Uncertain Intangibles

I enjoy learning new words, digging into the etymology, and understanding the story behind them. Great words will stop me cold in the middle of a conversation, if only for a brief moment, as I savor the word and make a mental note to use it again some time soon. If I occasionally come across an unfamiliar word, I can usually deduce its meaning quickly enough, and soon find that this new friend, this word, begins to appear everywhere.

I came across a word today that fit none of my previous experience, and I've not yet decided if this word is a friend or a foe. My first reaction was one of humorous disbelief, followed by a reluctant realization that it was, in fact, a word that effectively conveyed a complete thought. More unnerving than anything, however, was when I realized that this word has been around for quite a while in marketing and knowledge management circles, but I only today stumbled across it.

The word is "mindshare". It is not yet common enough to be found in a standard desk reference dictionary, but it appears to be used quite liberally among marketing professionals. There is even a marketing company that uses this word as its name.

I discovered this word in a marketing blurb that referred to a company "moving mindshare" with a new product. My initial reaction was that this was merely corporate jargon for an intangible quality that can neither be proven nor refuted. Did they move mindshare because had a captive audience? Will they just as quickly lose that mindshare when their audience turns its attention to the next entry in the marketplace?

Does any of this truly translate to something certain and tangible, like sales, and ultimately, marketshare? That is the prime objective of taking mindshare, yet how often does it play out as planned? Kleenex may have a ton of mindshare among consumers, but when the consumer's Kleenex is really a box of Puffs, who wins?

I suspect that I will ultimately adopt "mindshare" into my linguistic arsenal, despite its uncertain intangibles, but I'll probably struggle with it for a while on principle simply because it sounds too much like corporate spin or business jargon. In the meantime, I'll probably try to poke some holes in the concept, at least until someone comes along and can offer a good way to quantify and capture mindshare in a very real way.

Light it up...

Rob