"Thought Leaders": Lose the Newspeak and Doublespeak
I don't know where it's coming from. Could be business schools, BPOs, corporate self-improvement books, or IT drones lacking in basic communication skills, for all I know. In any case, it seems to be spreading over some parts of the legal outsourcing industry like margarine on toast. Unlike butter substitutes, however, it's not healthy. I'm talking about the kind of corporate, Orwellian, newspeak or doublespeak that allows spokespersons and their companies to sound vaguely like they are saying something intelligent, while either saying nothing, or saying multiple things, each contradictory to the other, and usually accompanied by useless powerpoint graphics to distract attention from the fact that nothing of any actual value is being communicated. Here's an example, from my admittedly shaky memory of a speech at a conference, by an exemplar of "thought leadership" (another of those unnecessary and mystifying terms that I really wish would disappear):
I have just one question. At what point in a "document lifecycle" does life begin? Or in other words, is there some point where if you delete a document or toss it in the trash, you are having an abortion, or is it murder? Just wondering.
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