Jargon

I have to admit I was not a big fan of Mark Cuban in his early days of fame and fortune. Especially when he started into the sports business with the Dallas Mavericks. He seemed to be like the owner version of side show Terrell Owens of the 49ers, Eagles, Cowboys NFL teams, always in the paper, taking advantage of negative publicity, which people do say is better than no publicity. I would say the tide turned for me when I saw a segment that covered him on “Beyond the Glory” which I believe is an ESPN snapshot of interesting figures in sports. It showed how he started peddling software for a number of years before selling his company MicroSolutions to Compuserve for $6M and then Broadcast.com 10 years later to Yahoo for 5.9 Billion in stock.

(Cuban’s first step into the business world occurred at age 12, when he sold garbage bags in order to pay for a pair of expensive basketball shoes.[4][8] While in school, he held a variety of jobs, including bartender, disco dancing instructor, and party promoter. He paid for college by collecting and selling stamps, and once gained about $1,100 from starting a chain letter.)
See more on his bio below:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Cuban

But to the crux of the post today. You must give him credit for telling it like it is, no BS. One place you can continue to catch either his rants, smart cracking business advice and general prognostications for future business is on his blog (Blogmaverick.com).

In this week’s post, details below, he talks about how people use business jargon that makes little sense, portrays them in a less intelligent light or squarely puts them behind the eight ball. He relates a real life example and if you can sum up in one phrase what the guy is talking about, you are better off than most of us. I think, what most business leaders will tell you is to take out the fluff, bottom line your messages and get to the point quickly. As a good friend told me lately, after writing a note to a senior executive, try and cut the message in half. Take out all the fluff and get to the point. Get to the point, as these types get 5 x the email we do and have 10 times less patience for reading things that don’t apply to them.

In addition, I often hear people speaking and writing in complex terms that I sometimes think even they do not understand. Some people to look important, feel important or to shore up for lack of substance. Just one person’s opinion. I don’t pretend to know it all and often will tell you I don’t. But I do surround myself with good company, most smarter and they act as a check and balance for ideas, communication and of course these posts.

So if you hear one of your friends or colleagues using jargon like this, like spinach between their teeth screaming to be pointed out, do them a favour and tell them!!

That’s all I got today.

Have a good weekend.

From Blog Maverick – August 9th

I get deal pitches daily. I want all of you to understand the code words that IMHO are sure fire signs that the entrepreneur has no idea what they are doing and is destined to fail. This is from an email today, redacted of course to protect the guilty. My interpretation of the letter is in bold.
My name is John Doe, CEO and Founder of John Doe Unlimited Innovations and Technology, LLC. JDUIT is an innovation conglomerate, designed for many different industries and is dedicated to improve the quality of life for individuals throughout the world, one step at a time.

The first thing I do at this point is look at the senders email address. Is it an email with the company name in the URL ? If it isn’t.. ding, ding, ding. They sender has come up with a name, but doesn’t have the focus or confidence to put up a website. This person was using a gmail account. Next my #FailDar was ringing louder than Larry Kudlow talking nonsense on CNBC about green shoots when I read the “designed for different industries and is dedicated to improve the quality of life of individuals throughout the world, one step at a time” Im sorry, but could anyone possibly invent and write anything that is more full of shit than this person ? That has to go down in business letter history as one of the all time worse lines. If you want to get someone interested in your company, DO NOT tell them you are going to save the world. You are not. No one will believe you will. Save that nonsense for your grandma when you are trying to make her proud of you.

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