There I was, scrolling aimlessly through the barrage of Tweets (pointlessly) telling me that Celebrity A, B, or C has done something or other with their (boyfriend/girlfriend, wife/husband, outfit, makeup, children, cat/car… )—and cheesy quotes from people I’ve never heard of or, even worse, eminent scientists who’d probably shudder at their words being used with such frivolous abandonment/inappropriateness—when I finally came across a Tweet that piqued my interest. The Tweet in question was by @edeckers, President of Professional Blog Service.
New post: Stop Using These Business Jargon Terms. You Sound Pretentious. bit.ly/14ubP16″
It was refreshing to read a post with the sentence: ‘Here are five other words you need to stop saying, because they make you sound like a pretentious snot’. And, Mr. Deckers ends the piece with: ‘The point of jargon is to make hard words easier to understand and say. But with the exception of substituting the three-syllable “company” with the single syllable “brand,” none of these jargony terms make life easier. If anything, they make it more difficult.’
Ah, sweet clarity, it means a lot you see; it even brings the non-existent poet out in me! 🙂
But I digress. Back to today’s highly entertaining social media break in the Freelancealot office. I quoted @edeckers in a Tweet and added: ‘Add “paradigm shift” and “revert” —>’. As with most of my Tweets I wasn’t expecting a response but, and you could have blown me down with a feather, up one popped AND it wasn’t from the original Tweeter. It was @CloudAcCo with:
@Freelancealot @edeckers been a while since I played bullsh*t bingo. Remember “low hanging fruit” and “the gift that keeps giving“? “
Well, the game was truly afoot. A response to the response was required.
@CloudAcCo ‘been a while since I played bullsh*t bingo.’ <– I’ll play, and I respond with ‘transitioning’ @edeckers”
Then came @CloudAcCo’s parry;
@Freelancealot I’ll see your ‘transitioning’ and raise you ‘best of breed ownership’“
They were obviously on the ball and I needed to up my game, so [thock] I returned the Tweet and put the ball firmly back in their court.
@CloudAcCo ‘…and raise you “best of breed ownership”‘ <– D*mn, you’re good! I’ll follow your lead with ‘sacred cow’ and ‘In order to…’.”
A momentary pause and I thought maybe, just maybe, they’ve run out of nonsense business jargon to Tweet about … then they came back full force, both barrels loaded.
@Freelancealot let’s brain storm this and see if we can reverse engineer a level playing field.
I had to end this quick or I’d be tapping out, defeated, in my first game of online ‘Bullish*t Bingo’. I couldn’t let that happen. So I gathered up my skirts, put my eggs in one basket, and typed for all I was worth:
@CloudAcCo ‘…reverse engineer a level playing field.” @@ I’ll literally touch base later with a ball park figure and some blue-sky thinking“
Touch down!
I didn’t wait for a response; I hightailed it out of there. There was work to be done … serious work.
This type of interaction on Twitter would have me typing in my password far more often. My thanks to @eDeckers for initially grabbing my attention long enough to follow his link and, of course, to my ‘Bullsh*t Bingo’ opponent @CloudAcCo I say: ‘So long and thanks for all the fish’ (ref: Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, of course).
In conclusion: social media is far more appealing when people engage in spontaneous and witty interaction. It shouldn’t be about ‘buy this’, ‘subscribe to that’, ‘me me me’ all the time … be inventive. You’ll find me on Twitter using @Freelancealot—we can have a game of online ‘I Spy’.
[WARNING – Blatant Horn-blowing Ahead: We provide freelance editorial services including copywriting, copy-editing, and proofreading. Get in touch by sending an email to info@freelancealot.co.uk or phone us on 01283 80 80 77.]
Credits: Stock Illustrator and Freelance Designer, Norebbo (@Norebbo) for the free Twitter vector.
