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Channel: Comments on The Gobbledygook Manifesto -- Cutting Edge! Mission Critical! An analysis of gobbledygook in over 388,000 press releases sent in 2006
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Britton Manasco commented on 'The Gobbledygook Manifesto -- Cutting Edge!...

Terrific piece. I would add that marketers (in business technology, anyway) can learn more from their professional services people than their product people. The professional services folks are...

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Todd Defren commented on 'The Gobbledygook Manifesto -- Cutting Edge! Mission...

Brilliant. Great work!

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Jonathan Kranz commented on 'The Gobbledygook Manifesto -- Cutting Edge!...

How about "proactive" and "best practices," two of the most egregious BS offenders. Why do marketers rely on this nonsense? A lot of what you say is true -- many marketers neither understand the...

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Michael A. Stelzner commented on 'The Gobbledygook Manifesto -- Cutting Edge!...

You inspired a post on my site David!

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Melanie Surplice commented on 'The Gobbledygook Manifesto -- Cutting Edge!...

Hi David, You already know I find this stuff fascinating! It inspired a post on my blog today too - but what I find really interesting is the UK stats - only 1 in 11 (just under 10%) of the 264,000...

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Owen Lystrup commented on 'The Gobbledygook Manifesto -- Cutting Edge!...

Great post, David.

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Joan Stewart, The Publicity Hound commented on 'The Gobbledygook Manifesto --...

Great list of offensive words and phrases, many of which show up repeatedly in companies' incredibly boring and pompous boilerplate. I'd rather swallow shards of glass than have to read a press release...

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Pete Jelliffe commented on 'The Gobbledygook Manifesto -- Cutting Edge!...

Just did a little number crunching, and I just wanted to confrim your findings. 74,000 articles with at least one buzzword/388,000 total articles is only 19%. Of that 19%, only 13% (9895/74,000)...

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Barry Graubart commented on 'The Gobbledygook Manifesto -- Cutting Edge!...

David, LoL - great post. I love the chart, but the hype-master in me thinks you need to post it as a "top 10" list to increase your position on Digg.

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Jessica Zimet commented on 'The Gobbledygook Manifesto -- Cutting Edge!...

Read this post on marketingprofs.com, and would love to hear more about slicing the target audience into buyer segments and targeting each one. Hope you'll address it in future articles, or in your...

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Dave Schmidt commented on 'The Gobbledygook Manifesto -- Cutting Edge!...

Right on. But I need to add a few of the biggest culprits. I conducted a survey of several hundred editors on our list a few weeks ago. Over 90% thought the adjective "leading" was overused (as in "a...

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David Meerman Scott commented on 'The Gobbledygook Manifesto -- Cutting Edge!...

Dave, I would love to see your data! I agree that "leading" says nothing. I would really like to see the rest of your data. Can you post it here so others can see?? Thanks

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Jay Coffelt commented on 'The Gobbledygook Manifesto -- Cutting Edge! Mission...

World-class post. It is truly a win-win. You've pushed the envelope.

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John Richardson commented on 'The Gobbledygook Manifesto -- Cutting Edge!...

David, Great Post. These same words seem to end up in all of the mission statements too! No wonder nobody knows what their "mission" is... John

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David Meerman Scott commented on 'The Gobbledygook Manifesto -- Cutting Edge!...

John, You're right! And the words also end up on the "about us" page of the company Web site. Thanks for reading. David

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Ron Jones commented on 'The Gobbledygook Manifesto -- Cutting Edge! Mission...

I laughed myself almost to tears when I read your post. For the last six years, I've been in IT Consulting; first in the fortune 1000 market, now targeting SMB. I have a theory about the motivations...

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David Meerman Scott commented on 'The Gobbledygook Manifesto -- Cutting Edge!...

Ron, What a great comment -- many thanks. I love the story about (possibly) not making the cut in a job interview because you weren't gobbldygook compliant. Priceless stuff! But imagine if you had...

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Jay commented on 'The Gobbledygook Manifesto -- Cutting Edge! Mission...

Synergy is a big-time gobbledygook offender to me. Ditto for "leveraging" and "relationship management."

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cottageman commented on 'The Gobbledygook Manifesto -- Cutting Edge! Mission...

Excellent post! The stuff that is contained in many over-the-top press releases is truly priceless. This is of course where search engines and their keyword insight can help - no user would ever search...

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Sandy Calhoun commented on 'The Gobbledygook Manifesto -- Cutting Edge!...

Nice work. Read this next time you find yourself lost in a hailstorm of flying muck: Simple & Direct by Jacques Barzun. It's an old standby for the sane. Cheers, Sandy

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Mary Topper commented on 'The Gobbledygook Manifesto -- Cutting Edge! Mission...

Love the post - esp. that there is data behind it. I'm in tech PR and am a big proponent of leaving the ambiguous words and the office jargon out of our writing/ conversations. BUT - I find it ironic...

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George Dovel commented on 'The Gobbledygook Manifesto -- Cutting Edge!...

In 25 years of writing marketing materials for high-tech B2B, I'm sure I've committed every gobbledygook sin ever imagined and possibly created a few new sins along the way. Here are three additional...

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David Meerman Scott commented on 'The Gobbledygook Manifesto -- Cutting Edge!...

Wow George. Your perceptions are spot on. I agree 100%. Many thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts. David

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Bill Alexy commented on 'The Gobbledygook Manifesto -- Cutting Edge! Mission...

I think the word widget is overused

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Anton D'abo commented on 'The Gobbledygook Manifesto -- Cutting Edge! Mission...

This is interesting but you've forgotten that these phrases often exist in the "About X company" at the footer or in the Editorial Notes section. Were the footers excluded from your data? If not, this...

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Tatiana Tugbaeva commented on 'The Gobbledygook Manifesto -- Cutting Edge!...

Wow, David! Terrific job on this blog post! I am new to the industry, but I have noticed that B-to-B companies are especially guilty of using Gobbledygook or, as they call it, 'corporate language.' The...

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Ange commented on 'The Gobbledygook Manifesto -- Cutting Edge! Mission...

Just... a great and usefull analysis. A french copywriter.

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David Hunt commented on 'The Gobbledygook Manifesto -- Cutting Edge! Mission...

Great post. A couple additions: anything ending in -friendly, the suspicious noun value-add, and the redundant product anti-bacterial soap(what kind of soap is NOT anti-bacterial?). Also, you could do...

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Elizabeth Cockle commented on 'The Gobbledygook Manifesto -- Cutting Edge!...

Fantastic post! Almost two years later, none of these "cutting edge" terms have disappeared from marketing and PR copy. As a copywriter and official buzzword banisher, I'm always on the lookout for new...

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Patricia Faulhaber commented on 'The Gobbledygook Manifesto -- Cutting Edge!...

David, I just finished your New Rules book and printed off the free guides you have listed here. I just wanted to say great work on all! Although I have experience with all of the technologies...

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David Meerman Scott commented on 'The Gobbledygook Manifesto -- Cutting Edge!...

Thanks Patricia. Glad you enjoyed the book.

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Cyndy Mac commented on 'The Gobbledygook Manifesto -- Cutting Edge! Mission...

Brilliant! I highly recommend "Why Business People Speak Like Idiots" (Fugere, Hardaway and Warshawsky) http://tinyurl.com/bnuvve

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Ardis Lille commented on 'The Gobbledygook Manifesto -- Cutting Edge! Mission...

First, I take issue with your anecdotal method of gathering the 25 words. Not all of the words in your list are gobbledygook and with a little effort your polled participants could have come up with...

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David Meerman Scott commented on 'The Gobbledygook Manifesto -- Cutting Edge!...

Ardis Thanks for the comment. I updated the analysis for 2008 which you will find here http://www.webinknow.com/2009/04/top-gobbledygook-phrases-used-in-2008-and-how-to-avoid-them.html I'm not saying...

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KNITFreedom commented on 'The Gobbledygook Manifesto -- Cutting Edge! Mission...

Hi David, I think it would be helpful if you included a list of the top words not to use! I mean in a simple format like a list, that people could print out and pin to their foreheads (or their...

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KNITFreedom commented on 'The Gobbledygook Manifesto -- Cutting Edge! Mission...

I typed the words up, in case anyone else wants to copy and paste them. Next generation Flexible Robust World-class Scalable Easy-to-use Cutting edge Well-positioned Mission critical Market-leading...

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David Meerman Scott commented on 'The Gobbledygook Manifesto -- Cutting Edge!...

Thank you KNITFreedom

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Josh commented on 'The Gobbledygook Manifesto -- Cutting Edge! Mission...

David, very interesting and informative article. It amazes me how buzzwords spread throughout a company or industry like influenza. I hate corporate buzzwords so much; I created a blog about it...

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