Learn the Language - Share Your Genius
Posted by on June 04, 2007 at 12:57 PM
Sitting on a concrete bench one warm Georgia afternoon, a colleague and I were engaged in some intense brainstorming. It was week two of a four week corporate sales training class for a well known Fortune 500 company. We had been given the task of crafting our "elevator speech"; a 30 second blurb on our profession.
After much deliberation we came up with our plan. "Brilliant!" we congratulated ourselves, "We nailed it!"
When class re-convened we shot our hands into the air, volunteering to go first. We swaggered to the front of the class; plugged a laptop into the overhead projector, opened Power Point and embarked on a fifteen minute "30 second elevator speech." We showed flow charts and Gantt charts, line graphs and bar graphs. We basked in our brilliance as words like "robust" and "seamlessly integrated" flowed off our tongues like honey. We awaited the thunderous applause.
"Hmm," piped up a fellow colleague, "you’ll open your laptop in the elevator?"
"So, you’ll have the projector with you?" questioned another, "Will you project onto the elevator wall or whip out a mini screen?"
Chagrined, we went back to our seats. It was clear we had sounded ridiculous.
The book Why Business People Speak Like Idiots points out that people frequently engage in idiot-speak because they really don’t understand their topic. My colleague and I that afternoon were just two idiots speaking a language we barely understood.
The book's authors do make one exception, however, and that exception has to do with technical jargon:
Every profession has some sub-set of words that help its guru’s share their genius in a kind of shorthand. Real jargon – technical language among real experts – isn’t the problem. Gratuitous jargon is.
Last week, the gurus here at Oneupweb released two cleverly crafted glossaries packed with technological jargon that will help all of us "share our genius" with one another.
The "technical language shorthand" contained in these pocket-size yet potent glossaries represents the quickly evolving language of the internet.
Check out the newly updated SEO Survival Guide and the brand new Social Media Survival Guide. And let us know what you think.
Category
Jargon
Comments (7)
Posted on June 5, 2007 09:26 AM
Oh boy, did you hit the nail on the head. I find that though my industry is very technical, the best salespeople are the ones that keep the gratuitous mumbo jumbo to a minimum. Sell like you are talking to your best friend!
Posted on June 5, 2007 09:44 AM
Very interesting, just graduating from college I can identify with reporting on what you know nothing about. Very well written.
Posted on June 5, 2007 11:14 AM
Great Post Ellen. You nailed it and more importantly, why do people talk like that? Yikes.
Keep up the great work OneUpWeb! I'm loving the two resources.
Thank you.
Posted on June 5, 2007 01:11 PM
Good stuff, I just received a comment call from one of your fans who read your blog. Good job from an insurance man from Sutton's Bay. I second that. Very nice work.
Posted on June 5, 2007 08:08 PM
As a former Internet executive, rest assured that even us experts wonder what each other say at times but recognize that it doesn't really matter.
Posted on June 10, 2007 06:22 PM
Ellen:
It takes guts to jump up out of your seat and go first! I applaud you for that! As Mark Twain said,"I would have written you a short letter, but I didn't have time." It takes a lot of time and practice to pare down that pitch to the most important elements. I'm sure yours will be great when you do!
Posted on June 4, 2007 11:28 PM
Very well written piece. I can speak from experience, what you write is very true and right on point.