ONLINE JARGON OR HYPERLANGUAGE?
Edited by Stefanie Kott, Researched by Roger Bunting

As so frequently happens during the emergence of new technologies and disciplines, there has been a debate within ENA about the use of terms. This discussion has taken place on "ENA Forum", a conference branch created to provide a place for addressing such general issues.

The debate began when Stefanie Kott took exception to the use of language such as attunement, fusion teams and purposing, words that emerge (along with thers) from organization transformation (OT) principles.

One OT principle is _fusion,_ an approach that ENA has universally accepted for governance, since ENA has decided not to have elected leaders but to allow spontaneous and multiple leadership positions to evolve and emerge.

George Por offered the following:

"Fusion is what's happening in a fusion team--according to Linda Ackerman and Diana K. Whitney--when the team is built upon the following core values and beliefs:

"1) The pursuit of excellence enables people to fulfill their highest potential.

"2) Synergy brings talented people together to create an outcome greater than the product of any subset of the group and, at the same time, contributes to individual growth.

"3) Productivity stems from caring for people's physical, mental, emotional and spiritual needs within the work setting.

"4) Organizing to support a creative process enables an optimal balance of flexibility and control.

"5) Shared leadership enhances the experience of personal responsibility and group effectiveness and optimizes group resources.

"6) Personal responsibility enables each memeber of the project to take care of his or her own needs while supporting the needs of the overall group.

"7) Creating an environment where focused work is perceived as fun is a great facilitator and accelerator of learning, synthesis, and creativity.'"

Notwithstanding the fact that a number of people in ENA practice OT principles, Stefanie felt that OT language was not universally desirable to segments of the computer-conferencing world that ENA is attempting to represent, such as business. Stefanie believes "the principles of fusion and attunement and purposing are excellent." However, she feels that "perhaps we [ENA] could allow it to be the overriding direction of the group as stated so eloquently and clearly by George Por [who quoted Linda Ackerman and Diana K. Whitney]-- without allowing the terms to be the overriding lingo of ENA."

Lisa Kimball agreed that we shouldn't get "jargony." She said, "The trick will be how to create and use new forms - and the language to go with them without doing that."

Realizing that ENA could appeal to diverse communications needs, Lisa went on to say that, "It's hard not to act like an old fashioned committee if that's what you call yourself." But she mused that it is "interesting how much of an impact language can have on perceptions...in both directions."

She said she thinks "people should use whatever language makes them feel comfortable. One of the neat things about networking is that we can house a lot of diversity in one organization. I expect we will develop a vast range of words to define what we are doing which will be used by different members of the group in different settings."

Roger Bunting's response to the language issue follows:

"I submit that we are in the process of birthing a whole new context for organization design and an accompanying medium of organizational communication. In the process, we're developing new concepts, new approaches, new solutions, new ways of thinking and, certainly, new ways of communicating ideas. I don't have any trouble at all accepting the notion that we'll necessarily want to use some new language to describe and relate these new findings. I don't consider that to be jargon...I see it as the language of a new profession. I don't see it to be in conflict with previously held mind-sets, or a barrier to the development of new ones. I see it as part of the evolution of a hyperlanguage that will assist, not hinder, the emergence of this medium as the medium of choice in years to come. I see us as having the obligation to define and/or explain new terms for the benefit of those who wish it. But I don't feel we should constrain ourselves to using the language of the past as we forge new directions into the future."

About Roger's mentione of hyperlanguage, Stefanie cautioned that "there are LOTS of new terms we must learn, many of them technological--online, upload, facilitate, etc.--as we encounter this medium and are part of its continued unfolding." She expressed concern that OT language might add to the complexity of current computer terminology and be uncomfortable to certain segments of the cc population.

To that Roger supported the use of OT language as ENA's language with the following quote"

"I see an inextricable linkage between our collective assimilation of this new technology and the attendant transformation of organizations...to new structures (more circular and diffuse), to new leadership styles (distributed and less control-oriented), and to new processes (fusion teams, creative collaboration, empowerment). I see lots of NON-technical impacts accompanying the unrush of this technology, and I think we should accept the emergence of new ideas and relevant concepts (like Bill Henry's "Rolling Present" [an interesting expression that we will take up in another Netweaver] as a very natural and inevitable process of evolution.

"I certainly agree that we have a concurrent obligation to avoid the creation of jargon for its own sake. To the extent that emerging concepts can be more clearly articulated and *differentiated* by the use of fresh terms, which promote the "letting go" of no longer useful terms _and_ the mind sets they bring, I believe we should use the richness of our language to capture the essence of the new.

"I also see us (here within the ENA) as a very diverse group with a multi-disciplinary background. We have managed to collect quite an impressive array of talents, knowledges, and skills representing many different fields of endeavor. Each of those fields has its esoteric language, which has emerged over time to facilitate the exchange of ideas and information by its practitioners. One of the major challenges to inter-disciplinary groups (like us) is to get past the initial intermingling of seemingly obtuse language differences and develop a common understanding of each others' perspectives *and* the terms which illuminate them. We all need to be sensitive to our own use of *our* esoterica, and share definitions and explanations as necessary so others can begin to understand our frames of reference and our perspectives. Whatever synergy we attain will be the result of integration of those currently differentiated views."

And there ends the debate to date. Since this is an interactive newsletter, why don't you let us know what you think?