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Tuesday, September 02, 2003
Yap: Business clichés
By JANUAR E. YAP
Reader Montserrat sent this. “Thought you might enjoy this,” she says.
A certain Frank Lingua, president and CEO of Dissembling Associates, is the leading purveyor of buzzwords, catch phrases, and clichés for people too busy to speak in plain English. Dan Danbom, a contributing editor from a New York business magazine “Business Finance” interviews Lingua.
Danbom: Is being a cliché expert a full-time job?
Lingua: Bottom line is I have a full plate 24 over 7.
D: Is it hard to keep up with the seemingly endless supply of clichés that spew from business?
L: Some days, I don’t have the bandwidth. It’s like drinking from a fire hydrant.
D: So it’s difficult?
L: Harder than nailing Jell-O to the wall.
D: Where do most clichés come from?
L: Stakeholders push the envelope until it’s outside the box.
D: How do you track them once they’ve been coined?
L: It’s like herding cats.
D: Can you predict whether a phrase is going to become a cliché?
L: Yes. I skate to where the puck’s going to be. Because if you aren’t the lead dog, you’re not providing a customer-centric, proactive solution.
D: Give us a new buzzword that we’ll be hearing ad nauseam.
L: “Enronities” could be a next-generation layer.
D: How do people know that you’re a cliché expert?
L: I walk the walk and talk the talk.
(And for lack of space, let’s go for the jugular. Meanwhile)
D: I want to push your face in.
L: Your call is very important to me.
D: How can you live with yourself?
L: I eat my own dog food. My vision is to monetize scalable supply chains.
D: When are you going to quit this?
L: I may eventually exit the business to pursue other career opportunities.
D: I hate you.
L: Take it and run with it.
(For just about anything: januariusmail@yahoo.com) |
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