The eternal jargon conundrum! 30 June 2010
http://theintersearchintheukblog.blogspot.com
Whilst carrying out some research on a number of clients last week, I was surprised by just how much clichéd jargon they had all managed to cram onto their web sites home page. Whilst I do fully appreciate that the web editors want to portray the company in its best light, do they really believe that people these days are impressed by, or even fully understand, phrases such as: “leveraging deep seated industry expertise” or “an enhanced global delivery model” or “an empowered pool of outward thinking individuals who deliver customer centric solutions”.
Surely it must actually be simpler and will ultimately deliver a more “customer engaging experience” if they stuck to simple English? A quick snap shot of colleagues and friends on their reaction to these web sites reveals a near unanimous decision to move onto an alternative company. None of these companies offer a product that is unique and so a potential customer has just walked away with a negative impression and taken their potential business elsewhere, knocking onto the sales and profit figures.
This over use of jargon is not exclusive to big conglomerates or to small businesses starting out and trying to make an impact, but still seems wide spread; so whilst I go and re-check our own web site for inappropriate jargon, if you have a few choice examples then please let me know and I’ll write a follow up piece next month.
Culture eats strategy for breakfast! 10 June 2010
http://theintersearchintheukblog.blogspot.com
Last weekend I was sitting around with a couple of friends, who all work in a diverse cross section of businesses, discussing the current economic situation and how it impacts upon each of us, when the subject line of this blog was dropped into the conversation.
The instant response from most of us was: no! Or words to that effect.
However, once you actually start to dissect it and think about it, then yes it does make an awful lot of sense. Strategy, as always, comes from the top and really it doesn’t matter how good or how cutting edge your strategy is; if you don’t have the people with the right attitude (culture) then there is little or no chance of the strategy working! Unless you have a massive personnel change first.
Over the years, whilst discussing recruiting for them, I’ve heard an endless number of clients tell me how unique their culture is and I’ve always wondered about it. I vividly recall the consolidation phase that the big accountancy firms went through and the fallout from the ‘mergers’ as the cultures between the firms clashed. I started working with a client when it only had 3 employees and watched it grow to 100+ and helped it develop its own culture from scratch rather than by buying firms to create itself. The MD really did have the opportunity to shape the strategy and culture of that business; but was it unique? Or was he creating a culture that simply mirrored his own personality?
After much discussion and batting ideas back and forth, the majority of us had changed our opinion from a definite no to a fairly clear yes.
Oh no, not another world cup blog! 2 June 2010
http://theintersearchintheukblog.blogspot.com
Cross Border Co-operation 19 May 2010
It's all about timing 29 April 2010
That all important X 7 April 2010
First Impressions 11 March 2009
Social Networking 3 March 2010
Why search? 24 February 2010
And the moral of the story is... 17 February 2010
The first signs of spring! 10 February 2010
The latest thing. Or is it? 3 February 2010
Bouncing back! 27 January 2010
Already fed up with the election? 20 January 2010
January’s snow news! 11 January 2010