I have a confession to make: in the past on these pages, I have feigned total ignorance in the interests of entertainment. I have pretended not to know what a term or a word has meant to make a point about the absurdity of its modern use.
I am the columnist who cried wolf. But today I come to you pleading for your trust. There is a wolf. It takes the form of a word. And that word is "socialise". I have not the vaguest idea what it means in its modern corporate context.
Google has proved unhelpful in this instance. So I've gone to Twitter and asked for someone to slay my ignorance. Melbourne copywriter, (reluctant) social media powerhouse and anti-waffle campaigner, Ryan Wallman (@DrDraper) has informed me "It's the new 'circulate'. Which was once the new 'send'." Ryan says the corporate wank version of "socialise" still has a very tenuous connection with established definitions of the word. Today, you don't socialise a boy you find living with wild dogs in a forest; you socialise a document or a "process". And you do that by sending it around an office in an attempt to have it gain approval (or at least grudging acceptance) among underlings.
"To what end?" I ask Ryan. He's buggered if he knows, and I'm left imagining a weird hybrid of workplace pass-the-parcel and the aversion therapy scene from Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange.
Your guess on "socialise" is as good as mine. All I know is this wolf is real. My ignorance remains unslayed.
Jonathan Rivett wants you to socialise the following URL among friends and family: haught.com.au
