Category: jargon watch | 術語定義 | 용어의 정의 | 用語の定義

  • The great resignation

    The great resignation The great resignation was one of the defining terms of 2021. In the wake of COVID-19 vaccinations; resignations in the US ran at a consistently high record rate.1 There is no definitive explanation of why the great resignation is happening. There may be a number of contributing factors: The first recorded use…

  • WeChatlization

    WeChatlization is a term that I heard from Xinhua News journalist Wang Zichen. He shared the term on a stream of tweets that I have compiled into a quote below. If nobody has said this before, I am gonna coin the term WeChatlization: a growing number of Chinese public discourse is increasingly going – firstly…

  • Guo chao

    2008 and guo chao 2008 was the best and worst of times for Chinese brands. The Beijing olympics was supposed to spur national pride. Included in this national pride was pride for Chinese brands – guo chao. Chinese athletics brand Li Ning took centre stage in the opening ceremony, screwing over Olympic official partner Adidas.…

  • Bullwhip effect aka Forrester effect

    Bullwhip effect I came across the bullwhip effect as a descriptor recently in discussions around the global chip shortage. Bullwhip effect is a concept that is well known in supply chain circles. The bullwhip effect is also known as the Forrester effect. Disruption ripples back from the retailer, through the wholesaler, manufacturer, on to their…

  • Conglomerate discount

    Conglomerate discount wasn’t a concept that I was that familiar with. Conglomerates had gone out of style in the west during the 1960s to the 1990s. Western conglomerates Classic conglomerate examples would be Spivs and financiers bought in and broke them up into their constituent parts. Or a new CEO would do it themselves to…

  • The split economy

    Split economy The split economy is used a term differentiate from the sharing economy. I first heard of it on the Robin Hood Snacks Daily podcast. The sharing economy has been discussed ad infinitum and is very popular. It encompasses high growth businesses like AirBnB, Uber and DoorDash. The split economy is used to differentiate…

  • Digital sustainability

    Digital sustainability Wunderman Thompson Intelligence highlighted digital sustainability as a trend. The internet is the seventh biggest polluter in the world. Data centres energy consumption is comparable to that of the largest ships. Web designers have been looking to do their part by designing leaner, faster web pages that take up less memory. Samsung is…

  • User domestication

    User domestication was an interesting phrase that I noticed in an essay about the growth of WhatsApp. In the essay the author highlighted a number of factors in WhatsApp’s success: This led to a number of things, which the author identified as user domestication factors: If all of this sounds familiar, its because it was…

  • Gray house

    The gray house phenomenon is a fascinating microcosm of urban development. Gray because its a specifically American phenomenon, rather than grey. But some of the aspects of it will be equally familiar to city dwellers elsewhere. Quick fix The act of painting a brick house is a quick fix by developers, rather like body filler…