I can’t stand the phrase “Let’s connect”.
“Let’s connect”, “Connect with me”, or worst of all, “Have we connected on Linkedin yet?”. What are we even talking about?
When did ‘connect’ fall into our vocabulary, and why would readers of your travel/minimalism/personal blog want to ‘connect’ (whatever that means) with you on Linkedin in the first place?
A couple of months back Chris Guillebeau asked on Google+ which overused phrases annoy us the most. Hands down, for me, nothing beats “Let’s connect”—though “Let’s get social” is quickly rising the ranks.
It’s fake. It’s insincere, and, in the case of LinkedIn, unless you have a blog based around a service business, it’s totally unnecessary.
I cringe every time I see somebody post a happy-go-lucky twitter update one minute, followed by “Have we connected on Facebook yet?” the next.
I like to call it wanky business jargon, jargon that has made its way over to the blogging community through our corporate jobs. In this particular niche we all rest in (lifestyle writers, in one form or another), many of us have either come from working for large corporations, or still remain working for them, wishing one day to quit and follow our dreams.
That, I’m all for. But please leave the jargon in the office where it belongs.
It’s probably best not to even get me started on touching base and moving forward.
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If you want to brighten your day, read through some of the responses to Chris’ question. You will cringe and cry with laughter in equal measures.
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Let’s get on you on the phone finally then and see how well we “connect”!
Yes you can kill me now.
We’ll have to put in some Facetime (Apple have ruined that one – which is probably for the best).
“Randoms” has to be my nails down the blackboard term. e.g we were just walking down the street when these 5 randoms came up to us. That and turning every sentence uttered into a question, e.g. Ben has a blog? it’s called life rapture? lots of randoms read it?
yuk.
Yes! I have the same irritation. I’ve always wondered how a group of people could be described as a group of “randoms”. What exactly did they expect?
Good post. Yeah, I can’t stand ‘wanky business jargon’! I was climbing the corporate ladder about 10 years ago, just one step from being IT Director and I lost it one day in a meeting. We had a consultant giving a speech in one of 9 meetings that I was going to attend that day, and he just loved jargon and buzz words. He was talking about “refocusing our mind streams” and “leveraging our synergies” towards a whole new “paradigm” and I just lost it, stood up, asking him what the HELL he was talking about and walked out of the meeting. I couldn’t take it anymore, things changed for me that day. Those changes weren’t received well and ultimately led to my layoff, but I’m a whole lot happier now. I have no desire to “connect” with that environment or it’s people anymore.
That’s amazing. If you can ‘leverage’ wanky business jargon well enough it’s amazing how much you can say without saying anything at all.
Congratulations on seeing through it, best of luck moving forward ;)
I had never really considered the overpopulation of the phrase “let’s connect” — it’s absolutely something that has begun to plague the blog world (and I can imagine I have been guilty of it a few times). I actually think “being present” is another overused phrase on the interwebs. I want to “be present every day,” are you “being present in your life”? etc.
I hear you (that’s probably another annoying overused phrase itself). As soon as the wanky business jargon takes hold there’s no stopping it.