It’s virtually impossible in this day and age to escape buzzwords. They’re everywhere. But I have to admit, even I enjoy a good game of lingo bingo every once in a while.

There are only two problems that arise with buzzwords, as far as I can see:

• Overuse. They can become annoying, cliché and even meaningless. “Let’s discuss offline,” for example, often turns out to mean “let’s never discuss that.”
• Misuse. A good buzzword is fresh, memorable and concise. Don’t blather on about clever-sounding things that won’t compute with your audience. And be especially considerate of international clients who, for example, might take “let’s noodle on that” to mean “let’s discuss over lunch.”

Here are a few of my favorite candidates for 2009 (notice many of them are either portmanteaus or economy-related):

1. Pinkwashing. Corporations that use breast cancer research as a way of promoting their products. There’s also “greenwashing” (think environmental abuse).
2. Careereoki. Karaoke contest at the career fair. Prizes include “career makeovers.” Yes, it’s true.
3. Hypertask. Multitasking in overdrive.
4. Brandscape. The breadth of brands and branding elements in a market, culture or a particular corporation (color palette, logos, language, etc.).
5. Freemium. Offering basic services for free but charging a fee for more advanced services.
6. Marketecture. Describes information architecture developed more so for marketing purposes than to provide any real benefit to the user.
7. Lean. This one is straightforward (buzzword aren’t always fancy) and purely economy driven, i.e. lean budgets, lean staffing.
8. Value Stream. Used to identify opportunities for improvement, both in cutting costs and in delivering a product or service to the consumer.
9. Reskill. Training folks in different and/or new fields in order to increase their job opportunities.
10. Downtrend. This one was borrowed from the financial industry and describes a trend that is on the downslide.

Good buzzwords spark the imagination. Like euphemisms, metaphors and idioms, they can be useful, memorable, entertaining (for the right reasons) and sometimes quite clever. Sometimes they deserve the bum rap they get, but they definitely have their place.