Paul Zukowski

Paul Zukowski has written about business since 1972, first as a newspaper reporter, then as a feature article writer, and finally as a business-magazine editor. He created one of the first e-newsletters while at Corporate Report Wisconsin magazine and was named small business journalist of the year in 2003 by the U.S. Small Business Administration. Now a freelancer, Paul and his wife live in Madison, Wisconsin.

Articles by Paul Zukowski

• What does the ‘i’ in Apple’s products mean?

  Thursday, March 23, 2017

  Pods. Pads. Palm Pilots. Sometimes product names can take on a life of their own and become buzzwords that define a whole category of products. That's certainly true for some of Apple's products. As the tech giant just announced its plans for ​a new red iPhone 7 and a new, cheaper iPad, I began pondering the origin of those product names.

• Something is stirring in the belly of the economy

  Tuesday, March 14, 2017

  There are a few signs of things taking off in wrong directions in the U.S. economy this month. Then again, some things never change, such as the inability of economists to accurately predict monthly job gains — the Bloomberg survey expected 190,000 in February, while the reality was 235,000.

• Who gets to say which business buzzwords are ridiculous?

  Tuesday, February 21, 2017

  There's probably no real way to tell which buzzwords will become part of the language (as clichés, eventually) and which ones will have brief lives (thankfully!)? We just have to wait and see. But if you're going by personal taste and just want to ridicule various buzzwords, I say, "Game on!" I'd be happy to make fun of your choices.

• Why jobs gained always gets revised

  Monday, February 06, 2017

  Here's a riddle: How can two things be up when they seem to contradict each other? Welcome to the world of economics statistics, where this month we have one measure of U.S. unemployment saying there are more people looking for work, with another measure of jobs added saying there are more people working. Answer: the two figures are generated by entirely different methods.

• Same economic stats, different story

  Wednesday, January 11, 2017

  The changing of the guard at the White House on Jan. 20 presents both the incoming and outgoing administrations a special opportunity to have their way with economic statistics. We can expect a lot of speculation on whether the economic glass is half full or half empty — or even completely empty to the tune of trillions of dollars.

• Business buzzwords: What’s the big deal?

  Monday, January 09, 2017

  Big. Such a small word for something so ... well, large, shall we say? The English language gives us quite a few ways — large, sizable, great, jumbo, mega, substantial, immense, enormous, extensive, colossal, massive, mammoth, vast, tremendous, gigantic, giant, monumental, mighty, gargantuan, elephantine, titanic, mountainous, whopping, humongous — to indicate a greater order of magnitude. But none has the punchiness of big, which comes to us directly from Middle English with the original meaning of "strong, mighty."

• Business buzzwords: News media trending to ignore margin of error

  Thursday, December 15, 2016

  Some buzzwords don't really bother me until someone points them out. That's certainly the case with "trending." At first it seemed innocent enough, just adding an "-ing" to "trend" — the kind of thing we see in a sentence like, "The market is trending downward." But then I noticed another usage, where something is said to be trending, not up or down, just showing up a lot as if it were a new fashion trend, i.e. "Bermuda shorts are trending this week."

• The meaning of ‘great’ proves elusive in economic terms

  Monday, November 07, 2016

  Usually there's nothing like a presidential election to sharpen the discussion of job creation and economic growth. Then comes this year's race. All we got was a lot of unfocused debate on whether America needs to be reinspired to greatness or is already great. And does anybody know how to measure terms like "great"? Isn't it just an empty superlative word like good, better and best? Of course it is, because in whose opinion is something great?

• Be careful: Others can see right through your passions

  Wednesday, November 02, 2016

  As a reporter on the prevalence and misuse of business buzzwords, I am both delighted and appalled to present two terms that sound important and suddenly seem to be required business speech, yet may mean very little. I am referring, of course, to transparent and passion. It's to the point where one could say that business people seem to have developed a passion for transparency.

• Political show shoves economic news aside as job market tightens

  Thursday, October 13, 2016

  With all the harsh words and finger-pointing being exchanged by the Democrat and Republican presidential candidates this month, it can be hard to get a grasp of what's really going on in the U.S. economy. Is it true, for instance, that America never wins anymore? Do we have to be made great again, or are things pretty great in the first place?

• A beastly pair of buzzwords that haunt most meetings

  Monday, October 03, 2016

  One of the hidden joys of being a word nerd is one of your colleagues calls to ask about the difference between having an elephant in the room or a 400-pound gorilla. "Wow, what a delightful mental problem!" was my immediate reaction. I saw there could be unexplored depth to the gorilla/elephant choice. To start the expedition, let's look at the physical presence of the two animals.

• The economy takes on a summer glow fit for a peach

  Thursday, September 08, 2016

  Waiting for economic statistics to form meaningful patterns can be like watching fruit ripen. I mean, what's with the U.S. unemployment rate anyway? Sticking to 4.9 percent again? That's potential for a big yawn. The same goes for the number of jobs added nationally in August. The forecast had been for a none-too-exciting 180,000 new jobs, and the reality came in at 151,000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

• Business buzzwords: Don’t let a competitor ‘Xerox’ your name

  Thursday, September 01, 2016

  When your product's name becomes a buzzword that is part of everyday business language, that's a good thing, right? Free publicity? A household name? Or does overuse of a made-up word like "Xerox" or "Google" mean that the trademark's value is lessened or lost completely?

• There’s no magic number when it comes to jobs and the economy

  Tuesday, August 09, 2016

  I can sense continuing excitement brewing among those, including me, who watch economic statistics like they were some sort of Olympic event. Why are the numbers creating excitement, you may ask? Because — hold onto your hats — the monthly new-jobs-created figure hit 255,000 for July!

• A round of buzzwords from poker? Deal me in

  Wednesday, August 03, 2016

  Wherever our forefathers went in the 1800s, poker followed — from Mississippi riverboats to the California gold rush to the tumult of the Civil War. Poker is America's card game, rising from rough and tumble beginnings to world prominence.

• What do June’s economic statistics mean for your small business?

  Tuesday, July 12, 2016

  We all see the same government-supplied numbers on the U.S. economy each month — the jobs added, the unemployment rate, the Fed's interest rate. But what those numbers mean to your small business is often quite different from what they mean to the business next door, to Exxon or to the economy as a whole, especially in a presidential election year.

• Business buzzwords: Par 4 with a dogleg to the left

  Monday, June 27, 2016

  When I began this article on business buzzwords that come from golf, I thought I'd get a lot of examples using "par." It's such a cool word. However, I soon realized "par" has at least three definitions, and expressions such as "Not up to par," "Not on a par with," and "The goods are subpar" had nothing to do with golf, where being below par on a hole is a good thing. Golfers would never say one hole was on a par with another — they'd say they had the same par. And so on.

• Business buzzwords: Baseball loads the bases

  Thursday, June 02, 2016

  Played professionally since 1871 and celebrated as America's "national pastime," baseball and its close cousin softball are as familiar as apple pie to citizens of the USA. So it's no wonder that many figures of speech are derived from the game, including business buzzwords.

• Business buzzwords: We each have our favorite expressions

  Tuesday, May 10, 2016

  For the past few months, we have looked at buzzwords that have lost their buzz, either through overuse or misuse. Now let's change gears (buzz phrase) and think about the buzz terms each of us hold dear, can't stop using, and may not even be fully aware of how often we use them.

• Big change in overtime pay coming soon — Are you prepared?

  Monday, May 02, 2016

  It has been decades in the making and may affect up to 5 million workers across the U.S. "It" is the proposed rule change on who is eligible for overtime pay, due to be issued in June by the Department of Labor (DOL). If you haven't figured out how your business will be affected, time is running out.

• ‘Dream Big, Start Small’ is theme for National Small Business Week

  Thursday, April 14, 2016

  Each year the U.S. Small Business Administration "goes big" the first week in May to recognize America's top small businesses, the entrepreneurs who start them, and the advocates and champions who support them. National Small Business Week 2016 kicks off May 1 with an awards ceremony in Washington, D.C. where national award winners will be honored and the Small Business Person of the Year revealed.

• Business buzzwords: A passion for world‑class low-hanging fruit

  Wednesday, April 06, 2016

  Even the brightest light can become ordinary and easy to ignore. The same goes for the overworked buzzwords and phrases we pepper our speech and correspondence with.

• ‘Help Wanted’ signs appear again as economy grows

  Wednesday, March 30, 2016

  ​The golden arches marquee at the 24-hour McDonald's in my neighborhood, which customarily touts Big Macs or bigger drinks, now says "Hiring All Shifts." In busy retail areas across town, scarcely a storefront doesn't have a similar message.

• Business buzzwords: Phrases can become too popular

  Wednesday, March 02, 2016

  Sometimes a colorful buzzword (or phrase) becomes so popular "nobody goes there anymore" as baseball legend Yogi Berra once said about a restaurant. Or at least you should resist going with the stampede.

• Business buzzwords: When buzzwords are fuzz words

  Monday, February 08, 2016

  You are about to use a popular business buzzword in your report when you realize you don’t really know what it means. Or where it comes from. So you begin to get nervous that someone might dare you to define the expression. When this happens, my best advice is to skip the fuzzy buzzword and say what you have to say in plain English. But if you are stubborn and like the way the buzzword sounds, here are some crib notes that might help you sound more plausible than your challenger.

• What’s trending in business technology for 2016?

  Tuesday, February 02, 2016

  I just came across some business technology predictions I made in 2008. Let's see how I did eight years later and highlight what else is trending today. My first prediction back in '08 was that Google would succeed in stealing away some corporate IT market share from Microsoft. I said Gmail would take the place of Microsoft's Exchange in many businesses.

• New PATH for small business tax breaks

  Wednesday, January 20, 2016

  ​While 2015 was an off year in terms of major tax law changes coming from Congress, our elected representatives did cook up quite a smorgasbord of extensions — many permanent — for a wide array of existing tax breaks on which most small businesses rely.

• Business buzzwords: Brevity is the soul of corporate speech

  Wednesday, January 06, 2016

  Picture this communication situation: You get on an elevator and see you are sharing it with a potential client/customer/contact you've been dying to talk to. The elevator will take, let's say, under a minute to reach ground level. Luckily, you have prepared and practiced what is called an "elevator pitch," a brief summary of your most important and compelling sales points.

• Business buzzwords: Get to the bottom line

  Thursday, December 03, 2015

  Remember the first time you heard the term "bottom line"? You may have wondered, "The bottom of what?" I first heard "bottom line" in a college-level accounting class, and it made obvious sense: once you add up all a company's assets and subtract its liabilities, that number is the last line on the balance sheet. You've reached the so-called bottom line, which will reflect either a profit or a loss.

• Last-minute ideas for making Small Business Saturday pay off

  Tuesday, November 17, 2015

  If you intended to have your store take part in the sixth-annual Small Business Saturday, your days are numbered. How numbered? Take today's date and subtract it from 28. And even if the answer is "zero" because it is Small Business Saturday already as you read this, don't panic! You can still find plenty of ways to get into the spirit of the event.

• A free way to increase foot traffic the Saturday after Black Friday

  Friday, November 13, 2015

  As an independent local business selling to consumers, you need to look for every edge you can find. So when I tell you that a major credit card company is spending millions to help promote local small businesses, you've got to at least be a little curious about how it works and what's in it for you.