Word of the Day (Or Year)

By Rich Smith, 01-07-2025

Do any of you get a word of the day in your email? Or text? Several free services do this. It’s fun, but the words generally aren’t usable. If you try to use them in real life, you’ll end up sounding like you’re just trying to be smarter than you are. But sometimes they give you new words, or an interesting look into the root meanings of words we use every day, and make other words that we may use every day more meaningful.

I write this today, on the last day of 2024, because the word I got a few days ago has stuck with me. I can’t seem to shake it, and now I know why. There is finally a word to explain what I’ve experienced in our industry in 2024 The industry I love. The industry I’ve devoted the past 20 years to.

That word? Enshittification.

Now that we’re all done laughing, because honestly, it’s a funny word, let’s talk about the meaning.

I took the word to Google to get as many definitions as possible. Here is what the AI Overview told me:

I tip my virtual hat to the British, they are so much better at cursing than we are. Weaving curse words into other everyday words to describe something makes me giggle and happy all at the same time. Does that make me juvenile? Maybe? But it also makes the old journalist that still lives inside my head proud…and maybe a little envious. 

Enshittification actually has a Wikipedia page too. That definition might be even better: “Enshittification, also known as crapification and platform decay, is a pattern in which online products and services decline in quality. Initially, vendors create high-quality offerings to attract users, then they degrade those offerings to better serve business customers, and finally degrade their services to users and business customers to maximize profits for shareholders.”

Platform Decay. Decline in quality. All that sounds familiar right? If you asked me, this is what happened in 2024 in our industry. The infusion of tech meant to replace the human element coupled with the explosion of outsourcing to overseas companies that have absolutely no business in what we do every day. Or better yet, remember how all the “recruiterless” type companies were going to be the new norm? They offered a ton of fancy tech up front, making the process SEEM easy and painless. They marketed themselves as the Amazon or Uber of Travel Healthcare. Seeing this shift…or attempted shift, we ALL started trying it. Introducing as much tech as we could in an effort to keep up with what we saw happening in the industry. With the FLOOD of outside money pouring in an attempt to disrupt our way of life, we didn’t see any other options. It was the virtual boogeyman, and we all fell for it. 

Now we are seeing the flaws in this model, and thus, the enshittification of our industry. These heavy tech companies were good at one thing and one thing only, raising money. When it came to the people part, they failed miserably. Maybe because people were never important to them. When you put technology and profits AHEAD of the people part, you’ve already started down the wrong road. But what you didn’t see behind the scenes was their forced internal shift back toward people, because they realized travel/temp healthcare never wanted a fully automated, tech-driven type product. Internally they realized they NEEDED people. So, in response to this, they started hiring overseas labor to keep costs (and publicity) down. But in the end, it didn’t work. They spent a TON of additional money trying to make it, and now, much like the Google definition, we are actively seeing a decline in services. 

And unfortunately, it’s dragging down the entire market with it. That’s what I’ve been feeling, and that’s why that word stuck in my head for so many days. 

So, I went back to the google machine and asked, “what is the opposite of enshittificatoin”? It can’t be permanent; it has to be reversable. 
What I got back doesn’t surprise me, and it’s officially become my north star for 2025.

Disenshittification. Are we just being silly now, or is that real? I’m going to argue the latter, AND I want to focus on the last three points as I see them.

1. Focus on empowerment. Travel healthcare isn’t the same as ordering diapers on Amazon, or getting an Uber to your hotel. It’s a deep, meaningful relationship where the healthcare provider and their recruiter (and agency) work towards the same goals. Empowering the healthcare provider with more data and useful information SHOULD be our primary goal in this post pandemic world. That might mean more technology, but it will never replace the person on the other end of the phone/text/email.
2. Openness and Transparency. This one is easy, I believe we have ALWAYS been these things. Our industry likes to use those as buzzwords but rooted our business in them. Want to test that theory? Message/email/text me anything. I’ll answer it, always have. Atlas ranks in the Top 20 in Travel Nursing, and Top 35 in all of Travel Healthcare. What other agency founder and owner puts themselves out there like I do?
3. Prioritizing User Needs. This doesn’t mean more tech. This means a refocus on what means the most: the healthcare provider in the facility taking care of patients. What does that individual need most, and how can we deliver it to them? If that means more people, so be it.

Our industry, travel healthcare, is personal. At Atlas, we are putting technology to work where we know it is going to help the traveler get better. Better experience, better opportunities, better locations, better pay, and overall, a better adventure. That means we might be able to automate some parts, but in the end, it’s still a one-on-one relationship. What we’ve experienced it’s new, other industries have or are actively going through the same thing. I still believe in people, and that’s our focus for 2025. 

Now it’s your turn. Go find yourself a good “word of the day” and see where each one of them takes you.