BUZZWORD COMPLIANT DICTIONARY
E

E2E: Eyeball-to-eyeball. For those who want something more specific than F2F (face-to-face).
Nominated by Sandra Sims

EADD: Entrepreneurial Attention Deficit Disorder: A common condition among entrepreneurial business executives. They start up one company, get bored and leave to start up another company. Ritalin does not appear to have a calming effect upon them.

eagle system: To search by circling or hovering above a fixed object until spying the desired target. "I type using the eagle system."
Nominated by Jutta Gardiner

early birding: A marketing strategy that creates enough buzz to convince consumers to pre-purchase a new product not to get a discount, but to be among the first to own it.

eat their own dog food: To use your company's own products, software, solutions, etc., even if they're not the best. "The folks working at Microsoft are upset because they're now required to eat their own dog food."
Nominated by Mark Simon

EBBS: Given how companies obfuscate earning reports in an attempt to put the best possible spin on them, it's nearly impossible to figure out real performance. So David Blitzer, chief investment strategist for Standard & Poor's Corp., coined "EBBS": Earnings Before Bad Stuff.
Nominated by Goran Lukic

Echo Boomers: The term Generation Y just doesn't have the same marketing cachet as Generation X. So meet the "Echo Boomers," the generation born between 1980 and 1995.

e-dress or edress: A buzz term created by those who feel "e-mail address" is simply too mundane.
Nominated by Edward Petitt

edu-marketing: The use of free educational content to generate sales leads. All those Web sites offering free white papers, special reports, exclusive studies, etc., are further proof that there is no such thing as a free lunch. In return for their free "educational" material, expect to give up your name and email address if not more.

e-dundant: The tendency of middle managers to follow up a subordinate's e-mail with one of their own to add unnecessary emphasis or make it look like it the idea was originally their own.
Nominated by Mike Knox

effectivity: The length of time something is valid or "effective." Computer programming term that describes the validity of data, but now used by other departments, such as marketing, in reference to just about everything.
Nominated by Greg Bednarski

efforting: Another unnecessary case of "verbing." "We're efforting a follow-up on the president's report." Pssst! Attempting or trying are "real" words and more than adequate alternatives.

EFIGS: English, French, Italian, German and Spanish. The mnemonic is often an option in computer games, indicating you can play in any of these languages.
Nominated by Tatiana Solomko

egolock: When an exec makes a bad decision, refuses to admit it and holds steadfast until the bitter end.
Nominated by Robert Weber

ego surfing: Searching the Web to see how many times your name turns up and what others are saying about you. "The report is late because Jack spent the morning ego surfing."
Nominated by Amy Hoy

electile dysfunction: The inability to become excited about any of the candidates for president.
Nominated by Scott Dittman

electronify: The process of turning paper-based data into electronic or digital form.
Nominated by Tim Hall

eload: The quantity of e-mail a person receives. "We're trying to reduce our staff's eload."
Nominated by Andrew Smith

e-mail-borne viruses: The IT world is stealing its terms from the medical world, so we now have e-mail-borne viruses. Will Wi-Fi give us airborne viruses, too?

e-mail ellipsia: The mind-numbing use of ellipses … instead of proper punctuation … in e-mail ... then again … most e-mail messages are little more than a series of sentence fragments ... and random thoughts … so maybe it's not abuse. Mug available
Nominated by Debbi Swanson

e-mail train: An e-mail message that grows in length as people reply without deleting all of the previous responses.
Nominated by Carl Standish

embedded: The practice of assigning journalists to specific military units during war. It's the military's way of satisfying reporters' cry for access during a conflict, while keeping its thumb on them at the same time.
Nominated by Harlan May

emotional economy: An amazing economic concept that contends emotions are a major driving force in business. According to this theory, successful companies are the ones that have employees who actually love their jobs and customers who actually love doing business with them.

employee rustout: A workplace malady in which an employee's potential is underused and his/her performance is mediocre. Rustout is more subtle and insidious than its better known counterpart, employee burnout.
Nominated by Janet LoFurno

employee surfboarding: When supervisors ride (and take credit for) the wave of success created by the hard work and ideas of their best employees.
Nominated by Glen Morry

empowerment: The corporate mantra of the late '90s used to deceive subordinates into believing they actually were allowed to think and make decisions on their own.
Nominated by Bill Albrecht

empowerment with fences: The concept of empowering workers to make decisions on their own as long as they don't stray beyond the boundaries set by the company.
Nominated by John Mielke

empty suit: An executive in upper management who lacks the knowledge, experience, skills and/or intellect to hold in the position. "The director of marketing is an empty suit." Female "empty suits" are also known as a "hollow bunnies."
Nominated by Kathryn Purcell

end-user upgrade: Tech-sounding term for training. Example: The staff didn't know what they were doing, so we resolved the problem with an end-user upgrade.
Nominated by Chris Matthew

engagement synopsis: The latest in consultant-ese. An "engagement" is the work a consultant does for a client. "Synopsis" is an outline of that work. Together they're simply a summary of a case study used to promote the consultant's business.
Nominated by Dave Brooks

Enron: To undermine the future. A product of the Enron scandal, this new verb comes courtesy of Sen. Tom Daschle. "I don't want to Enron the American people. I don't want to see them holding the bag at the end of the day just like Enron employees have held the bag."
Nominated by Nathan Hall

Enronym: Any word formed from the base "Enron," usually signifying some form of corporate malfeasance. Recently spotted Enronyms: Enronitis, Enronify. Enronomics.
Nominated by Mark Worden

EOB/COB: Shorthand for End of Business/Close of Business. Frequently found in memos from your boss telling you to deliver that report before you leave today!
Nominated by David Byers

EPAMD: Electric Personal Assistive Mobility Device. A term coined by Segway in an attempt to convince state legislators its motorized two-wheeler is not a "vehicle." Vehicles aren't allowed on sidewalks, have to be registered like cars and require drivers to be licensed. How many vehicles, er, things meet the EPAMD definition? Only the Segway and nothing else.
Nominated by Mark Worden

e-pending: The attempt by marketers to match an e-mail address to your real-world info in order to "more effectively" market to you.
Nominated by Volsted Gridban

ERP: Truly one of the worst acronyms around and sounds like something you shouldn’t do at the dinner table. It stands for Enterprise Resource Planning. Basically, it’s software that allows a company to manage all parts of its business – from product planning to manufacturing to purchasing to inventory to finance to human resources, etc. It’s powerful stuff – and the price tag can give you indigestion.
Nominated by Rodger Beard

escape ring: A planned call or beep from a co-worker that allows you to feign an emergency in order to escape a particularly boring or meaningless meeting. This technique has lost some of its effectiveness since being the featured plot line of a popular car commercial.
Nominated by Scott Haddon

e-ternative: An alternative with an electronic bent. E-mail is an e-ternative to snail-mail.
Nominated by Susan Walton

etherface: The impersonal discourse with another person via e-mail.
Nominated by Mark Metcalf

eThrombosis: Coined by medical researchers who believe that sitting too long in front of a computer can cause deep vein thrombosis. To prevent life-threatening blood clots from forming, they recommend that computer users stand up every couple of hours and walk around. Getting a real life wouldn't hurt either.
Nominated by Mark Worden

evaporware: The latest from Microsoft. It's software that you buy and load, but may find you're denied the ability to load again two years from  now -- when you upgrade to a new computer.
Nominated by Mark Worden

event horizon: A point in your life, business, career, etc., when something big is going to happen and your life will be significantly changed. Once known as a "turning point." For Baby Boomers, it’s called a mid-life crisis.
Nominated by Jim Rimmer

evergreening: The process of regularly updating or upgrading something to keep it "fresh" or current. Schools have plans for evergreening their computers. Web sites are evergreening content. Pharmaceutical companies are evergreening drug patents.
Nominated by Daniel Morin

Evernet: Thanks to PCs, pagers, TV, digital phones, etc., you can be continuously connected to the Internet -- redubbed the "Evernet." Apparently coined by Thomas Friedman, author and New York Times correspondent.

exceedance: A term created by those who like to measure things and treasured by government bureaucrats. It's a common term in the world of pollutants. Simply, it's the amount by which something exceeds a standard or permissible measurement. "An ozone exceedance occurs when ozone levels recorded at any of the regional monitoring sites reach 125 parts per billion or greater." How about: "It exceeds standards."
Nominated by Karen Bojda

exit strategy: A plan to extract yourself from a mess that more than likely you created in the first place by poor planning or misjudgment. Term is used equally by business people, military leaders and politicians. Result: You often get stuck even deeper in the mire.
Nominated by Tom Stovall

Extra Grace Required (EGR): Term used by some churches to describe the handling of a difficult or troublesome member. Such a member also is sometimes referred to as an "Extra-Grace Person."
Nominated by Ken Adair

extraview: A second round interview with an applicant you feel obligated to meet again even though another candidate already has won the job.
Nominated by Kevin Kirk

eye chart: An information-laden PowerPoint slide with small type. Often introduced with: "I know this slide is tough to see, but..." Example: "As we showed on the bottom line of the eye chart I covered a few minutes ago, we had a 31% increase in net revenue."
Nominated by David Kingsley