Oh My Goodness

Earlier today, Michael Gartenberg, my boss from when we both worked at JupiterResearch, retweeted Pete Bernard’s “development goodness,” which linked to Sam Jarawan post “Why I love Windows Phone 7 Development.” Somebody has got to save the world from all this goodness.

On Oct. 24, 2006, I posted to the defunct Microsoft Monitor blog (JupiterResearch is gone, too):

I’m fascinated by corporate culture and how vernacular spreads through a company’s messaging. Sometime last year [2005], I heard someone at Microsoft use the word ‘goodness’ to describe one of the company’s new products. I found the usage unusual in context but dismissed it until I heard the word again. And again. And again. Now it’s a rare product briefing when goodness isn’t used someplace.

I blog about it now, because I’ve started hearing people outside Microsoft use goodness in a similar way: “It’s all goodness,” or something like that—and usually in reference to a Microsoft product.

Tragic is the blandness of the word. And it’s kind of meaningless in the context usually used. Better: Microsoft propagating something more catchy, within and outside the company that achieves some real marketing objective. The viral spread of goodness shows the way for Microsoft to achieve, ah, well, greater goodness.

Five years have passed since I first heard a Microsoftie utter “goodness.” What? Is the corporate culture there so insular, so isolated that such jargon just goes on into perpetuity? I Binged and Googled microsoft.com for “goodness” (The Bing results proved useless). My God, it’s epidemic! I demand a moratorium on goodness.