To help rid the earth of this poisonous gobbledygook, we crafted a bracket, similar to the NCAA college basketball tournament, featuring 32 abominable expressions. Each day, for 32 days, readers will get to vote, via Twitter, on one matchup. The goal: to identify the single most annoying example of business jargon and thoroughly embarrass all who employ it and any of these other ridiculous expressions.

To play, simply find the day’s highlighted matchup, choose the more annoying of the two expressions, click the “Vote” button and cast your vote on Twitter. (Note: Clicking the “Vote” button will take you to Twitter; you will not receive a confirmation that your vote was cast, but indeed, know that we have received it.) If you don’t know what an expression means, click on it and you’ll be given what passes for a definition.

Share the bracket with your friends and colleagues. With any luck, we’ll encourage a new best practice: real communication!

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Source: Forbes, Brett Nelson, February 2012

Since joining the Harvard Business School in 2007 (after a long career at IBM, Kodak, Silicon Graphics, and other companies), I have visited hundreds of factories. They include ones that produce a million notebook computers a week, a significant proportion of the world’s ibuprofen and acetaminophen, sophisticated biopharmaceuticals, microchip engine controllers for 40% of the world’s cars, key components for iPhones, commercial jet engines, scientific instruments, heavy construction equipment, tools for making semiconductors, and solar panels.

With the exception of two jet-engine factories and two plants that make heavy equipment, all were located outside the United States. If that surprises you, you’re not alone. Most Americans have no idea where the stuff they buy comes from and don’t appreciate how much of the U.S. manufacturing base has disappeared…

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Source: HBR Blog Network, WILLY C. SHIH, February 2012

The question on everybody’s mind is whether the third-generation tablet is going to be a revolutionary step for Apple, or a repeat of the iPhone 4S, with decent but not terribly exciting upgrades? Rumors are floating about the internet, of course, and now some of them appear to be solidifying…

1. The iPad 3 will have an amazing, high-definition screen.

The iPad 3 is almost certainly going to come with a new Retina display. The new screen clocks in at a 2048 x 1536 resolution, making it by far the highest-definition iPad yet.

The last two iPads had 1024 x 768 resolutions, making the iPad 3 a significant upgrade in resolution.

The iPad 3 is also said to have a 260 pixel-per-inch density, up from 132 pixels-per-inch in past versions. This still falls well short of the 326 pixel-per-inch density on the iPhone 4S and iPod Touch.

Nevertheless, the improvement in picture quality should be dramatic.

Source: Forbes, E.D. Kain, February 2012

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Tech Note 822

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That may sound convincing given competition from emerging markets, but there are lots of advanced economies with long records of positive net exports, while we continue to run large deficits in manufactured goods, year after year.

Source: Huffington Post, Jared Bernstein, December 2011

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Source: Business Insider, Gus Lubin, December 2011

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