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Business Buzz
with Harry Pearson
Keeping up with the lingo
Award-winning columnist Harry ponders the ever-changing lexicon of business buzzwords
Blue sky thinking – what do you think of when skies are blue ?
At the start of the football season a friend of mine fell into conversation about the game with a neighbour . When the subject of the Ebac Northern league came up the bloke said : “ There was a fella wrote a book about it years back , The Far Corner . Harry Pearson . I wonder if he ’ s still alive .”
From this you may judge that , when it comes to my public profile , I could use a bit of help . Maybe from somebody like Chloe Clover , one of the bright young stars of the Tees Tech Awards . Clover ’ s exciting Wander Films are offering to “ turbo charge your brand awareness ”.
A quick glance through their social media feed will bring you to language not normally found in the rather conservative discussions of big business . No declaration of news ever starts without a “ Woah !” and every statement is littered with such exclamations as “ mega ”, “ epic ” and even “ super-stoked ”!
The Middlesbrough-based firm is , as you may judge , ahead of the curve and riding on a new wave . Which all sounds , well , epic to me , though I can ’ t help wondering what my dad would make of it .
You see , Dad started work in the Teesside steel industry way back before the dawn of business lingo , when the only person who took a “ hands-on ” approach to work was an osteopath , “ hitting the ground running ” was the preserve of paratroopers and the only optics anyone had heard of were attached to a bottle of Bell ’ s scotch .
All that changed in the late 1970s when new senior management started to come into industry from business schools . Dad came home scratching his head after his first encounter with one of them .
“ He told me I had to learn to ‘ think outside the box ,’” my dad announced . “ I never even knew I was inside a bloody box in the first place .”
Worse yet , the new manager had invited my father to come up with some “ blue sky ideas ”. “ At the minute all I can think of is a sky that ’ s blue ,” my dad said .
“ Why don ’ t you put some music on , turn off the lights and see what comes into your mind ,” my mother suggested helpfully .
My mother had been an infant school teacher . Early
in her career she played a recording of the Overture from Swan Lake to a class of six-year-olds in Redcar and invited them to shut their eyes and let their imaginations roam .
When the record had finished she asked what pictures Tchaikovsky ’ s music had conjured in their minds . “ My dad ’ s garage ,” one of the boys said . My mother was used to dealing with the Teesside male .
“ Well , that was another thing he said ,” my father explained . “ He said we ’ d all get together with our blue-sky ideas and then ‘ We ’ ll put a record on and see who dances .’”
“ Well ,” my mother said , “ I only hope it ’ s not Ken Gowland , because he clod-hops all over everyone ’ s toes whenever he dances . I had to wear safety boots at the last Christmas do .”
Business jargon changes faster than David Beckham ’ s hairstyle and these days all these phrases – once the , yes , cutting edge of buzzwords – have gone into the dustbin of history , replaced by “ idea showers ”, “ helicopter views ”, “ drilling down ”, “ bandwidth challenges ”, “ ping me ” and “ holistic cradle-to-grave approaches ”.
In the offices of today it ’ s unlikely even the old duffers are getting their ducks in a row before running them up a flagpole and seeing if anyone salutes .
“ It all came in from America ,” my dad says , when I bring the subject up . “ These new people kept on saying , ‘ it ’ s in the ballpark ’ and ‘ step up to the plate ’. I said , ‘ You should say ‘ it ’ s in the football ground ’ and ‘ approach the wicket .’ But you couldn ’ t make them see sense .”
My dad then utters an expression that on Teesside at least will never go out of fashion : “ Daft buggers ”.
Harry Pearson ’ s latest book The Farther Corner – A Sentimental Return to North-East Football is out now .
The voice of business in the Tees region | 109