Business jargon to watch out for in 2016: Prepare to start using (or at least hearing) the words amplify, ladder up and ecosystem
Hold onto your hats, there's some new jargon coming to town for 2016.
You might have learned to cope with eye-wateringly bad management speak like "actionable", "reach out" and "game-changer", but now you're going to have to learn to use a whole new set of phrases without giving into the temptation to bang your head against your desk.
Top of the list is "amplify", meaning improve or increase, which is tipped to go big in the business community, according to language consultancy The Writer.
"Every year we track the words that are on the rise in boardrooms around the world,’ said The Writer's creative partner Neil Taylor.
"Amplify is creeping into more and more presentations, and we think it’ll go really mainstream next year… Its use really took off to describe messages on social media being picked up and repeated. Traditional businesses hope that by borrowing the lingo of more fashionable companies, some of that cool will rub off on them."
The word already has pedigree: in fact, that well known trend (and rate) -setter Bank of England governor Mark Carney recently used it.
"Having that [financial] information out there will amplify that success because it means markets will be able to move quickly," he said.
Taylor thinks this will make it increasingly popular among those in the finance industry. "When we spot one of those [words] on the lips of the governor of the Bank of England, we know it’s on a roll," he said.
You'll also have to swallow your own bile sufficiently to deal with the rise of "ladder up", which people are using to describe how one thing connects to an over-arching thing.
This was a close second in the Writer's watchlist of words and phrases on the rise in business circles, compiled from research of publications issued by Fortune 500 companies, speeches given by chief executives, websites, corporate literature and other business publications.
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The group quoted Kimberly A. Whitler, assistant professor at the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business, as saying: “Purchase decisions are more often emotional than rational – this is especially true in healthcare, where even routine decisions subconsciously ladder up to survival.”
Third up was "ecosystem", which is expected to make the leap from tech standard to mainstream business.