Technical jargon: What does "one-to-one" mean?

What does one-to-one mean?

What at first sounds like a slip of the tongue is not a slip of the tongue in technical terms: mathematicians - and there are more and more of them in advertising and marketing - are probably familiar with the term. One-to-one unambiguity comes from set theory and describes a special property of mappings and functions, but among communication managers, one-to-one unambiguity is very popular when it comes to emphasizing the unambiguous by doubling it. Well, the inflationary use is forgiven them, because in communication departments of the enterprises and organizations already completely different word creations became large. Suboptimal or proactive, for example, next to which eineindeutig comes across as downright unambiguous.

Communication in the glass house

Unambiguous primarily means reversibly unambiguous, i.e. unambiguous in every direction. Translated into the lingo of our industry, this could mean, for example, communication towards the inside and the outside (company), towards the top and the bottom (hierarchy), or towards the back and the front (process).Nevertheless, clients demand unambiguous ideas when they actually mean messages that are easy to understand. They should rather demand truly unambiguous communication, because that is what it takes to survive in an increasingly transparent world.*Benno Maggi is co-founder and CEO of Partner & Partner. He created the section "Vom Fach" in the NZZ FOLIO and was in charge of it for years. He presents and decodes words and terms that can be used either for small talk, being important, getting excited, playing Scrabble or simply for fun.