By Annie Pond
POST-TRUTH Describes appeals to emotions or beliefs as more influential than objective facts in shaping public opinion. Post-truth entered the scene on a large scale during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. It even was coined Word of the Year by Oxford Dictionaries.1
UNICORN A private company, usually a tech startup, that has a value of $1 billion. These company valuations are usually questionable because it seems almost too good to be true for investors. Companies such as Uber and Pinterest are considered unicorns, and Facebook has even hit the status of “Super Unicorn” for this decade.2
INTRAPRENEUR A position that uses entrepreneurial skills within a larger company. This word made its debut in the 1970’s and has re-emerged to highlight the necessity of thinking outside of the box. In a 1985 Newsweek article, Steve Jobs stated, “The Macintosh team was what is commonly known as intrapreneurship… a group of people going, in essence, back to the garage, but in a large company.”3
SOCIAL MEDIA INFLUENCER People who use their influence on social media to promote a product. Companies have eagerly taken hold of social media influencers on blogs, YouTube, and other sites. Gap’s Styld.by campaign experienced huge success when using different social media influencers ranging from bloggers to singers outfitted in Gap’s fashion and then promoted across social media.4
DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGY A new technology innovation that shakes the already-established market and industry. The Cloud is considered a disruptive technology to other memory-storing devices such as memory cards, flash drives, etc.
NOTES
- Oxford University Press, “Word of the Year 2016 is…,”https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/word-of-the-year/word-of-the-year-2016, accessed February 2017.
- Aileen Lee, “Welcome to the Unicorn Club: Learning from Billion-Dollar Startups,” TechCrunch, November 2, 2013, https://techcrunch.com/2013/11/02/welcome-to-theunicorn-club/, accessed February 2017.
- Gerald C. Lubenow, “Jobs Talks about His Rise and Fall,” Newsweek, September 29, 1989, http://www.newsweek. com/jobs-talks-about-his-rise-and-fall-207016, accessed February 2017.
- Ana Gotter, “The 7 Best Influencer Marketing Campaigns We’ve Ever Seen,” Tint (blog), Tint, August
2, 2016, https://www.tintup.com/blog/best-influencermarketing-campaigns/, accessed February 2017.