In 2015 I worked for a new mayor, and one of his first “executive orders” was an odd one. We couldn’t use acronyms anymore. He jokingly called it the AFA Policy or Another Fucking Acronym Policy. Making it a joke allowed him to enforce it with a wink and a smile (which has its own genius). The AFA Policy went to work right away. Anything we wrote had to have all of the acronyms listed and defined. For the first time in years, full names of various projects, programs, and groups were uttered out loud. Acronyms are a form of jargon, and they’re not always a good thing. I want to think that the government became just slightly more approachable.
Starting Here, Right Here: Experts in Excess, AKA e-in-e
I’ve made some solid contributions to the world of acronyms. Starting on this very page, I contract “Experts in Excess” to “e-in-e” because its brevity and aesthetic makes me happy:) Does “e-in-e” mean anything to you? Probably not. Does it make what I’m trying to do here any more approachable or clear? Definitely not. If there is any penance for making a new acronym, it’s hearing people butcher them…
Acronyms: Apathy and Approachability
Why do we use jargon and acronyms? It’s a quick way to figure out who you’re talking to and what they know. It also saves time and space. More basically, we contract businesses, team names, projects, and processes to acronyms because we’re cognitive misers (which is the polite way to say we’re lazy). Our brains take a lot of energy to run, and historically, calories have been an inconsistent resource. There is a ton of great research on habits, willpower, decision making, etc., and their cognitive impacts over time. While we may not have evolved to create and use acronyms, we definitely have a predisposition towards them.
Why is this a problem? Jargon and acronyms alienate your audience. Whatever short-term boost in ego, confidence, or exclusivity, you experience being robbed from the person you’re communicating with. Precious attention is diverted from your message into translating your jargon. Acronyms and jargon confuse and bore your customers, partners, friends, and especially your partner:) There is a huge cost of being unapproachable.
Fixing the Jargon & Acronym Problem
The genius in Mayor Thomas’s Another Fucking Acronym Policy was that it tore down a wall in our communication. After decades of comfortably letting our culture’s language drift into the realm of unapproachable, we had to change, and we had to do it fast. We had to change the way we wrote, we had to change the way we talked, and I’d like to think we had to change the way we thought. The government should be customer-centric, and I’d bet you’re trying to be customer-centric as well. So what do you do:
- Listen to yourself and correct yourself
- Your friends or partner can help keep you accountable
- Review your published materials
- Get rid of jargon or acronyms that don’t clearly help your audience
- If you don’t know, your audience definitely doesn’t, so get rid of it
- Can’t tell? I’m 100% guilty of this. Ask someone to read through your materials
- Your word processor’s ‘Find and Replace’ tool is your friend
- Double-check your emails
I’ve been working on this for a couple of years now and I’m still slipping up:)
Leave a Reply