We come across them on Linkedin, twitter and other social media: keywords-packed posts that show how little the authors master their subject. At first glance the subject seems interesting and abundant keywords catch our attention, but soon the content appears for what it really is: a collection of trendy terms loosely stitched together that will impress only those who know as little as the authors.

When looking closer to the authors’ curriculum, they are often community managers whose target is to drag visitors to the pages they have to promote, or self-promoted experts trying to sell an app, a training program or consulting services!

While they do a pretty good job to grasp (even temporarily) our attention with headlines and catchy phrases, they demonstrate their lack of mastery of the subject soon after.

The latest I came across and which inspired this (half-angry) post in reply is about DMAIC being presented as a very effective project management methodology for dramatically and sustainably improving process performances as well as customers’ satisfaction.

The author explains that “DMAIC enables breakthrough projects compared to continuous improvement which is incremental and made of small daily steps”. Some lines after, a DMAIC project is an enabler for quality  improvement and predictability of the process’ outcome. One more line after, DMAIC is a 5-phases project sequencer.

The post goes on with a collection of half-baked truths. While not totally wrong, it is riddled with approximations and those kinds of posts are usually too poorly structured for posts meant to be informative.

Now, for savvy readers lured into reading, the vacuum of the content shows quickly. For laymen in search of information, it may seem of value. Some like, approve and even share those posts, unaware of displaying their own lack of knowledge or understanding.

Therefore a reminder: Packing lots of keywords in a post is no evidence for the author’s expertise, nor for the value of its content!