Skating where the puck is going to be
When iMedia asked me to write a piece predicting the top digital marketing buzzwords of 2012, I thought, "Sure, that's right in my wheelhouse." I don't claim to be a jargon rockstar, but at the end of the day, if you need to take your tech speak to the next level, I can help you skate to where the puck is going to be. But rather than trying to boil the ocean, I'm going to keep this thing at 30,000 feet and focus on the low-hanging fruit.
If you're not grinding your teeth after that opener, you did better than I did when I wrote it. While I'm as much of a shameless slangster as the next digital marketer, I suffer the double whammy of being painfully aware of it, which creates lots of cringe-worthy moments for me. Last year, for instance, I made a New Year's resolution to stop using the word "robust," because it makes me throw up in my mouth a little. I lasted about three weeks, until a client presentation in which I stopped myself in mid-sentence and declared, "I was about to say that a dedicated app would be more 'robust,' but I made a resolution not to use that word any more. Ha ha, that was a close one." Everyone stared at me like I'd just peed on the conference table, no doubt contemplating how I must have been quietly judging them every time they used the word.
New resolution: Don't talk about resolutions.
This year, I'm exorcising my demons by fully embracing my industry's penchant for jargon -- and what better way than by endorsing some buzzwords that are just now creeping into the digital marketing lexicon? After all, our words define us, so identifying emerging terms might tell us something about where we're headed. Or at least where we want to go.
