When talking about why people buy computers, there are two broad categories, "replacement computers" (those which replace an older machine being retired) and "new placement computers" (those which do not). Now, sure, you have to call them something, but "new placements" sounds kind of markety. Then again, I felt the same way about using "seats" to...
Here are some phrases I jotted down during a meeting. I don't even know what meeting it was. (They were jotted on some scratch paper.) These don't count so much as Microspeak as they do just assorted management babble. Sometimes I wish management would speak in plain English. But then the rest of us might realize that they don't know what they'r...
The real estate department at Microsoft has their own weird jargon. In the real estate world, you don't "work" in a building; you are "housed" there. Here are a few citations. The new buildings will be able to house N workers. Employees housed at Facility X will be able to use temporary parking spaces being constructed at Location Y.
This is the entire text of an actual piece of email I received from a high-level manager in response to some feedback I sent. Thanks. There is a lot of norming around any of these mechanisms as well as a certain amount of ability to hold ones ground in these interactions in addition to the admin of the rule being good enough as discussed. Bo...
I have only one citation, so it may not become proper Microspeak. Too early to tell. Further discussion will definitely generate a lot of good ideas and help drive them for pre-envisioning. Established Microspeak or not, I still don't know what it means.
The word actionable has as its primary meaning "providing grounds for legal action", but in the world of management, it is the secondary meaning "capable of being acted upon" that is more common. Something that is actionable provides a specific demand for action. Although I'm not necessarily a big fan of the word itself, I definitely appreciate th...
The jargon phrase going forward has largely replaced the more mundane equivalent from now on. It appears that I'm not the only person who is bothered by this phrase. Sample usages: Notice that the phrase going forward usually adds little to the sentence. You can delete it from all of the sentences above and nobody would notice a difference.
If you leave your computer unattended and logged in, especially if you work on the security team, you may come back to your office to find that somebody used your computer to sent email out to the entire team with the subject line FMLA. FMLA stands for "Fire my lame anterior" (except with another word for anterior). The implication is that somebo...
This term is used outside Microsoft as well, but it still bothers me. The value proposition is the benefit that the end-user gets from your product, the thing that convinces them to buy it. What makes it even more annoying is when it is abbreviated to value prop. Sample usage: "The main value proposition of this model is that it permits changes t...
At Microsoft, you'll hear the phrase "forcing function" and it won't be in reference to differential equations or to user interface design. Rather, it means a set of circumstances that forces a decision to be made or which forces an action to be taken that previously had no hard deadline. Example: "The impending Y2K threat served as a forcing f...
