About Us
Hi, my name is Benedict Fardey, Content Writer and founder of Buzzwords. I live on the beautiful Kapiti Coast, 45 minutes north of Wellington, New Zealand – the coolest little capital in the world!
As a seasoned IT career professional, I realised sometime in the mid noughties that I was stuck in a creative rut, regularly churning out necessarily dry, soulless pieces of project documentation and business reports. I recognised that the repetitive drudgery of my work was not truly representative of my skills or ambitions, and that I craved a more varied and fulfilling challenge to satisfy my urge to create and innovate.
I wanted to return to my roots, having completed a degree in Communication & Media Studies in the 1990s, and was keen to embrace the boundary-breaking opportunities afforded by the technological advances of the new ‘Social Web’ or ‘Web 2.0’ culture shift.
As someone with a thirst for knowledge, I threw myself into studying the increasingly evolving world of internet marketing and social media, with a focus on professional copywriting and website content, consuming as much new thought and insight as I could lay my hands and eyes upon.
The more I read (some of it good, some not so good), the clearer the epiphany, which eventually led to the mantra around which Buzzwords was created. Successfully engaging with people on the web is about using words to create buzz, without resorting to trite or hackneyed buzzwords!
Sure, some colloquialisms are useful (hell, there’s even some on this site!) My bugbear is with the use of buzzwords for the sake of buzzwords. For years I would sit in meetings listening to suits spouting what we at Buzzwords like to call ‘corporate bollock-speak’. Nonsense such as “synergy”, “game changer”, “symbiosis”, or my personal anti-favourite “transformational change” (seriously, what other type of change is there?) was very much en vogue. To my mind, such terminology added little to no value to discussion, in fact quite the contrary: nothing could more rapidly dampen my interest than listening to such claptrap.
Plain English Quality Content Writing
The more time I spent on the web, the clearer it became that it was all too often these voices that were saturating the internet with similarly asinine rubbish. There were far too many voices talking a lot without ever really saying anything and not nearly enough interesting and engaging web content.
Having moved to New Zealand from the UK in late 2008, I started Buzzwords as a way of combating this ‘trumpery’ and offering plain English freelance web content. The shifting sands now move at such pace as perceptions and approaches to the world of marketing continue to evolve. In this brave new world of ‘brand storytelling’ and ‘digital presence’, let’s embrace the future together, using English rather than codswallop!
If I’m not found at the beach or sat in one of our charming coastal cafés, I’ll likely be sat at my desk with a stunning view of Kapiti Island, letting nature inspire the creativity in me.
