15 Business Terms that Need to Go (In Addition to Out-of-the-Box, Blue Sky, and others)

1. Game Changer: Ironically, things described as game changers rarely change anything.  Also, just because you change the game or create a new game, it doesn't mean you'll automatically be the best at it. Ask the British about their games such as soccer or cricket if you don't believe me.

2. Action items: As opposed to those items that require no action or attention at all? Does adding the word "action" suddenly make it more exciting? Ooh, I'm giddy all of a sudden!

3. Screw the Pooch: A terrible term. Getting caught screwing a pooch pretty much trumps any other business or career disaster by a significant margin. I do not ever want to learn the origins of this term.

4. Low-hanging Fruit: We forget that low-hanging fruit is not just easy for us to grab, but for everyone else, too. It's a nicer way to say, "We're not going to aim high here, we're going to settle for the easy and mundane."

5. Value-Add: Since when was it decided that all products, measures, and ventures had to have only one benefit or purpose, and so anything else that may just make it a better thing deserves a term that makes it sound like we're doing the consumers a huge favor? Instead of a value-add, why not actually just create something that has great value?

6. Disambiguation: A big word often used by superiors when they can't understand what is being presented to them but don't want to simply ask for an explanation. They believe that if they use big words, no one will notice that they're slow on the uptake.

7. Drink the Kool-Aid: Yeah, let's dredge up an awful event in history when a whole colony of misled believers poisoned themselves under the mind control of a sociopath to simply mean total commitment. And who drinks Kool-Aid any more?

8. Synergy: Define it. Go on, I dare you. That's right, absolutely nobody knows what this word really means.

9. Innovation: See (8) above

10. Strategic Planning: As opposed to planning that is ill-advised and moronic? Isn't planning a strategy already?

11. Re-purpose: A very nice way of saying you're recycling stuff that's already out there.

12. Value Proposition: Why even propose something that has no value? You have something of no benefit to me at all? I'm all ears!

13. Any word proceeded by 2.0: Clever tech jargon that's just irritating. Everyone knows that the 1.0 version of anything will have bugs, and the 2.0 version will correct those bugs, which means 2.0 is what 1.0 should have been. So if you're really doing something new or different, it should be 3.0

14. Actualize, Productize, Monetize and other -izes: How clever to think that all you need to create more energetic terms is just take on an -ize to any word.  Yeah, more exciting yet equally meaningless.

15. New Economy: People were using this phrase around the turn of the 19th century and ever since. Nothing in our economy is particularly new. A company still has to compete effectively, make money, and attract more customers -- all to justify its stock price. Same principles, same economy.