Buzzwords are an unavoidable part of professional life – the weasel words of the corporate world. Love them or hate them, it pays to understand them.

It remains to be seen which of these will have the most legs:

Game changer: A person or company that has managed to “change the playing field” and holds considerable influence in their chosen market or profession.

Disruptor: Also known as a “game changer”, albeit an arguably trendier term.

Incentivise: To wave a proverbial carrot under someone’s nose; to entice consumer or stakeholder action in exchange for a specified reward.

Flearning: Failing at a task but learning a valuable lesson as a result.

Tribe: To “find your tribe” means to seek out like-minded collaborators, with added cliquey connotations.

Omnichannel: A fancy way to describe an integrated sales and/or marketing approach that leads a consumer through various stages or “touchpoints” (key interactions or milestones).

Vlogger: A noun mashup to denote a blogger who publishes video, touted as the Next Big Thing for content marketing in 2018.

Mumpreneur, seniorpreneur, photopreneur, hairpreneur, etc: Tack “preneur” on the end of any noun that best describes a startup founder, and voila! The possibilities are endless.

Lean: A term that can denote a business model that eliminates waste, but it has become somewhat bastardised in practice. “To keep things lean” can signify a more diplomatic request for you to achieve more with fewer resources. Read between the lines.

Snapshot: A cross-section or slice of information that is supposed to represent the whole.

Ninja: Often used affectionately to describe someone who specialises and/or is very proficient at using a specific program or completing a certain task: “She’s an Excel ninja”.

Guru: Used in a gushingly similar fashion to “ninja”, to praise someone’s knowledge or skill in a certain area: “He is an absolute guru when it comes to data analytics”.

Capture: “Let’s capture this.” “Do you mean write it down?” “Yes.”

Drilldown: A “deep dive” or further in-depth analysis into a particular subject matter. Getting into the nitty-gritty details.

Journey: Often heard in reference to plotting out a customer’s experience of interacting with a brand or product. Includes “touchpoints” along the way.

Roadmap: Because you’ll need a plan before you set out on your “journey” or project.

Low-hanging fruit: Why aim high when you can settle for the “easy wins”? To opt for “low-hanging fruit” means to focus on achieving the most uncomplicated or straightforward task or goal from the available alternatives.

Take it offline: To avoid running overlong in a meeting, or involving those outside of the stakeholder circle, a topic that has inspired impassioned discussion may be “taken offline” to be raised later with relevant colleagues. A wonderfully tech-inspired derivative of “parking an idea”, a concept meaning to put a discussion on hold for revisiting later.

Touch base: A variant of “reaching out”, meaning to check in with someone regarding progress on a project or to maintain cordial relations.

Come-to-Jesus meeting: A showdown disguised as a civilised mediation; a meeting called to finally unravel and settle a fraught issue or ongoing matter.

Flick through an email: A rather delightful way of telling a colleague you’ll “send through an email”. Similar premise to “pinging” someone.

Traction: To be gaining “traction” means progress is being made in regards to launching a project, reaching a milestone or cementing a valuable relationship.

On my radar: “It’s on my radar” is code speak for telling your colleague that you are aware of what they’re talking about.

All hands on deck: Derived from an old naval call to arms to inspire colleagues of varying rank to band together to achieve a lofty or intimidating goal.

Has legs: Often used to describe a concept or plan that is inherently credible or enduring, supposedly one that can “stand on its own merit” or “stand the test of time”. Cute.

Like a boss: To handle a task with impressive aplomb: “You handled that negotiation like a boss”.

You’ve got this: A supremely condescending phrase to affirm your belief in a fellow colleague. Best used in a playfully ironic fashion, if at all.

By Lana Busby

Lana is SmartCompany’s content producer. With a combined passion for creative strategy and behavioural science, she has worked in publishing and research roles since 2007, with experience spanning the media, academic, health and marketing science sectors.

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