The language of work has its own syntax and overflows to the world in general… a couple of centuries ago, the workers who wanted to protest their working conditions, through their wooden shoes (french: “sabot”) into the machinery – which ground everything to a halt – hence the word “sabotage” came into common parlance. 

I noted that at a recent conference of vendors to a noted large company, a new “work word” has come into usage… it is a word that you have no doubt heard in civilian usage often enough, but has a slightly new meaning with the internet age:  ”socialize”.  The context was that the presenter, in acknowledging a reported problem in the process, said that she had “socialized this with her team”  i.e. discussed it.  There was a clear division in the audience, not by age but by “social network” savvy – the faces with giant question marks on them were not plugged in to the crowd-sourcing, tweet producing group who “got” the meaning of the presenters sentence immediately.

Although anecdotal, the buzz at the refreshment table during break, told me that the term used in that one sentence stymied about 30% of the room enough for them to be “socializing” it over the coffee cake.  If I had had enough time, I might have polled the 30% to see how many knew the terms “google”, “tweet”, and “crowd sourcing”… but alas, the meeting resumed.

It brought to mind that however pervasive technology seems to be… there is a section of the population who are at the fringes of it… perhaps getting some benefit, but mostly just wondering what is going on as it passes them by.  For those trying to stay employed in an age of evolving job duties and ever-pressing needs for more tech savvy even in the most traditionally non-tech areas, this means plugging in to the latest vocabulary.   And how does one find out what the newest terminlogy is? Use your connection capital and “socialize” it with your network(s)!