My Top 5 Buzzwords from 2012

As yet another month, and year quite frankly approaches its conclusion, I wanted to do something a little different for my post.  I wanted to take a look a few buzzwords. 

You know, those little words or phrases that appear and just seem to bore into the brains and vocabularies of every person with a voice, a pen or a keyboard. A good indication to know when something has become a buzzword or buzz phrase is when you can’t go an hour without a colleague using it or you read it in blog posts regardless of where you turn.  Sometimes, the reaction is a physical twitch that emerges without control.  You will see someone have some sort of physical reaction and wonder, what the heck is up with him?  That would be the reaction to overused buzzwords.  It happens to all of us, so we should at least have fun using them.

Interestingly enough a lot of these buzzwords appear to have started in the social media space and transcended to the rest of the business environment.

Anyway, there are a lot more, but here are 5 that I find interesting:

1.      Cadence

This little gem is surfacing just about everywhere.  From the cadence of accountability to the cadence of software releases, “we” as a collective, want to make sure that we march to the same beat I guess and therefore, need our cadence.

It will be interesting to see if this word follows us into 2013 as a popular buzzword.

Image compliments for racepoint.com

 2.  Community

Community is not new.  Prior to social, we all thought about community in terms of where we lived.  Big business who want to be involved in their local communities often set up Community Relations or Community Liaison Committees, so this is definitely not new.  Then of course came social where community became something different and much bigger.  It was your customers, every possible prospect, your fans and your influencers to name a few. This is really the exciting part and expanding your horizons to embrace new people, is thrilling.

  

3.  Engagement

We apparently all want to engage with someone:  community, employees, prospects, customers, etc. You name it and there is someone, somewhere trying an engagement strategy of some sort.  Not a bad thing actually.  Being engaged means that you are participating and contributing, so a good thing really!

4.  Leverage

  

In addition to wanting to engage with everyone and their dog, we also want to leverage relationships, knowledge, industry and partnerships.  We don't seem to be leveraged out yet, so let's stay tuned for that one.

5.  Curate

On top of cadence, community, engagement and leverage though, I think that the top buzzword for 2012 has got to be curate.  Regardless of which industry you are entrenched, we all want to tell a story.  We need to curate, or take time to create content or a story worth telling and sharing.  I love the idea and it sounds somewhat romantic to curate..doesn't it?  Am I wrong here? 

So, that sums up five little words that are a part of my everyday vocabulary regardless of whom I am chatting with.  What are your top buzzwords for 2012?  I would love to hear your thoughts. 

Oh and just one parting thought for today...why not try to use each of these words in one sentence all together at least once a day for a week?  Who will be the first to call you out on the overuse of buzzwords?  It is a challenge and it could be fun.