It means the same as “think outside the box.” I suggest you use it to your boss to show you have initiative.
I actually ran across this in an article I was editing the other day. I marked it delete and replaced it with “accumulate.” (“accumulate wealth” instead of “grow wealth.” I got a note back saying “grow” was a term of art in the finance business! I responded that no, it’s not, it’s marketing bullshit and bad english, and if it’s going to be in my magazine, it’s going to say accumulate, goddamnit!
As usual, I lost.
vibrotronica, I think your argument should have simply been verbing weirds language.
A key phrase to add is used to get out of work that can’t get done, “we don’t have the bandwidth to support that endeavor”. In other words, you’re crazy if you think I’m going to do that.
Except that in that context, “grow wealth” doesn’t mean the same thing as “accumulate wealth”. It’s still stupid, but your proposed correction changed the meaning.
How?
sigh The word reach reminds me of some seminar for profs called “If you can reach 'em, you can teach 'em.”
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And sometimes if you can reach 'em, you can finger 'em right in the stinking dungeye.
I thank whatever gods there be that I have no idea what you’re talking about. 
That’ll get you kicked out of teaching.
Are you kidding? ‘Human Resources’ sounds to me as if they consider me nothing more than a slab of meat that makes money for them.
A resource sounds like an object that is devoid of needing care or consideration at all, like a printer or a fax machine. I’m not a resource, I’m a person, and calling me one doesn’t make it any freaking better if you put the word ‘Human’ at the front of it.
Oh dear lord…I just received a packet o’ crap today in my mailbox; the sender of said packet mentioned in the cover letter that since the program in question undergoes frequent changes, it is a “living document.”
What the huh? Is this some freakish new term I have to become familiar with now? A document is now a living thing?
They’re catching on - quick! Change the name again!
What was that Dilbert comic about calling employees resources was too flattering, and it should be changed to human capital or livestock? Trying to find that cartoon, I see that the phrase “human capital” seems to have snuck into the business lexicon. Heavy, heavy sigh.
:rolleyes:
Fuck. I hate that one, too. As if anything my lame ass is doing is as important as the U.S. Constitution. (The document, not the ship.)
I have nothing to support my ideas of the etymology of the “living document” shit, only that the first time I started hearing it was in regards to the Constitution of the U.S.
IFAIK, “Living Documents” are things nobody had time to really finish right, so they distribute the damn thing with the caveat that it can be changed (it’s living!!) when you point out all the errors it contains. Or, if it’s a requirements document, then when all the interface architectures need to be changed because they were so f***ed-up the first time, the document’s author can say, “But hey, it’s a living document.”
I’m in a profession (law) that has been traditionally fairly poor at marketing, as it is run by lawyers. One of the somewhat fortunate byproducts of that is a relative lack of buzzspeak.
However, we hire people for our marketing department, and they are dear. A few weeks ago, in a meeting regarding how to better market ourselves as lawyers, we got the PowerPoint slide with: “Strategizing Effectuating Leverage of Your Brand.”
I seriously almost broke-up in the middle of the meeting.
I nearly spewed on my keyboard…
Stand up and say, “You mean people actually EFFECTUATE in public?!”
I hereby declare that all living documents must be terminated.
Is that your net-net on this?
At the end of the day, that would be a win-win for all of us.
Or maybe even a come-to-Jesus meeting.
Can we put some better verbiage around that?
But who will care for this going forward?
Apropos of nothing, I was more proud than I should have been that I managed to work the word “prolixity” into my OP. 
Accumulate wealth just means to collect it. Think a big pile of money. “Grow” wealth, at least in a corporate sense, means that yes, you are accumulating wealth, but you are also increasing your capacity for generating wealth.
Picture two hot dog stands. Both make $500 profit a week. Stand one puts that money in the bank and continues to make $500 profit a week. He’s accumulating wealth. Stand two, on the other hand, puts $250 in the bank each week and puts the other $250 back into the business. Improved products, advertising, whatever. After a couple of months of doing this, he is turning a profit of $1000 per week. At this point, he can put the exact same amount of money in the bank each week as stand one, and still have $500 left over to invest back into his business, increasing his profits even further. He has grown his wealth.
See the difference?
Jesus, Dave , can’t we just call it “getting rich” like we used to?