The "collaboration" word

It bugs me the way people seem to set out to make things harder than they need to be - no doubt in an attempt to make themselves seem clever and their software indispensable. One of the words that press my buttons currently is "collaboration". How have we managed to turn talking to each other into such a fad? An e-mail exchange I have just had reminded me of my attempt to come up with one of those one liners to describe my BBC job that I was called on to do with depressing regularity. I suggested ""Increasing the frequency and quality of the conversations that get your job done". I still rather like it.

Comments

[Salv Reina]

I run a programme called "Making it Easier to Find Who and What you Need". I inherited the title and intially tried to think of a snappier name. I didn't manage to come up with anything; reading your post did make me think that, however clumsy, the title definitely does tell you something about what I am trying to do.

I have dabbled in "Collaboration" stuff for some years now. I agree it is an unsatisifactory word as it's so broad and can mean lots of things to lots of different people - it also has bad connotations in Europe which doesn't help.

[Johnnie Moore]

Hear, hear. I'd add "innovation" to that list of buzzwords that seem to make simple things seem complicated.

[Euan Semple]

@Salv - hadn't thought about the "collaborator" angle

@Johnnie - and of course we all know you can't innovate without a committee!

[Eva Schiffer]

Great post. I get so tired of people trying to sound clever and if you ask them "And what does that actually mean in practice" they can't really tell you.

Depending on my mood, I either describe my job as "Confusing people for money", "Kicking ass with a smile" or "Helping people figure out what their problem is and what they can do to solve it"
Eva

[Roland Harwood]

I was speaking to a bunch of academics we work with recently and they said that the word 'collaboration' and 'innovation' evokes the boxes on their research grant applications that they fill in to get the money. I.e. they talk about how they are gonna collaborate with this professor in Belgium because that's what is expected on the application, but you never actually collaborate with the guy! I guess it's what happens when money is made available and gets attached to certain buzz words, not the words themselves. But it's something we need to watch out for all the time.

[Niall Cook]

I much prefer "cooperate" (apart from the fact that I never know whether to hyphenate it or not).