Take Care with Acronyms and Jargon (Also a Job Offering)

By Larry Kilman

Friday, 13 January 2017

Pretentious language is the bane of the non-profit world. The use of jargon and acronyms that nobody but insiders understand is exclusionary and reduces your community to a club.

So try to avoid it.

Perhaps the worst offender are those NGOs and non-profits that encourage new technology start-ups.

Have you noticed that all of them always refer to their business world as an “ecosystem” and their self-descriptions would not be complete without the use of “disruption”, “incubator” or “curation”. All are fine words, but they’re overused to the point of parody and probably should be avoided when possible.

Here is a list of tech jargon that has gone mainstream.

Often hidden behind exclusionary jargon is a laudatory premise. Take the Hello Tomorrow organization, a non-profit based in Paris, which says its mission “is to accelerate the transformation of disruptive technologies into impactful solutions to real world problems.”

Hello Tomorrow organizes an annual science and technology conference and brings new and promising science and technology business ideas to investors. It is looking for a Content Manager. If you’re interested in joining their team, you can apply here.