Keyword ‘semantics’

Business Practice

I hate “quality” “products” (and so should you)

"Quality" is so abstract, ill-defined, and over-used, it doesn't mean anything. "Product" is about as descriptive as "widget." So I'm banning both from my office.

by Andrew Swenson
Quality Cleaners Drive-In sign

image credit: debaird™ on Flickr (see below for link)

There are plenty of cliché business words and phrases I hate (“optimize,” “low-hanging fruit,” “web 2.0,” “leverage,” and so on), but none as much as two words I’ve recently decided to ban from my vocabulary and my office: 1) “Quality” and 2) “Product”.

Why I hate “quality”

I owe my contempt for “quality” to Dr. Brian Till (author of The Truth About Creating Brands People Love). During a marketing and branding seminar I took with him, Till refused to accept “quality” as a satisfactory position description or brand equity.

His point: you can always be more specific.

Marketing

We’re not all marketers now

It's not marketing that needs to be more pervasive in organizations. It's people who care about customers.

by Andrew Swenson

image credit LongitudeLatitude on Flickr

Perhaps I’m just piddling in semantics, but it really bothers me when the “marketing” term is applied to any and every customer-facing activity. Lately it seems that anyone with a Twitter account is considered “doing marketing.”

The McKinsey Quarterly, published by the international management consultancy McKinsey & Company, is the latest to elevate the claim that “we’re all marketers now” with an article of the same name.  In fact, authors Tom French, Laura LaBerge, and Paul Magill make some relatively lofty proclamations (emphasis original):