Watch Kevin Duncan’s video about how to spot business bullshit...
Kevin Duncan gives some examples of bizarre business idioms and what they mean...
"It's like trying to stab a seal with a banana: This is one of my particular favourites and again, I like to deconstruct what that means. So I’m picturing a seal, probably on a table. I guess they’re pretty blubbery and slippery. And the client, or the person trying to stab the seal, has chosen a banana. And the banana is not a weapon choice, as a dagger would be, so the banana is just sliding off the seal.
"So why would someone say something is like trying to stab a seal with a banana? Well I think what they’re trying to say is this is quite a tricky job. But what they don’t seem to realise is that the analogy also reveals that they’re too daft to choose the correct method for solving a problem.
"So now I want to park it, ringfence it and take it offline. This is something that a client actually said to me last year. When the say park it I don’t think they mean drive a car into a slot in an executive car park but to put it somewhere, but at this stage of course we haven’t identified what 'it' is.
"They then apparently want to ring fence it. And this is a word that’s been used a lot, it’s been nicked effectively from the world of cowboys, or to fence in livestock, and now people use it to describe budgets, figures and themes in projects.
"And finally, to take it offline. The interesting thing is that before online was invented everything was offline but was never described as offline. But now people feel it is essential to contrast the fact that this thing isn’t ‘online’ by saying that it’s offline – when we knew that anyway. So let’s park it, ring fence it and take it offline – absolute nonsense.
"Now I’ve always liked ‘grasping at fog’. Most people know that fog cannot be grasped, but people still say 'grasping at fog'. I think what they’re trying to say is the fog is a metaphor for something uite difficult to grasp.
"So what we want to know is, if it’s that difficult why are you grasping at it? And if you’re grasping but not succeeding, are you intelligent enough to handle the problem?
"So what people who say they’re grasping at fog tend to reveal about themselves is that they’re just quite dim.
"One of my personal favourites is 'trying to nail a jelly to the wall'. I first head this about 20 years ago and I’ve heard it many times since, and it always gives me a chuckle.
"So in my mind there’s an earnest businessman in a suit, probably standing on a chair, with a hammer in one hand and some nails between his teeth and he‘s trying to hammer this jelly to the wall. It’s probably a bright luminous colour, it’s probably quite large. Quite why he’s trying to do this we don’t really know, but it’s amusing.
Once again the analogy reveals that the jelly is a complicated and diffuse thing and in effect he cannot nail it to the wall. What this means is that whoever uses this phrase (A) should not be attacking this problem because it’s too difficult or (B) they’re using the wrong tools or they’re too stupid to solve the problem, so they really shouldnt be doing it."
