A Weary Conference Traveler Begs You – Talk Like a Normal Human on Stage
I think conference season is finally behind us. It happens every September and October, but this conference season left me wondering if maybe we could just… not?
I don’t wanna be Pollyannaish, but maybe we could do better?
Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate the opportunity to break routine and get out of town as much as the next guy. I live a pretty chaotic home life (IYKYK). Sometimes I like getting out of town more than the next guy.
And conferences can be great. You can learn a lot. You can make new friends. You can enjoy some great meals and stay in some awesome hotels.
It’s the jargon. I just can’t anymore. To steal a phrase from the headline writers at MLive, it’s time to put this stuff “on blast.”
Bad metaphors. Mixed metaphors. Buzz words. Corporate speak. Worn out sayings and turns of phrase. Oh my goodness the acronyms. They’re everywhere. Across the country. Across organizations. Across time and space.
At some point this season, I could actually feel my eyes starting to cross behind closed lids as I tried to parse sentences for the reality of what the presenter was actually trying to say. I couldn’t do it. So I did the next best thing. I started keeping a rolling list of the silliness being spilled into the microphone.
You’ve heard these before. A hundred times. Maybe if we stick together we can convince our clients, our principals, and… well… ourselves… to give them up next year?
Let’s start by getting rid of these… please.
Can I jump in on that? (You’re going to anyways. You’re not really asking.)
Let’s keep our ears to the ground. (This isn’t the frontier and we’re not tracking the James Gang through the Arizona desert.)
It’s time to roll up our sleeves and battle. (I might actually like that boardroom.)
I don’t want to be Pollyannaish. (The Wonderful World of Disney hasn’t aired for like 30 years.)
I don’t want to wear rose colored glasses. (No one wears rose colored glasses.)
If you’d have told me 5 years ago that... (This must have been in a super-secret convention handbook because I think every presentation I heard the last 2 months featured this open.)
I’m a glass-half-full kinda guy. (Lazy colloquialism.)
We’ve got good line of sight on that issue. (Aye, Leftenant.)
What keeps me up at night is… (Try melatonin.)
That’s going to be a pretty far bridge... (OK, that one made me laugh under my breath.)
That’s a 30,000 foot approach. (Huh?)
It’s on the table. (Am I being too picky? I don’t think so. And the only thing on the table next to your chair is your bottle of water and a couple of notecards.)
Between you, me, and the fencepost. (Dude there are 1,000 people in the Hyatt Ballroom listening to this right now.)
“Churn.” (Ugh.)
Calling anything a “fireside chat.” (Where’s the fireplace?)
Let’s maybe do this instead. Let’s embrace the Talk Like Normal People Challenge for conference season 2026. Of course, either way, I’ll be there.