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The author is lacking an understanding of business jargon. Very little jargon was vacuous when coined. It is the endless repetition by the uninformed that ren
by klochner 16y ago
The author is lacking an understanding of business jargon. Very little jargon was vacuous when coined. It is the endless repetition by the uninformed that renders it meaningless.
Ries is trying to change the way people think about startups, and as a part of that effort he is consciously promoting neologisms that capture the principles of the lean startup. I like those principles, I understand that he wants to create language to concisely express those principles to help grow awareness of his philosophy.
I think "Tipping Point"--which the author cites as true "Marketing Bullshit"--is a good analogy. The general public (people who hadn't read Complexity or Chaos) didn't understand complexity before Gladwell, and so the phrase "Tipping Point" was coined and used to capture the principle. It worked: pretty much everyone understands it now. It's just that the term "Tipping Point" is now slightly irritating to anyone who "got it" a long time ago, and it has been (predictably) misused enough to place it in the Business Jargon Pantheon.
That's how business jargon works. Just consult your Buzzword Bingo scorecard for examples.
- mkramlich 16y agoGladwell didn't invent that term 'tipping point'. I remember seeing it and using it long before his book came out, which according to Wikipedia was around 2000.
- klochner 16y agoPlease send me a link if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure he coined the non-scientific, or at least popular usage. I don't remember having heard the phrase tipping point before the book came out, even though I was fairly familiar with the idea.
- georgieporgie 16y agoDictionary.com lists Gladwell in the etymology. However, Wikipedia's entry for "tipping point (sociology)" (which, to my knowledge, is effectively the same as Gladwell's use) says, "The phrase was coined in its sociological use by Morton Grodzins, by analogy with ..." The page on Grodzins says, "He is known for coining the term "tipping point" in studies of white flight, such as The Metropolitan Area as a Racial Problem (1958)". No doubt Gladwell popularized the phrase, but I don't think he coined it by any means.
- davidw 16y agoPerhaps one could say that his book was a tipping point in the wider diffusion and knowledge of the term? :-)
- swombat 16y agoI'm absolutely certain I heard "tipping point" long before gladwell - it's a pretty standard popular phrase. I don't even know where I heard it. It's a phrase like "the last straw (that breaks the camel's back)" tha thas been in existence pretty much forever...