In both higher education and corporate sectors, many shortcuts and buzzwords are used to get to the point quicker or to demonstrate familiarity with current trends. Tom Musbach wrote for Fast Company last week, “There’s nothing inherently wrong with having a set of terms, a common lexicon, by which people in a given field or industry can easily communicate. This is what business buzzwords are — a set of terms that are readily understood in the corporate environment. When used properly and in context, these buzzwords serve as a sort of linguistic shorthand. When overused or misused, however, buzzwords can overshadow or even distort the overall communication. Using too many buzzwords can lessen an individual’s credibility as an independent, intelligent, creative thinker.”
In technology we utilize a complex web of acronyms, abbreviations and technical jargon. Some of these words seep into our daily vocabulary across disciplines and in our daily life. This process can evolve over time or occur in a split second, thanks to Twitter or TikTok. The following list may provide guidance on better word accuracy, and hopefully avoid those “rolled eyes” at meetings or listening to a potential hire displaying their technical acumen.
1) Hacked
/haekt/
People tend to jump to conclusions when they think they’ve been hacked, particularly with Facebook. If someone is already your Facebook friend, you cannot send them another friend request. What more likely happened is that your account was cloned. This occurs when someone creates a new Facebook account, using your name but not your email address, along with photos of you on their account, or they search your public posts to find out who your Facebook friends are and then send new friend requests from the new fake account. Most of the time Facebook accounts aren’t hacked but cloned.
When people receive friend requests which have already been accepted, they contact their friends and announce, “I’ve been hacked!” Certainly, your account can be hacked if someone gets a hold of your password. As a precaution, change your password often, turn on two-factor authentication, check any unrecognized logins, and report the incident to Facebook. Rather than sending out “I’ve been hacked” warning messages, just tell people to disregard the new friend requests.
This increased phobia of “being hacked” can be traced to the dramatic increase of cyber attacks. This is illustrated in a Google Ngram below, an “online word search engine which charts the frequencies of any set of search strings using a yearly count of n-grams found in sources printed between 1500 and 2019.”
2) Bandwidth
/ˈbandˌwidTH/
This word can cause eye-rolling when someone drops into your office to ask if you have the bandwidth to do a job. Bandwidth is defined as “the maximum amount of data (or volume) transmitted over a path or connection in a given amount of time.” Today the term is used to infer how much time you have available. As the Google Ngram shows, bandwidth seems to coincide with the explosion of the Internet. It may be more accurate to just ask someone if they have time available.
3) Disruption
/disˈrəpSH(ə)n/
Disruption can be described as a disturbance which interrupts an event, activity or process. This could be a profound change to an existing market sector of a process due to innovative technologies. Sometimes the words "disruption" and "digital transformation" in higher education are used interchangeably, which is not accurate.
Matt Shearer in IT ProPortal wrote last year, “Disruption has been occurring since people first started trading goods and services. You could also use that term to describe the evolution of strategic innovation since the dawn of time. It’s a more philosophical definition ... Digital transformation, on the other hand, is the process of using technology to become, and remain, agile. Agility enables businesses to adapt to different markets and market conditions, so they can weather external disruption.”
While disruption and digital transformation are connected, Shearer emphasized, “digital transformation becomes a part of the disruption story only when it is done well.” We should use a more positive term like innovation instead.
4) Vulnerability
/vuhl-ner-uh-bil-i-tee/
A vulnerability, usually tied to cybersecurity, is when your computer network potentially allows unauthorized access to systems and data. This word comes up frequently during cybersecurity audits. A vulnerability does not mean your system has been compromised, but there is a potential your network could be infiltrated if appropriate cyber protection tools are not in place. Sometimes the words vulnerability and incident are used interchangeably.
5) Incident
/ˈinsəd(ə)nt/
An incident in cybersecurity means someone or something has successfully navigated a vulnerability in a network or system. This also comes up in cybersecurity audits or when a system has been compromised, hacked or infiltrated, and if malware or ransomware has been deployed. Carefully using the correct description during an audit or a cyber attack is crucial.
6) Client software
/ˈklīənt/
Client software is a specific application installed on your computer. For non-IT end users, it would be easier to understand to say this is the software application loaded onto your desktop or laptop computer.
7) Take this offline
/ˈtāk ˈt͟his ˈȯf-ˈlīn/
This is a common phrase when people want to take or move the conversation to another separate meeting, either because the topic has gone “off-track,” to avoid conflict, or because a deeper discussion is needed. It may be more accurate to say, "we need to have a separate meeting on the topic."
8) Low-hanging fruit
/ˈlō-ˈhaŋ-iŋ ˈfrüt/
Low-hanging fruit refers to the lower fruit on the tree which is easier to grab. In meetings, the phrase has become a metaphor describing tasks which can be easily and quickly accomplished. Some may classify the saying as being overused or annoying. Spencer Bowen, program director of the nonprofit accelerator AgStart summed it up in Comstock's Magazine: “Don’t just use platitudes. If you are going to deploy this overused kitschy term, make sure you’re actually attaching it to something you’re going to do for a person.”
Next year there likely will be another overused words list as we continue to blend technology into our daily work and lives. Let us hope for clarity, accuracy and brevity in our word choices, so we can better understand and communicate effectively. As Thomas Jefferson reminds us, "The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do." Let’s make sure it’s the correct word and definition.
