a holdover term from the analog era, in which the substance and impressiveness of one’s work would be captured in the heft of the documents dropped on the conference room table at the start of a meeting, generating a solid boom, as in “Make sure you include all seven appendices in the investment committee report, we need the thud factor”; the phrase contains an unstated yet undeniable sense of satisfaction on the part of the one causing the thud, as he or she is proud of the volume of output produced and wishes to call attention to it; in modern parlance the thud factor is largely metaphorical, as weighty compilations of documents have been replaced by digital communications, and there is as yet no good way to drop files in cloud storage onto an oak boardroom table; the thud factor is primarily intended to dazzle an audience, which in most cases is disinclined to actually pore over the work product in detail, being satisfied by its mere existence