Words That Aren't Buzzwords. Yet.
Look. I know it's hard to avoid buzzwords completely. We all use them, at some point or another. But sometimes they start out sounding clever or as a joke, and then all of a sudden people start using them for real and you wonder, “My god, what have I done?”But what about when you want a simple word to describe behavior that annoys, yet that buzzword does not exist? I turned to my friends Gary J. Nix and Jillian Jackson for some brainstorming and — as usual — they did not disappoint. Before long we had a list of excellent Words That Should Be Buzzwords But Are Not. Yet.That is, at least, until all of you start using them and we all want to punch a wall if we hear any of these one. more. time.
Authintensity
When you are so authentic that you scare people. You are authentic with the intensity of thousand suns. You are REAL. Not just real, but really real. So real, that the question, “How much more real could I be?” can only be answered with, “Authentensity. None more real.”I mean, people, there is such a thing as oversharing.
Bediting
Content marketing — I mean, "writing" — from home. We've all had those mornings we've been extra-productive while laying in bed with our laptop, playing the entire Battlestar Galactica remake on Netflix, getting mildly annoyed whenever it stops to ask if we're still really watching. Honestly, I mean, really, I'm in my PJs, eating Pop Tarts (do people eat Pop Tarts anymore? They come in “kale” flavor, right?) in bed, working from home. Why would I not want to continue watching Battlestar? Sheesh.
Listriction
Enough with the "Best of" listicles everywhere already, amirite? We all know that these lists were created with a series of Listrictions. A listriction is the act of leaving certain people off a "Best of" list because of a personal vendetta. Alternately, it can mean you've filled your list with people you want to suck up to at the next Netwerking(see below) event. Either way, this isn't really a list of the best of anything.Except the ones I'm on. I mean, those are gold.
Netwerking
Networking events are important to attend, right? Of course. But how about when you go to a networking event but you know it's really an excuse for a bunch of people to get together and drink and make loud pronouncements like, "You know, aplusk retweeted me, but the traffic wasn't all that great. What do I have to do to get Twitter to just verify me already? It's such a scam. Verification doesn’t mean anything."
Prelationship Management
I hate to admit this, but I sort of love this one. Create and manage and care for your relationships. You can’t do this when you need to do it; you need to do this before you need to lean on your network. This actually started out as a typo from Gary.I swear, if this becomes a real buzzword, I’m going to edit this post to remove it and pretend I never said this. Don't tell anyone.
Storyselling
We all know storytelling is the important buzzword of the day, right? I mean, it's all about brands telling the story. Share your story, don't sell. If you tell it, they will buy. Story, story, story. Tell, tell, tell.We've all had the experience where we've started out reading what we thought would be a really interesting story and less than halfway through we realize we're just reading a barely disguised ad. We keep going, because maybe it changes and it really is about the story and not the telling. Nope. It's not even barely disguised. They just slapped a "sponsored content" label across a wordy ad and called it a day.A version of this article originally ran on Inc.Image via Gratisography.