Don’t speak doglish
I’m really enjoying Lois Kelly’s book, Beyond Buzz, which she mailed me after I blogged about the executive summary.
In a written Q&A that was packaged with the book, she says this. Read it, substituting in your mind the words “nonprofit” for “company” and “donor” for “customer.”
Avoid DOGLISH at all costs. What I mean is that companies speak their own language of what they think is transformational, innovative, or revolutionary to customers. Yet customers speak an entirely different language and don’t have a clue what companies are talking about. (Or they know and don’t care.) Sort of like when we ramble on and on to our dogs, and they look at us with this puzzled look wanting us to just say, “sit,” and “treat.” Talk about what customers want to know. Avoid the buzz words and self-congratulatory adjectives.
I get a lot of Doglish in my inbox.
Avoid at all costs the following doglish: sustainable development, empowerment of disenfranchised groups, CSR, interface, strategic, strategize, leverage, synergy, taking to scale… arf! arf!
Syndicate
So true.
Thanks again for getting right to the point.
I’ve recommended your Maryland Nonprofits Workshop to a couple of nonprofit leaders in Baltimore. Perhaps I should sign up as well.
Catherine