A new software program sends a clear message to corporate America: Cut out the bull.
New York-based Deloitte Consulting acknowledges that it helped foster confusing, indecipherable words like "synergy," "paradigm" and "extensible repository," but it has now decided that enough is enough. It plans today to release Bullfighter to help writers of business documents to avoid jargon and use clear language.
"We've had it with 'repurposeable, value-added knowledge capital' and 'robust, leveragable mind share,'" Deloitte Consulting partner Brian Fugere said.
The Bullfighter software could help investors spot troubled companies. After testing language used by now-bankrupt energy trader Enron Corp. from 1999 through 2001, Fugere said the program found that corporate communications "got progressively more obscure as they got deeper and deeper into trouble.
"We think that's a good indicator of the linkage between clear and straight communications and business performance, including the issue of transparency and trust, which is such a big issue these days," he added.
Black-and-white photographs of matadors fighting real bulls accompany the instructions.
Marketing director Chelsea Hardaway said employees had fun developing the program over nine months. They came up with about 10,000 "bullwords." The final version has a dictionary of 350 words and allows users to add more.
"It flags your bullwords, but then it gives you sort of a good-humored lashing over why you have used those words," Hardaway said of the program, which works on Microsoft Word and PowerPoint documents much like spell checkers.
The firm said employees voted "leverage" as the most hated word, followed by "bandwidth" and "touch base." Other incomprehensible words were "incentivize" and "envisioneer."
The program, which can be downloaded free at www.dc.com/bullfighter, was tested on statements by 30 big U.S. companies. Atlanta-based home-improvement retailer The Home Depot Inc. was first for clarity on the "Bull Index," whereas computer hardware and software companies suffered the lowest scores for readability.
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