PAAS
Unsucked:
Platform-as-a-service. The delivery of a computing platform and a set of software subsystems over the Internet. Yet another instance of soulless technical jargon trampling our childhoods.
Pain Point
Unsucked:
Problem.
Paperless Office
Unsucked:
The unattainable goal/fantasy of the digital age. Only happens when the printer is down, or the boss who needs his e-mail printed is out of town.
Paradigm
This new paradigm cuts through techno-jargon and targets the common sense marketing-driven requirements for creating a website designed to grow a business.
Unsucked:
Trumped up concept recently coined as a substitute for actual innovation.
paradigm shift
In order to overcome their current woes, Microsoft will need to undergo a paradigm shift.
Unsucked:
A new, crappy reality to which employees or customers must accommodate themselves. Change in basic assumptions or a profound shift in perception. Possibly the most overused, diluted, otherwise useful and descriptive phrase.
Parking Lot This
Unsucked:
Talk about later.
Passionista
We need to develop a strategy to move homemaker passionistas further down the Febreze purchase funnel.
Unsucked:
Person who is interested in something. Usually whatever cheap trinket you’re hawking to hide the shame that’s become your life.
Path Forward
So, path forward, we will have a meeting on Monday to discuss and go over the budget then.
Unsucked:
Next or in the future.
Unsucked:
A three-letter acronym for “I don’t know how to use the internet so I’m attaching a text document to this e-mail message/web page.”
Pencil In
Unsucked:
Schedule, with the understanding that you are going to flake at the last minute in favor of someone more important.
Performant
Unsucked:
Fast enough.
Personal Brand
You need an engaging social media strategy to build your personal brand.
Unsucked:
Hairstyle and choice of coffee. Reputation.
personal reasons
Unsucked:
Dirty behavior, poorly hidden, the discovery of which forces a highly placed individual to leave their plummy gig. May include lying on resume, having affair, and/or substance abuse.
Piggyback
Just to piggyback on what Chad said, in addition to a new menu on the corporate jet, we should think about adding massaging seats.
Unsucked:
Add to/on.
ping me
Unsucked:
E-mail me, chat with me, or let me know.
pivot
If our innovative social interaction model doesn’t get any traction, we’re going to pivot to kittens.
Unsucked:
Chase the same rabbit down a different hole in search of its pot of gold. Change direction.
platform
Investors are bullish on our innovative platform for information and knowledge sharing.
Unsucked:
A thing that does some stuff. Money!
platisher
Platishers are publishers that provide the audience with a platform to contribute content in an effort to generate traffic.
Unsucked:
A novel portmanteau combining “publisher” and “desperate pandering”.
player
Send me a list of all the players who will be at today’s sales team lunch.
Unsucked:
Person or participant. Unless you are dealing with a Bond villain or toddler MBAs, meetings are not games.
Point Person
Jean-Claude will be the point person organizing the meetings, structure and follow up.
Unsucked:
The member of a project team who is specifically designated to ignore your e-mail.
Portal
Unsucked:
An outstanding puzzle-platform video game released in 2007. The precursor to the amazing Portal 2. A web page with a bunch of links on it.
Post Mortem
Unsucked:
Review or retrospective.
Powwow
Oh, yes! That’s very important to me. Let’s have a powwow about this first thing tomorrow.
Unsucked:
Yet more unthinking appropriation of Native American culture. Meeting.
pre-buzz
Their viral marketing endeavored to create some kind of drama to generate pre-buzz before the sandwich was officially released.
Unsucked:
Discernible hype emitted during the early stages of consumer excitement or soon after the insertion of the concept into the marketplace.
pre-work (n.)
Most facilitators and team leaders I’ve talked to see the value of assigning some sort of pre-work before a virtual meeting.
Unsucked:
Preparation. Specific tasks to be completed in advance of an activity. A vague term for heinous busywork designed to camouflage the level of effort involved.
Preso
Unsucked:
Presentation or slides.
press release
Unsucked:
A tedious, needlessly verbose blog post.
privacy
Unsucked:
Archaic. The state of being hidden from the view of others.
Proactive
We’re aligning with business imperatives and including a proactive partner portfolio recruitment plan run by the marketing organization.
Unsucked:
Aggressively committed to accomplishing something vague.
productize
Productization may reduce inefficiencies in developing and delivering offerings
Unsucked:
Sell an idea you developed for one client to as many others as possible with no additional work. Also, turn a half-baked technology into a product by virtue of some marketing materials.
proof point
The most important proof point is that we can not just talk about our results, but also institutionalize it in terms of bringing a chief sustainability officer for our group.
Unsucked:
Supporting example.
Pull the Trigger
Unsucked:
Execute an idea by firing squad. Decide or do.
punt
We only have three requests for that bug fix. Let’s punt it to the next major release.
Unsucked:
Finish later.
Push Back
I got push back from the marketing committee on the new logo design.
Unsucked:
Resistance or opposition. Frequently in the form of political maneuvering or stupidity sufficient to generate a physical force.
Push the Envelope
As if Burger King’s major menu development in 2010 wasn’t enough, new owners 3G Capital and a fresh team of executives decided to push the envelope.
Unsucked:
In mathematics, an envelope is a curve that is tangential to each one of a family of curves in a plane. A flight envelope is the particular combination of speed, height, stress and other aeronautical factors that form the bounds of safe operation. To “push the envelope” is to take an aircraft to or beyond designated altitude and speed limits.
Push-Pull Strategy
Making push-pull marketing a part of your everyday efforts optimizes opportunities.
Unsucked:
Shoving your product so hard down your customer’s throat that it creates vacuum suction. As feasible as getting to your destination by latching onto one of those Doctor Doolittle llama things.
Putting Out Fires
Just a heads-up: I spent all morning putting out fires, so I’m not totally prepared for this afternoon’s meeting.
Unsucked:
Solving unexpected problems.
Quick Win
What is the playbook to get a quick win with your performance management projects?
Unsucked:
The appearance of quick, substantive progress, often at the expense of longer-term goals.
Quick-and-dirty
We just need a quick-and-dirty solution for this.
Unsucked:
Short term fix that requires no thought. See quick win.
r&d
Unsucked:
Rip off and Duplicate.
raconteur
Unsucked:
A marketing guy who digs through other people’s garbage for shiny things he finds impressive and washes his food obsessively before eating.
Rainmaker
As our business continues to scale dramatically, it’s a perfect time to bring in a seasoned rainmaker.
Unsucked:
A colleague who eats souls and pisses money.
Ramp You Up
Unsucked:
Fill you in.
Reach Out To
I am going to reach out to the Senior VP of Finance next week.
Unsucked:
Contact, as though from under the bed or behind a tree in a dark forest, extending a small moist hand.
Realize Negative Gains
We want avoid the need to realize negative gains until we have buy-in from all the stakeholders.
Unsucked:
Accept losses.
Reco
My reco is to go with the one with the best in class value proposition.
Unsucked:
Recommendation.
Red Ocean
The market for energy drinks is a huge red ocean, but with a differentiated “focus” product.
Unsucked:
Crowded, competitive market.
Refudiate
Sarah Palin’s status as a spokesperson for the U.S. was repudiated by linguists and liberals across the nation after she urged Muslims to “refudiate” a controversial mosque and compared herself to William Shakespeare.
Unsucked:
Reject or refuse.
Reinvent the Wheel
Don’t reinvent the wheel—just rotate the tires to make it right for the social track.
Unsucked:
Devise a new solution from scratch when you could have easily copied from someone else.
reorg
Unsucked:
Structure change.
resolutionary
Unsucked:
Delivering a radically innovative degree of precise access to your wallet.
Resources
Unsucked:
People, money, or that one section of your website that’s just a shameful junk drawer of miscellaneous links.
return on investment (ROI)
Unsucked:
Payoff.
revolutionize
So how exactly is the Cherry Car Wash going to revolutionize the automotive car wash industry?
Unsucked:
Improve. Introduce a new product or service within an otherwise banal and disappointing industry, such as airlines or Mexican chain restaurants.
Riff
Unsucked:
Go off on a useless tangent.
Rightsize, Rightsizing
We need to rightsize the department in order to meet our profit objective.
Unsucked:
Chicken shit for firing.
Roadmap
Unsucked:
Project plan (usually includes a timeline).
Robust
Our production team is robust enough to support the level of demand we expect to see in Q1.
Unsucked:
Strong or powerful.
Rock Star
Unsucked:
Adequate programmer.
roll-up (n.)
Unsucked:
Collection.
Round Table
Unsucked:
Meeting or conference.
royal baby
Unsucked:
Much like diamonds, a common item whose false scarcity and class associations have been trumped up by a sophisticated marketing campaign.
run it up the flagpole
I’m not sure. I’m going to have to run that up the flagpole and get back to you.
Unsucked:
Float an idea. Check initial reactions before committing. Prepare to throw a colleague under the bus if it isn’t well-received.
Runway
With a $4 million priced series A investment, we’ll have the runway to fully launch our beard-density tracking app.
Unsucked:
Amount of time before layoffs.