BUZZWORDS _^(corporate)

Academic Junk Food - bizarre degree courses (Soap opera studies, etc.) of no academic value to students and no interest to employers.

Aljazeerification - to have your hitherto obscure business thrust into the limelight by external events. Derived from the hitherto obscure Arab language TV channel, Al Jazeera.

Anecgloat - a story subtly (or often not so subtly) designed to reflect well on the teller.

Assmosis - to gain promotion because your brown-nosing abilities rather than your ability to do your job. Also known as suck-cession.

Autoagents - pieces of software that attempt to second-guess your consumption patterns.

Betamaxed - when a great technology is eclipsed by an inferior one, usually because of marketing muscle (e.g. IBM and Apple).

Brandalism - the way that libraries, art galleries etc. now have their walls defaced with the logos of their corporate sponsors.

Brain dump - usually used as a synonym for brain storming. In fact a shockingly stupid word to use seriously because of the obvious scatological witticisms it invites about the contents of your head.

Canine Cuisine - a very different kind of dog food that the Koreans plan to serve up during the World Cup, in spite of western sensibilities.

Conspicuous non-consumption - a type of snobbery based on what an individual chooses not to buy. (e.g. 'we'd never have a satellite dish.')

Corporate icon - a small symbolic image designed to provide a visual representation of company values, a window into the corporate soul. A particularly apposite term as money is the new religion and company HQs the new cathedrals.

Corporate vanity publishing - when businesses pay vast sums to produce beautiful coffee table books about themselves, their histories and their visions. The only people who will ever read these are the proofreaders at the publishing house.

Corprocrats - high earning, high achieving individuals who are far more at home with other members of the international business elite than they are with ordinary citizens if their own country. In the UK, the kind of the people who only ever venture outside the M25 on a plane.

Cost envelope - the range of costs within which a major project's eventual price tag is predicted to fall. Those who embark on large infrastructure contracts regularly find themselves throwing the cost envelope in the shredder.

Culturally appropriate - weasel words used, usually by first world companies, to defend their actions in the third world. (eg. Mexican autoworkers get paid far less than their US counterparts because their salaries are culturally appropriate)

Cyclosis - the paranoia and bewilderment suffered by CEOs who have just realised that their company's performance over the last decade has entire been down to the favourable economic cycle - and that a trained chimp could have achieved similar results.

Deceptionist - a receptionist whose role is to confuse, intimidate and obstruct rather than facilitate access to those he or she works for.

Deja-moo - Bullshit you've definitely heard somewhere before.

Dumbing up - The practice of look at garbage culture (e.g. reality TV, etc.) with the kind of intellectual rigour normally reserved for Shakespeare or Chekov. See academic junk food.

Eco-imperialism - The practice of forcing third world suppliers to adopt (for them) ruinously expensive first world environmental standards, in order to maintain green credentials. (Funnily enough companies that do this rarely pay the same suppliers first world prices - but then that wouldn't be culturally appropriate [q.v.])

Educrat - a person who works in education but has never taught a day in their lives.

Emotional correctness - the self-censorship practiced by large swathes of the media since September 11th.

Equity victimhood - the increasing belief amongst punters whose shares nosedive that someone (government, brokers, etc.) should compensate them for their losses.

Eurocreep - the process by which tourist spending and foreign income will result in the UK effectively becoming a dual currency economy with most businesses pricing and transacting Euros alongside sterling.

Extreme Cuisine - Culinary outlandishness in any form. Started with killer curries in the 70s, moved through offal and ostriches in the 80s and 90s. Now tends to involve dishes made with snakes and guinea pigs.

Fart Blanche - The (usually mistaken and usually male)belief that you can 'drop one' anywhere without detection.

Foyerfication - the practice, popular in the property industry, of tarting up bland 60s and 70s office blocks by slapping on big name architect designed entrances.

Fraud curve - what those who build electronic banking systems must stay ahead of.

Glocalisation - the natural end product of trying to 'think global and act local'. In practice often means window dressing your outlets to look like the real local businesses whose bankruptcy your chain's arrival will cause.

Gung holier than thou/ Gung holiness - An unquestioning sense of moral right allied to a martial attitude and plenty of military hardware.

IANAL - text messaging abbreviation: I Am Not A Lawyer.

Identity theft - the misappropriation of an individual's identity, usually accomplished through stealing data such as credit card details, passport numbers etc.

Job-depth - the amount of influence an individual's role allows him or her over their workplace and/ or job function. CEOs have loads, janitors, somewhat less.

Latterati - people who frequent bookstores, but only to use the on-site coffee shops and read the free magazines.

Manorexia - the male version of the popular wasting disease. Usually manifests itself not as self-starvation, but as excessive gym use and compulsive fat watching.

Market of one - the idea that via electronic channels businesses can tailor their products to an individual's exacting requirements. See also mass bespokery.

Multislacking - to do several different types of very little at once (e.g. watch MTV, eat Doritos and download music).

Negatively impact - not particularly new but probably still the example par excellence of managerial wankspeak. Means harm or damage. So why not use one of these fine, transparent words? Well, if consultancy types did it might become clear that they were stating the obvious and that would negatively impact their ability to charge thousands of pounds per day.

NewTrack or NuTrack - the word currently being bandied around to describe whatever is going to replace Railtrack.

Nutraceutical - A food product with some claimed health benefit (e.g. tastes great and reduces cholesterol).

Opinion formers - Leading figures is the media, industry, politics and the arts who demonstrate thought leadership. The people that The Economist claims make up its readership.

Panic Management - sending out the right message in order to keep the population in a heightened state of awareness, without freaking people out completely.

People based channel - A non-electronic means of selling, for instance, a shop.

Political equity - what big corporate donors hope they are buying.

Pornographic e-mmunity - the peculiar ethical quirk which means that while it's considered a laugh to send your friends images of scarcely imaginable turpitude via e-mail, producing the same material in magazine form would result in them never speaking to you again.

Seattle size - the point in its growth when a company ceases to be seen as cuddly capitalism and becomes a target for anti-globalisation protestors.

Terminal care facility - business euphemism - a retirement home.

Text pot - a person, usually young, whose phone frequently beeps alerting its owner to the arrival of SMS messages, and bystanders to his or her high social standing.

Text starved - to have a largely silent phone.

Thought leadership - the ability to say the blindingly obvious before someone else does.

Trend rifts - occur when something companies weren't expecting suddenly happens. Eg. massive growth of the internet and SMS messaging.

True North - the right direction to be heading in. Often used in conjunction with such delightful constructs such as ethical compass.

Tweenies - the 8-12 year old group; seen as crucial because their consumption patterns are still malleable.

Ultraretirement - what happens when you retire at 55 and die at 100, usually split between ultraleisure and a terminal care facility. Ruinously expensive for those of us still working.

Verbification - the tendency - usually American - to turn perfectly good nouns into perfectly bad verbs. Eg incentivise, productise, remoting, tasking, visioning. Vulture Capitalists - VCs who circle ailing companies (often dot.coms) waiting to strip the corporate carrion.

Vulture Tourists - travellers who have rushed to take advantage of bargain flights and holidays in the wake of September 11th.

Wealth management - personal finance for the very rich.

'Yurp' - favoured pronouciation of 'Europe' now there is a Texan in the White House.

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