My advice to founders is to excise these words from your presentations, web site, and any other marketing communications materials.
Google just delivered 553,000,000 results for the words innovation and 533,000,000 results for innovative.
This
article entitled
Are charter schools truly innovative? The answer can depend on your definition from
The Boston Globe highlights how these words are worn out and to be avoided:
So much confusion exists over “innovation” that the state Education Department avoids the term.
For example, the state asks charter-school applicants to explain how their design elements are “unique and distinct” instead of using the language in state law that instructs applicants to explain what “innovative methods” they intend to use.
In fact, the only time the word innovation appears in the 66-page guidelines for charter-school applicants is in quoting state law.
Even the state’s final review documents of charter school proposals, which the state education board relies on in voting on recommendations, rarely mentions innovation. The words innovation or innovative appeared in only a handful of those documents over the last five years, according to a Globe analysis of more than two dozen proposals.
Cliff Chuang, a senior associate education commissioner who oversees the charter school office, said the phrase “unique and distinct” is more effective in getting responses that show what is innovative.
“To say something is innovative doesn’t tell you much,” Chuang said. “Innovation is a buzzword.”
Avoid both buzzwords and business jargon!
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Author: Mentorphile
Mentor, coach, and advisor to entrepreneurs, small businesses, and non-profit organizations.
General manager with significant experience in both for-profit and non-profit organizations. Focus on media and information. On founding team of four venture-backed companies. Currently Chairman of Popsleuth, Inc., maker of the Endorfyn app for keeping fans updated on new stuff from their favorite artists.
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