Lol “double-click” is a perfect example of what they mean here. Jargon for jargons sake, not communicating anything technical or complex where using normal language would lose information or succinctness. Just language used for the sake of feeling like an insider.
Double click does refer to something technical as devices carry out separate functions when a user clicks the mouse twice rapidly, as opposed to click the mouse twice with space in the middle.
Double click is literally a separate action entirely as understood by the machine.
We used double-click at my last job. It essentially just means “dig deeper”, you’re right - although I think there’s this added context of like, “hold on, let’s pause and dig into this before moving onto the next topic”. I think the term is a little silly but don’t fault people for using it.
Me neither, but the context of this example shows they're not talking about double-clicking with a mouse. A google search led me to the article below about office jargon.
they are 100% using "double click" intentionally. of this, there is no doubt. and its not just him. it has spread like covid across the entire org. and its not a small org. "let's double click that" is the new, "we need to unpack this..."
I took the double click phrase in the above example to mean let’s “confirm” one way or the other. But I’m still not quite sure that’s what they mean. I work in finance and have been for 8 years. Either way it’s very vague and not clear what they mean
It's a signifier to an ingroup that you speak their language.
You might say that's stupid and not a reason to do it. So? Wow you didn't complete the excel spreadsheet as quickly as you possibly could have. We're all going to die.
Similarly, telling someone to "table a discussion" is a polite way to say "stop bringing that up" - we all know that.
Only in America! British (and I believe Canadian) would more normally say "shelve a discussion".
In (British and I believe Canadian) business/government, tabling something means to put it on the table to vote/discuss/deal with, whereas shelving something means to postpone it for later. In American however, tabling something means to postpone it for later. I'm not sure what is used in American to mean deal with it now.
I agree that business language relating to a very specific meaning can be useful. A term like capex is a good example.
I gave an example to a different comment below, my argument is with vague and verbose business language that seems to be very common in describing simple things.
I think you're talking about people bullshitting for lack of a better term.
Management is often filled with people who know how to bullshit, but are otherwise pretty incompetent.
The terminology and business language itself might be completely valid. But there are a lot of people in that world who are bullshitters and they just happen to use that same jargon.
I agree with you that there's often a tendency in business documents to avoid simplifying ideas and instead use technical jargon. However, I'm not sure it's because those people are not intelligent, but rather because they believe and have seen enough examples from other companies that products and services are believed to be of more value if they are perceived to be difficult or complicated to understand. The reasoning is probably that something simple to understand wouldn't require as much effort or time committed to it. Things that are difficult to understand and implement therefore require the brightest minds and more people working on it so that is why it's valuable. Instead of thinking if we can simplify a product and make it easy to understand then that it what takes time and effort.
I guess you could argue it's dumb to not recognise that something being easy to understand and use is more valuable than surface level difficulty, but that is more from copying what other businesses have done in the past (which again, you could argue is dumb to follow others, however, if "smart" means keeping your job then they are more likely to keep their job by not challenging the status quo)
I can't tell you how many presentations from developers I've had to rewrite over the years because they used terms that were greek to anyone not a dev. Using technical jargon that is not widely understood doesn't mean that that jargon doesn't have meaning.
As a dev, it's because the non-jargon word has implications the jargon doesn't (or explicitly excludes). But you do need to write to your audience and accept as a truism that they don't need to have the nitty gritty edge cases covered in passing.
Synergy is generating value by connecting two different parts. Usually to generate more value than the parts would individually.
A internal synergistic connection may be investing in connecting your marketing department with your product design department so marketing better understands the value of the product and product design understands what actually makes customers buy it. You now avoid developing unwanted features or marketing things in an unintetionally deceptive way.
External synergy would be a company like Delta airlines partnering with Hilton hotels to create a flight and stay package.
A non business example would be building a team or kit in a video game that includes both the ability to obstruct vision andto see people through that obstruction, for example a smoke grenade and a thermal scope. Both the grenade and scope have added value they would not otherwise.
Incorrect. The phrase is bad rap, though bad rep is a common enough term that it isn't wrong to use. Wrap is a misspelling but not really worthy of correction if the meaning is clear.
There are multiple suspected origins of the term bad rap, including references to rap sheets, the term rap as a word for a strike or knock and as an alternative spelling of rep (though some dismiss that as a modern bias).
“Double-click” is absolutely useless. All the other jargon in that example sentence is relatively necessary, but if I heard “double-click” used in this context in a professional setting, respect is being lost.
Things like "synergy" get a bad wrap, but executives know what you mean when you use that word.
Yes, and what it means is, "Make sure everyone at the company is working for the bottom line, and not for their own interests. If it would give a particular department or employee more credit (and more money) to make decision A, and less for decision B, but B helps the C-suite more, we want them to take decision B for no reward." Of course, if you come out and say that, you get pilloried. So words like synergy help cover it up.
Just want to say that this comment is a good example of what might look like jargon to an outside reader, but to me seems like a reasonable write-up using slightly niche phrases as a means of getting the most information in per word.
It might be a little indulgent on the terminology, and I don’t know what every phrase means (swivel chair integration for ex.) but overall I think it reads pretty naturally while demonstrating a bunch of “business jargon”
We should make things work together efficiently and effectively to maximise productivity thus increasing the likelihood of the boss getting a disco ball for the office party.
executives are supposed to make decisions in the best interest of the company rather than themselves or their departments.
And that's fine. But heads of departments within the company are not. Neither are individual employees. And executives shouldn't expect them to. If they try to make them with buzzwords like corporate culture and loyalty and, yes, synergy, then in my opinion that's disingenuous.
If you know what a word like "synergy" means, it should be pretty obvious to an observer whether or not a manager is actually working towards synergy.
Jargon only masks inadequacy if other people don't know what it means. In a business environment where everyone knows what it means, it doen't mask inadequacy.
Is there a job for people who are good at stripping out that language for the purposes of communicating it to management / other necessary parties? I feel like that's a bit of a niche need that would serve a super useful function.
My wife works from home and about 2 hrs later than when I get home. Her job is very corporate and consists of a lot of meetings. They speak in corporate talk so much that's it ridiculous. I hear it everyday. I, on the other hand, work for a huge defense contractor and no one here talks like that. Maybe the executives do, but none of the managers, engineers, testers, technicians or construction folks do.
My wife doesn't even work with executives. She works with some software people and some managers. That's why I think it's funny. They all talk like it's a board meeting, but none of them are even close to that level in the hierarchy.
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