Missionary position - Wordsmith.org

Wordsmith.org

I thought an occasional post from the world of corporate psychobabble might be droll (or at least salutary!)

Here to get the idea started is some prime crap from Sith Efrica:

A broadcasting culture for �total citizen empowerment� is the new objective of the South African Broadcasting Corporation, as it shifts from "an inward-orientated, self-assessing entity to become a people-centered broadcaster able to fully meet the challenges it faces in the context of a rapidly-changing environment".

Maybe we should run it through babelfish a few rinse cycles to see if it makes more or less sense?

How can anyone or anything be inward-orienTATed? Are they going to get lost in there, or what?

Thank you for that, Mav. Meanwhile (this is at least 10 years old but still serves its purpose as a stimulant for meeting-doomed cubicle-dwellers):

http://www.petdance.com/bingo/

ooh, gotta leverage me some repurposed middleware.

Quote:

"an inward-orientated, self-assessing entity to become a people-centered broadcaster able to fully meet the challenges it faces in the context of a rapidly-changing environment".

Sure, it's full of babble but it makes perfect sense to me. It's describing a change from an entity that is concerned only with its concept of itself to one that is concerned with its audience.

It may be so Fong. But the words don't say so.

Or to put it another way (which may or may not mean the same thing):

The integrated knowledge base acquires synergy from the stakeholder-leveraged drill down, but this technology-driven mindshare has no strategic fit with market driven deliverables which will dictate total quality.

Thanks for a reminder of that site, ASp - that's just what I need for a meeting on Thursday run by my loquacious MD...

Only afta ya productize your API.

"...meet the challenges it faces in the context of a rapidly-changing environment".

Sounds like "fighting fires" to me.

Yes, no discussion of corporate psychobabble is complete without mentioning 'synergy'.

"en de tois h�merois kai phronim�terois di�rthr�tai mallon phainontai gar mallon bo�theiai ginomenai kai eunoiai kai sunergiai all�lois"

"In tame animals, on the other hand, and those which possess a greater share of intelligence, it has assumed a more complex form; for in their case we see more examples of mutual help, goodwill, and co-operation."

[Aristotle Economics 1343b17; transl. by G.C. Armstrong]

Synergy as good will and cooperation sounds like a close fit to standard corporatespeak meaning. Aristotle goes on to write about " It is, however, in the human species that this complexity is most marked; since the co-operation [sunergia] between woman and man aims not merely at existence, but at a happy existence."