Excuse Me

  OR

Which one seems more like a belch?

So here I am, a consultant selling services to improve the management of your organization.  I even use the phrase "enterprise management" in the About Me byline of this blog.  It was as close as I was willing to get to the currently faddish acronym.

Wikipedia claims the Gartner group coined the term in 1990.  Actually, that's somewhat too long ago to fairly call it a fad.  I suspect, however, that it won't stick forever.  How much do we talk about TQM these days?

The name game is brought on us by those who want to have some way of characterizing what we do.  I have had marketing consultants tell me that I must reduce the description of my practice to no more than seven words.  This remains an on-going challenge.  I have yet to see that the reduction is warranted, but I'm working on it.

How's this: WWAD?  What would Arch do?  Ask me, and I'm going to tell you.  Assuming I think I know, of course.  I'll try to speak in plain english.  It's what I do.

Human Capital?

Human Capital Management Trends and Innovations

Yuk.  If you're like me, you get lots of newsletters and email from industry vendors.  One recent one simply rubbed me the wrong way.  The lead was the text at the top here.


The email was a promo for a Webinar, sponsored by none other than ADP, the company in the payroll services business.  In fairness to ADP, they didn't invent the phrase.  Apparently (according to Wikipedia, at least) use of the term dates back to the mid 1950's.


Sure, there are definitions that explain what it's supposed to mean.  Warning - they don't all quite concur.  Regardless, in my view there are two annoyances: It falls into the trap of being less than plain-spoken; and, more importantly, it neuters the very real value of people.  Yes, humans are people.


It's bad enough that my scheduling program, has me categorize living beings as 'Resources'.  I want, for the most part, to stay connected to my coworkers.  Why use such management mumbo-jumbo?