Communicating without the jargon
What do I and the New Economy do?
It’s a common question that I get asked, especially at the many events that I attend every week.
Someone aptly explained it “Michelle is a futurist, someone who can see what’s coming, especially thanks to technology and the web, but this unseen is hard to explain when it is not yet here.”
I am told don’t use jargon. But only stating that I do marketing, or social media, totally misses the point.
With a background of 10 years in marketing, account and project management of ICT I left that to pursue social innovation, again another term that most people don’t understand.
My recent experience includes community engagement, online and offline community building, strategy planning and implementation, public speaking, educating, media liaison, project management. I am realising how much of an advantage I have choosing appropriate technology to encourage and increase community participation.
I am reluctant to pick one of those skills, although that is often the easiest way to clarify, to settle the conversation and move onto other topics.
At a time of mass transition, between the industrial era and the new creativity era, is it appropriate to give myself a confining title? Or do I identify needs and achieve outcomes.
New Economy
Turns out the New Economy is another area that’s finding it difficult to be understood, at least at the moment.
Those who have had their success in the old economy are often in disbelief that people would actually be bothered to self organise and do it themselves.
These businesses that are both high growth and high impact. They deliver a social, environmental, cultural or political value, that often rewards with increased economic value.
These are initiatives that the community has often self-organised. This is a move away from pure consumption to finding ways of participation.
Some key examples are:
- Finance — Crowdfunding and peer to peer finance
- Energy — Community, households and individuals sourcing their energy needs from renewables like solar and wind, often not needing to rely on big institutions of the past
- The Maker Economy — “Maker” refers to a new category of builders who are using open-source methods and the latest technology to bring manufacturing out of its traditional factory context, and into the realm of the personal desktop computer.
- Collaborative Consumption — describes the shift in consumer values from ownership to access.
- Placemaking — capitalises on a local community’s assets, inspiration, and potential, ultimately creating good public spaces that promote people’s health, happiness, and well being
So is it the jargon that is the problem? Do we need a make a point of always clarifying words that people do not understand, because they are not thinking on that level?
I often ponder whether, right now as these terms continue to evolve, whether the effort is place on development or on translation?
I run numerous workshops and always find that once people are taken on the journey, once they are involved in the doing, it is very clear what this all is.
If this is a new language do we have to use the old?
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