PR people, use jardon & acronyms with care @cityofsanmarcos @txstprssa #mc3343

This is a basic rule of communication:  people have to understand your words. Why do organizations forget that rule?

I recently saw a tweet for @cityofsanmarcos soliciting volunteers for city boards and commissions. There is a one page form + a page of instructions.

One of the first things you have to do on the form is certify that you live in the San Marcos ETJ. Curious, I thought. What is an ETJ?  I discovered that it was not defined anywhere on the form or the instruction page. I Googled it and found that it means “extraterritorial jurisdiction.”  Huh?

I emailed the city and complained that they were using jargon/an acronym that they might use every day, but the average citizen of San Marcos would not. The response I got was that the term was used by other city governments.  I’m sorry, but that is not a proper justification.

Jargon and acronyms should only be used in communication when everyone receiving that communication would be familiar with the term or acronym. Period. Professionals and bureaucrats get so comfortable with their language shortcuts that they assume everyone else understands them.  It just isn’t so.

If a message is directed to engineers, then engineering jargon and acronyms may be perfectly okay. If it is directed at city planners, then extraterritorial jurisdiction or ETJ may be okay.  But if the communication is directed at the general public, then communicate with words that are understandable to the general public.

This will make an interesting example in my PR class.