The new biz buzz words

The Wall Street Journal ran a story Monday on new business buzz words.

Don't even talk about "rightsizing," "digitization" and the "war for talent." The new business buzzwords are "delayering," "Web 2.0" and "knowledge acquisition."

Delayering: laying off managers. It's the new rightsizing or downsizing.

Knowledge acquisition: hiring someone with the skills to keep the company competitive. More en vogue now than the "war for talent."

Unsiloing: cross-department cooperation to boost the bottom line.

Network optimization: putting plants in the best locations to manufacture products around the world.

Execution: The buzz has shifted from strategy toward implementing that strategy, making it happen.

Sox, S-O, Sarbox: Sarbanes-Oxley, the law aimed at strengthening reporting rules for public companies.

I have a tendency to give more credence to stories on business buzz words than attempts at cataloging youth slang, so take this for what it's worth. (It is what it is.) But business slang is more likely to end up in stories on your business pages than such words as chillax and ridonculous.