Let's 'Double-Click' on the Latest Cringeworthy Corporate Buzzword

https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/workplace/double-click-corporate-buzzword-cringe-421e8cce

by impish9208 • 2 years ago

16 44 2 years ago

wsj.com

chrisjj• 2 years ago

https://archive.ph/qUr0U

HappySweeney• 2 years ago

This link only shows the first two paragraphs and then just comments.

UIUC_062• 2 years ago

I tried archiving it in a browser where I have a WSJ subscription, and it still came out that way.

fifteen15063• 2 years ago

I really think paywalled articles shouldn't be accepted on HN...

chewmieser2• 2 years ago

Because? I subscribe to WSJ - so I can read this just fine. I don’t see why you can’t as well if you find the content interesting. It’s the same with academic journals, people are just sharing what’s interesting and that just so happens to be behind a paywall.

If you remove all paid content you would just have blogs left eventually… And all they’re doing is just paying for the content and regurgitating it.

DowagerDave5• 2 years ago

> people are just sharing what’s interesting and that just so happens to be behind a paywall.

so not really sharing, then?

YurgenJurgensen2• 2 years ago

The upvote system should naturally solve this problem. Articles that people can't read won't get updoots. Because nobody would vote on something before at least reading the article, right? Right?

fifteen15063• 2 years ago

But I can't downvote so...

macNchz• 2 years ago

I’ve been hearing “double click” used in business meetings for at least ten years.

YurgenJurgensen2• 2 years ago

Now that the kids-these-days™ have let the tablet and the phone replace the PC, and most PCs are basically web browsers where everything is single click, saying "double click" almost certainly marks you as not on the cutting edge of tech slang.

mysterydip• 2 years ago

On the other hand, I don't think "let's tap that" will get much further than an email from HR :)

ehaveman• 2 years ago

i've been complaining about people using "double click" in meetings for at least a decade. how is this news?

bryanrasmussen2• 2 years ago

ehaverman and macNchz work in the same place!

sebastiennight2• 2 years ago

A place that skipped the recent invention of the "hypertext link", which enables you to access stuff in half the clicks.

But don't worry, once they upgrade to Windows 98 and its new desktop experience, they'll update the lingo

marcuskane2• 2 years ago

To counter your anecdote with mine, I can't recall ever hearing this term used until this year, and I've now heard it multiple times from multiple people in the last few months.

Maybe your company, region or industry were the starting point and it just became widespread recently.

Aardwolf• 2 years ago

I didn't hear it yet but I guess it's coming soon then...

seadan83• 2 years ago

Oh my, it was difficult to not chuckle with this comment immediately before: "Shorten it to the first letter and the last three and see how long it lasts."

benterix2• 2 years ago

How can one create a whole WSJ article on the simple fact that "Doublce-Click" is corporate slang? I don't know - because I can't read the article. And if I could, I would do it only of pure curiosity what the author manages to fill in the remaining 99% of the article with.

UIUC_062• 2 years ago

Latest trends on stupid corporate jargon are legitimate news. I have a subscription, so some of what you miss:

The phrase is “innovative,” says Beth DelGiacco, a vice president of corporate communications at biotech company Argenx, who praises its efficiency.
“It’s only a few syllables. Everyone knows what you mean when you say it,” says DelGiacco, who regularly trots it out with peers.

The same is true of "drill down." It's not explored why "double-click" (3 syllables) is better than "drill down" (2).

Tech-inflected buzzwords are especially apt to gain traction—think “network,” “bandwidth” or “take offline”—because they can sound smart or cutting-edge, says Doug Guilbeault, an assistant professor at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business who has studied corporate jargon.
The inventor of the literal double-click, former Apple designer Bill Atkinson, isn’t convinced. Reached while boating on a recent weekday, Atkinson, now retired, says he’s never heard anyone use double-click as a metaphor and would steer clear of such usage himself, preferring more straightforward language.

epiccoleman• 2 years ago

Reached while boating on a recent weekday, Atkinson, now retired, says he’s never heard anyone use double-click as a metaphor

Boy, there's a sentence with a lot to envy packed in

worksonmine• 2 years ago

"Everyone knows what you mean when you say it."

Really? I'm still not sure I know what it means.

tacitusarc• 2 years ago

It’s a giant nothing burger. Nothing interesting or of substance in it. Which is too bad because it would be interesting to know how corporate jargon trends get started. I’d be interested in research on something like jargon use over time compared with innovation.

griftrejection3• 2 years ago

Have you considered that linguists have studied jargon before? There might even be books about it.

DowagerDave5• 2 years ago

My boss (who used this one for a while, but haven't heard it too much lately) just asked me to review the agenda prior to tomorrow's meeting so I could "prime my cache". The CEO proudly claimed she's "always been a data nerd!" in today's town hall.

I kind of miss the days when being a nerd was not a cool, even edgy, social statement but something you did to escape the MBA-types who have now stolen it from us.

griftrejection3• 2 years ago

I'm sure they blame it all on remote work, which has nothing at all to do with trying to prop up commercial real estate.

benterix2• 2 years ago

I would recommend another article instead:

https://www.themuse.com/advice/10-annoying-buzzwords-the-who...

It's not paywalled, straight to the point, lists several annoyances and offers some suggestions on what terms use instead.

everybodyknows• 2 years ago

Furthermore the Muse's title is free of cutesy fad words -- "cringeworthy"?

DowagerDave5• 2 years ago

They mildly rebuke the use of "Dogfooding" but I think it's still mostly used in techmical circles. I have a PM who hates it because it's gross and uses "drink our own champagne". I retorted that eating your own dog food should be a little gross and embarrassing; if you've got champagne you've waited too long.

timbit42• 2 years ago

Shorten it to the first letter and the last three and see how long it lasts.

chatmasta• 2 years ago

I don’t like it because it means “zoom in” or “focus on,” but in what interface does double clicking so that?

Maybe we should call it “let’s two finger pinch on this.”

sebastiennight2• 2 years ago

Let's "double tap"

Finnucane2• 2 years ago

“let’s two finger pinch on this.”

A move known as 'The Asimov'.

DowagerDave5• 2 years ago

"That's an interesting idea, Martin. Let's pinch to zoom in on that."

parpfish• 2 years ago

People start using cliched buzzwords because they hear other busniess-y people using them and they want to talk to those business-y people in their own vernacular.

But I think, deep down, almost everybody using these buzzwords hates the buzzwords.

Yet we end up converging to this terrible prisoners-dillema equilibrium where all the business people start code-switching to talk like buzzword-assholes and hate themselves for it but they do't realize we could all just agree to stop doing it and we'd all be happier.

Finnucane2• 2 years ago

They want to be first-movers in the buzzwords space.

bitsinthesky• 2 years ago

It’s like parroting the king in the royal courtroom but for the 21st century. Look what happened to Spain as a warning, next thing anyone knew, one day their whole country woke up talking with a lisp.

Y_Y• 2 years ago

The Castillian lisp is only popular in some regions of Spain, and did not originate from people mimicking a king.

It's still a better lisp than CL though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_Spanis...

munificent• 2 years ago

they want to talk to those business-y people in their own vernacular.

I don't think it's about using their language for understanding. I think it's because they want to send a signal "Look, I'm like you. Let me be in your in-group." It's a tribal signal.

but they do't realize we could all just agree to stop doing it and we'd all be happier.

The problem is that everyone wants to be in the high status in-groups, but the high status in-groups don't want to let all the rabble in. This is a perpetually unstable equilibrium. Once any given high status in-group signal becomes widely known by lower-status people, it ceases to be a useful signal for actual high status people (and, worse, eventually becomes a signal for "low status person trying to look high status") so must be discarded and replaced with a new one.

Once you realize it, this phenomenon is everywhere. It's the engine that drives almost all of fashion. It's why buzzwords and jargon come and go. It's where home furnishing and interior design fads stem from. It's why so very few things in our highly social human lives are ever really timeless.

griftrejection3• 2 years ago

No, I'm sorry, there actually are true believers. I think some people just have trouble countenancing the idea that maybe some of the people we've given all the wealth and power to really are just dolts. This tends to have an unraveling effect on people's personal beliefs.

yalogin• 2 years ago

Why is double click new? I have been using it for many years as a phrase when presenting concepts and have heard people use it too

DowagerDave5• 2 years ago

I'm excited to hear what the WSJ has to say about "fire, dust and bussin'". Look forward to the Business Insider's expose: Boujee vs. Drip!

Let's 'Double-Click' on the Latest Cringeworthy Corporate Buzzword

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