “communication space.” It doesn’t get any more far out than that, man.
I’ve advocated that professional communicators use their own business buzzwords, if only to keep up with the Jargon Joneses in other business disciplines.
But not to the extent that we mislead.
And that’s what I think we sometimes do, with rhetorical metaphors that sound more manageable than the thing they’re trying to describe. For instance, by implying that a situation is so tidy and well ordered that all we really have to do is “connect the dots.”
Or to add to our little corporate puzzle (or pizza) [or pooh]: “the ______ piece.” As in, “the strategy piece.” Or, “the authenticity piece.”
It’s not that you have a $15 million campaign that’s lacking in focus. It’s just that you need to tack on “the strategy piece.” And you’ll put the finishing touches on the project’s bloodless leader by adding “the authenticity piece.”
And if you can fake the authenticity piece, you’ve got it made, as we say in the communication space.
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