My favorite new piece of software is Bullfighter from Deloite Touche Consulting. It’s a Microsoft Word add-in (2000 or XP) which searches your documents for terms like “synergy”, “value proposition”, and “paradigm” that managers and consultants use to sound smarter. I tried this tool on one of our latest press releases and found six “BS” hits. Sweet! I only wish they had a web interface (or web service interface) where you could point to a URL and get a BS word count from a company’s “About” page or quarterly earnings.
On the other side of the net, if you want to bloat your language, visit Vanderbuilt’s MBA Writer . My auto-generated MBA sentence was: “In line with heuristic policy flexibility, leveraging customer positions leads the way with the ramifications of the final results." I’m making this my Mission Statement.
There’s also a great dictionary for Corporate Cliches.
Download Bullfighter here.