We are all used to the typical consulting lingo. Personally, I am in the process of a healthy recovery :-) but nobody takes offense. It shows an effort to get to the point quickly. Unfortunately it fails 99% of the time (see here if you want to learn more :-). On the same note, but hopefully more effectively, there's a large vocabulary being developed around "data"- often unwittingly - that is worth looking at. Take this nice piece from Forbes . The key thing here is that data is seen as the new oil (or black gold for that matter). Arguably, data is becoming a new currency and the effort to put a "value" on data is remarkable (and probably necessary. We will return on this concept at some point in the near future). But is it really? Interestingly, as Gary Burnison pointed out , "more data does not mean the right information. It just means more information." And this is a good point if you consider that the value of data resides more in its extrins