Easy-to-process things feel truer, safer, and more appealing.
More quotesNaming a mystery produces a tiny burst of relief.
“It is a retention problem.” Splendid. Which people are leaving, when, and what happened immediately beforehand?
“The brand needs differentiation.” From whom, in whose eyes, at the moment of choosing what?
“We are using AI.” What does it do when it is wrong?
Labels are useful compression between people who understand the machinery. Elsewhere they become an impressive frontage with nothing behind it. A phrase such as “network effects” should accelerate inquiry. Too often it announces that inquiry has officially ended and lunch may begin.
Medicine, law and engineering need precise names because precision prevents mistakes. Business borrows the same seriousness, then invents phrases whose chief function is making ordinary uncertainty sound billable. A useful term narrows meaning. A fashionable one merely raises the fog to executive height.
Try confiscating the nouns. Describe the behaviour. Tell me what changes, under which conditions, and what observation would prove the explanation false. Replace “audience segment” with one person choosing on a wet Tuesday. Replace “operational transformation” with what somebody stops doing at 9.05am. Keep asking what the bird eats.
Jargon is not the enemy. Jargon with no verbs is taxidermy.
Write the label at the top of a page, then list the observable behaviour underneath it. If the page stays empty, the label has described the extent of the understanding.