[dekhn]

Err... catalyzing a paradigm change makes perfect sense to me. I think Thomas Kuhn might have used that in his book, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions".

A lit class isn't going to make any comment on a phrase like that, or management speak in general. Management speak is just a jargon.

[dragonwriter]

> Management speak is just a jargon.

Its mostly not. Jargon is specialized use of terms used to facilitate clear communication of ideas within a specific community/domain. Management speak -- at least the form that is often mocked -- is just using flowery language to conceal the absence of substance, and is pretty much the opposite of jargon.

[dekhn]

I disagree. I hear your complaint from many people, but I spend enough time talking to managers to understand what they mean, and I actually think there's content there.

[dragonwriter]

I spend a lot of time talking to managers, and most what they are saying isn't what people describe as "management speak" (which is, despite the phrase usually used to describe it, more the language of marketing and PR -- which, to be fair, managers frequently necessarily engage in and all too often are also victims of.)

There is a jargon of management -- an array of terms with precise meanings in the field that are either not used outside of the field or are used outside with different meanings, and which facilitate clear communication in the domain.

But that's really not what people are talking about when they are talking complaining about "management speak", which seems to be all about marketing/PR buzzwords which are used to create certain feelings while minimizing communication of clear commitments and detailed information, which are used by management either when they are acting to promote the business in marketing/PR role, or when they've been successfully snowed over by some vendor's or other industry player's marketing.

[sAuronas]

All the talk of jargon while a paradigm has shifted... No doubt, you are all very smart (and literate) but the point was to notice how f^@k1ng big this is.

[coldtea]

>Err... catalyzing a paradigm change makes perfect sense to me. I think Thomas Kuhn might have used that in his book, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions".

And I think he wouldn't have touched that phrase with a barge pole.

>Management speak is just a jargon.

No. Jargon comes out of necessity and field-specific needs.

Management speak comes out of the desire to unecessarily dress-up bullshit.

[dekhn]

To catalyze something means to speed it up.

So catalyzing a paradigm change means to make it happen faster.

I don't see the problem with this. Could you be more specific?

[coldtea]

>To catalyze something means to speed it up. (...) I don't see the problem with this. Could you be more specific?

The problem with this is that "make it happen faster" is already clear and sufficient.

People understand it -- including people who don't have an idea what "catalyst" means (for me it's a totally transparent word, as its origin and etymology come from my language. YMMV).

If you want to dress it up to make it sound more impressive, then you're not communicating effectively.

And if you include 3-4 other unecessary buzzwords in the same sentense you're just name-dropping words.

"I saw a very puissant pismire lifting 100 times its weight in a sweven yesterday". Do you see anything wrong with this sentense?

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/pismire http://www.thefreedictionary.com/puissant http://www.thefreedictionary.com/sweven

(Except if you're a chemist, and you use the word "catalyst" as it applies to your terminology)

[mattmcknight]

"The problem with this is that "make it happen faster" is already clear and sufficient."

I disagree. Catalyze is more succinct. In addition, to catalyze has the connotation of making change happen via the injection of a catalyst, thus connecting the agent of change with the change it brings. It's a better word.

Catalyst is not a difficult vocabulary word, nor a particularly uncommon word. Compare it's frequency to the words you used: http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=catalyst%2C+pui...

[tedks]

>The problem with this is that "make it happen faster" is already clear and sufficient.

Do you only read Simple English wikipedia? It's very clear and sufficient.

[jrockway]

Simple English Wikipedia sacrifices nuance to fit to its constrained lexicon. It is possible to explain pretty much anything using only 1000 words (and probably fewer), but it's going to be awkward because language is more than just conveying ideas through words. Words also have sounds and rhythm and evoke different images and emotions beyond their literal dictionary definition. For that reason, Simple English Wikipedia fails at being literature, but succeeds in communicating ideas to people that don't speak English. Since the latter is its goal, it's successful. But it's not something to imitate if you desire to communicate rather than just describe.

And, some phrases are simply used too often by people trying to sound smart when they really have nothing to say. There is nothing wrong with catalyzing synergy, but because so many people have applied those words when they had nothing to say, the phrase has gradually become meaningless. Omit meaningless words.

[tomkarlo]

Management is itself a field, with its own jargon. You can have good management and poor management (just as you can have good engineering or poor management) but don't pretend that the use or absence of "management jargon" is somehow intrinsically connected to that.

Managers have their jargon because they often trade in abstract concepts (Plan of Record, Resources, Asks, Action Items, OKRs) peculiar to their trade that are ripe for shorthanding, which is pretty similar to the reason you see it in other fields.

[brudgers]

Kuhn popularized the phrase "paradigm shift."

In his view, it occurred over generations as adherents to older scientific models died of old age - e.g. the Copernican model replaced the Ptolomeic model because Ptolomeic astronomers went extinct.

[dekhn]

yes, but it's much faster now (look at how quickly the RNA World Hypothesis took over after Noller, Woese, and Cech demonstrated their results. One might say we're catalyzing paradigm shifts through network effects. Then engineers would complain I was using management talk, but I can assure you, that's a succinct and accurate way to explain it.

[cac04]

If it's a "succinct and accurate way to explain it" then why do so many people find it jarring and confusing? If management speak really is a jargon then it is useful only when talking to other managers, not to people in general. (And, it would appear, especially not when talking to engineers.)