Jargon or jargoff?

You would think by now that everyone knows jargon is a turn-off (although looking at many business communications and web sites you might question that).

But at the end of the day anyone bringing a business model to the table and trying to monetise their current competencies needs a paradigm shift if they want to communicate a seamless value proposition.

Sorry, I slipped for a moment - please ignore that last paragraph. Now where was I?

Oh yes, jargon. It's a turn-off. So should you avoid jargon and cliches like the plague (sorry, can't help myself)?

Well, yes and no, IMHO (stop it!!)

If you want to communicate your ideas effectively, most people agree that jargon is bad and puts people off, particularly if you are trying to sell something (and who isn't?). At least, your jargon is bad.

But if you trying to communicate with someone from a group that has its own jargon - for example doctors, CEOs, publishers, web developers, nuclear physicists - then their jargon is good.

When I looked after sales and marketing for an ERP developer specialising in publishing software, I was careful to use publishers' jargon and my copy was littered with references to isbns, pub dates, returns rates, extents, pp&b orders and advances (look them up).

If you're talking to a doctor it helps to know the difference between adduction and abduction and if you're selling to a CEO and you don't know what EBIT and RoE refer to you won't look particularly credible.

Using your own jargon (unless you're talking to someone else who also uses it) says "I'm more interested in myself and my own field than I am in you." It might even say "I'm smarter than you" and no sales or marketing person should ever want to say that.

Using the other person's jargon says "I understand you, I understand your industry and your interests and I can help you" elegantly and subtly, much more so than writing reams about your experience and how smart you are.

Or at least, in the main, by and large, in the circumstances that's my perspective when all is said and done in the fullness of time. (Damn you Steve, stop it).

So - jargon is neither good nor bad but thinking makes it so. So think in your customer's language and use his or her jargon, not yours.