Weird Al Yankovic has been poking fun of pop culture for decades, but now he’s released an amazing song about business. “Mission Statement” is a biting mockery of business speak.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Weird Al says, “I wanted to do a song about all the ridiculous double-speak and meaningless buzzwords that I’ve been hearing in office environments my entire life … I just thought it would be ironic to juxtapose that with the song stylings of CSN [Crosby, Stills & Nash], whose music pretty much symbolizes the antithesis of corporate America.”
Check out his brilliant music video:
Take the Jargon Free Challenge
Weird Al’s song highlights many of the commonplace jargon we use every day, and don’t even realize it:
- World class
- Solutions
- Synergy
- Strategies
- Core competencies
- Holistically
- Best of breed
- Globalization
- Mission critical
- Administrate
- Operationalize
- Functionality
- Client centric
- Downsizing
- Proactively
- Incentivize
- Paradigm shift
- Transitioning
- Viability
- Diversity
- Commitment to quality
- Monetize
- Fundamentals
- Value-add
- Bring to the table
- Cross platform
- Seamless integration
- Robust
- Scalable
- Day-to-day
Search your website, marketing collateral and proposals. How often does your company use these phrases? Is there a better way to say the same thing without jargon?
Jargon are weeds
If you’re not careful business speak will sprout up in your marketing. The phrases are like weeds.
I redid the Jargon Free Challenge today, and realized I’m guilty of using strategies, paradigm shift and value-add far too often. I have some weeding to do.
How about you? Is your marketing free of business speak weeds?