A software company is fining staff for using jargon and clichés
and is pressing other companies to do the same.
Original Software, which has bases in London and Chicago, taxes
staff 20p for ordinary misdemeanours and 50p for the particularly
disliked "leverage" and "paradigm shift". It donates the money
raised to charity.
The Local Government Association issued a list to of banned words
and phrases such as "Predictors of Beaconicity", "coterminous"
and "situational" to councils last week.
But Original Software has taken the Association's ban a stage
further. The company's
Kate
Mackinder wrote to Computer Weekly's IT Projects blog saying:
"We've levied a corporate tax on the use of a whole list of
words."
Original Software's communications department uses a large
whiteboard to display the banned words and phrases. "People visit
us all the time to add things that they've just heard that they
feel should be included," said Mackinder.
Since the tax came into force about a month ago,
the company has
collected about £100 which it has given to an orphanage in
Nepal.
Kate Mackinder disagreed with some of the
criticisms made by IT professionals to the Local Government
Association's list of banned jargon, posted on Computer Weekly's IT
Projects
She said: "I think the point people are missing here is not that
the words themselves are necessarily jargon or even inappropriate,
but that their over-use, and in some cases misuse, has become
clichéd.
"For example there is nothing wrong with 'interface' if we are
talking about an application interface, but when used to simply
replace 'let's meet up' not only does the speaker sounds like a bit
of a twerp, but it is a blatant misuse of the word."
She said that councils should be "building community spirit and
getting behind local charities by taxing council workers for the
use of the words". She added: "Just 20p a time does add up quite
quickly and really motivates people to think harder about what they
are saying."
Computer Weekly plans to keep a list of business and IT industry
jargon and clichés that should be avoided or at least used in a
thoughtful way. We will start with the list used by Original
Software. Anyone with suggestions should email:
rebecca.froley@rbi.co.uk
A list of Original Software's taxable words and phrases is on
the IT Projects Blog