Here’s an interesting download for ya: software from a consulting firm that scours your company’s documents for ‘biz-buzz’ and suggests alternatives. It’s called Bullfighter (get it?) from Deloitte Consulting and it’s a plug-in that attaches itself to Microsoft Word or PowerPoint. I read about it in a NYT/IHT column by Randall Rothenberg, who describes himself as director of intellectual capital at Booz Allen Hamilton, another consulting firm.
I’m downloading it now. But I have to take issue with Rothenberg, who suggests that biz buzz is a legitimate construct that helps companies, sorry enterprises, communicate better within and without. That may be true in the upper echelons, where language is just another political tool. But what about the poor saps on the factory floor, struggling to figure what is going on in the company they work for, or folk like me who have to wade through piles of badly-written, jargon-laden press releases every day to figure out what companies are trying to say? Language that is not simple simply obfuscates. Hey, I just made that up. I think I’ll run it past Bullfighter and see what he thinks of it.