Tag Archives: clarity

Tech & communications jargon versus reality

The Guardian, a media organization based in the UK, has a wonderful online program called the Global Professionals Network, “a space for NGOs, aid workers and development professionals to share knowledge and expertise”. They also have an occasional feature called “The Secret Aidworker,” a column written by anonymous aid workers, talking about the not-so-great parts of humanitarian work.

The most recent blog is an aid worker talking about the “dark side” of humanitarian / development communications. Like me, she trained as a journalist, and it affects both her approach and her ethics regarding public relations and marketing. I was so struck by these two paragraphs from her blog:

The international community is too focused on using gimmicks in outreach campaigns rather than considering who their audience is and what they want. I was recently asked to design an outreach campaign to educate the local community we work in about the work we do. So keeping in mind the low literacy rate of our audience and the limited access they have to online and print media, I designed a communications campaign accordingly. However, that was considered old and outdated.

For my organisation, the use of new technology such as apps and social media held priority over the local regional media, even though I explained much of these were inaccessible to the people we were trying to reach. Too often people think that if a country has access to the internet and mobile phones, every one has access. They don’t consider the cost of mobile data, the literacy rate, or if the locals would even use their devices the same way as in the US and Europe.

Oh, I SO hear this! Not just in humanitarian work, but in all communications work for nonprofits, governments and other mission-based organizations, anywhere. I hear from nonprofits wanting to explore using SnapChat that haven’t updated their web site in months.They want to host a hackathon to develop an app while their manager of volunteers is refused money for posters for a volunteer recruitment campaign. They want to know the best engagement analytics software to purchase while their online community is quiet for weeks, with no staff posting questions, no volunteers sharing information, etc. They want a crowdsourced fundraising campaign but haven’t sent thank you’s to donors this year. They want a viral online marketing campaign to promote something but balk at the idea of a staff person visiting area communities of faith and civic clubs to build personal relationships with local people, especially groups that represent minorities that are under-represented within the organization’s volunteer, client and donor base.

Anyone who knows me knows that I have long been a promoter and advocate of ICT4D. I wrote one of the first papers – back in 2001 – about handheld devices, what were then called PDAs (personal digital assistants), in health and human services, citizens’ reporting, advocacy, etc. I am a pioneer regarding virtual volunteering. I use, and advise on the use of, social media to promote a variety of information and network with others. I regularly post to TechSoup’s Public Computing, ICT4D, and Tech4Good community forum branch about apps4good – smart phone applications meant to educate people about maternal health, help women leave abusive relationships, connect people with emergency housing and more. So I certainly cannot be accused of being a Luddite. But with all that said, I also still see the value of, and know how to leverage, printed flyers, printed posters, paper newsletters, lawn signs, newspaper ads, radio ads, radio interviews, TV interviews, TV ads, onsite speaking engagements, display tables, display booths and other “old fashioned” ways of communicating.

This aid workers blog reminds me of the early days of the World Wide Web, when I would hear an executive director of a nonprofit or the director of a government program talk about how great the agency’s new web site was, but as they talked, I realized they’d never looked at it themselves, and weren’t really fully aware of what the Internet was.

wizardToo many senior staff are bedazzled by buzzwords and jargon they’ve heard from consultants, giving their employees orders to do something based only on what they think is “hip” now. I am just as frustrated by organizations that overly-focus on the latest social media fads for communications as I am by organizations that ignore all things Internet and smart phone-related.

What should you do if you face this in the work place? Use small words and lots of data with your senior staff, and stay tenacious. Remember that a list of potential expenses and budgets for time can make a case for you to do a comprehensive, realistic communications plan. And be explicit and detailed on how your communications efforts will be evaluated for effectiveness.

My other blogs that relate to this:

No, I won’t post your jargon.

You wrote and wanted me to publish about your BIG ANNOUNCEMENT on my blog. And I didn’t respond yet. Let me do it here, now, on my blog:

I’m not going to post about your BIG ANNOUNCEMENT.

Most of the time, I’m not going to post about your BIG ANNOUNCEMENT because it’s just not that big. It doesn’t rock my world. I don’t see how it will rock the world of my blog readers. It might be marginally interesting, but unless it fits perfectly with the focus of my blog and it makes me at least a little bit giddy, I’m not using my blog to promote it.

But in addition to your BIG ANNOUNCEMENT not being that big, it’s also often full of jargon. And I loathe jargon. Like:

  • enterprise-class, software-as-a-service pre-arrival solution
  • two-tier enterprise resource planning
  • centralized equivalency determination information
  • a world-class eco-system of innovative, on-demand, customizable capacity-building resource programs
  • crowd-sourced on-demand microvolunteering

It’s bullying-by-jargon. It’s exclusionary. And in your effort to show off your jargon hipness, you are turning potential supporters AWAY.

Please, by all means, introduce the world to new words and concepts. English is a growing language. The definition of network in my beloved 1943 Webster’s Dictionary isn’t what the definition of that word is now, and that doesn’t bother me – it’s a good thing.

But why hide your BIG ANNOUNCEMENT behind jargon? Don’t write to impress me, or anyone else, with your command of the latest corporate marketing terms; write to be understood. Do that with language that welcomes me, that I can understand immediately, without having to use Wikipedia to figure out what you’re actually trying to say. Do that with language that will still be understood (and used) in five years.

If you use Microsoft Word, you may have seen the ‘Flesch reading ease’ score. Use it when you are wondering just how understandable a sentence or paragraph might be. It’s no magic formula – think of it as a rough estimate regarding how well you are writing, in terms of being understandable.

Also see this free guide: ‘How to write in plain English‘. It’s for a British audience, so the spellings won’t be quite the same as they are in the USA, but the principles are universal.

Tech Jargon – Let’s Rebrand Email

The Internet is now the Cloud.

Telecommuting is now workshifting.  

Virtual volunteering is now microvolunteering.

What was done on USENET in the 1980s and 90s is now crowdsourcing on social media.

So, since we love coming up with new jargon for old things, then it’s only a matter of time before someone comes up with a new name for email, right?

In honor of Friday, my favorite day of the week: How should we rebrand email?

Snarky/humorous answers will be the most-welcomed.

Answer in the comments section here, or via Twitter. The first answer is from

Erin Barnhart:

Microstatic conversations

And, FYI, this is how I posed this question to my Twitter feed, : (see more re: How I Use Twitter, including my frequently-used, frequently-followed tags)

is now . is now . How should we rebrand email?

Tags:  jargon, technology, terms, tech, cyberspace, language, communications, humor

 

Drop the Jargon!

Trina Wallace, a writer at ngo.media, has written a fantastic blog, Here’s to a jargon-free voluntary sector in 2011:

Too often, charity writing is littered with the latest buzzwords and highfalutin phrases in the belief that this sounds impressive. Strip away the jargon, though, and there’s often very little meaning underneath.

Brilliant! Read it! Show it to all consultants you work with! It’s an article that United Nations staff and those at other humanitarian organizations should read as well…