dlowan, Hey, that's my line! LOL
How about "integrated" and "termination", I like those ones...
Okay, next time you go to a major meeting, bring a small card. Divide it into segments, say, 9. You know, 3 across, 3 vertical. Write a different buzzword or phrase in each square. Leave the middle square as a "free space".
Every time you hear one of the buzzwords (paradigm, "think outside the box", whatever), check it off.
When the card is completed, you have buzzword bingo. What you do with it is your own decision (we used to just leave the meeting once we had bingo, but protocol might dictate otherwise).
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Another game to play is: chart the buzzwords' appearance. This is done with a graph and you can do it on Excel if you want to get fancy and make it look like work.
Graph the following horizontally: the time the meeting begins to the time the meeting ends. Divide the time by ten- or fifteen-minute segments, depending upon how long the meeting is. For very long meetings (e. g. a day or more), go with half-hour segments.
On the vertical end, list the buzzwords or phrases in alphabetical order, from top to bottom, as such:
- market penetration
- paradigm shift
- think outside the box
Now, as you hear the word or phrase, mark it on the graph. If there's more than one speaker, use different-colored pens or a pen and a pencil or if you're using Excel use a different parameter.
A variation on the graph game is to graph the number of times a word or phrase is mentioned, as opposed to when it's mentioned. I had a colleague who used to say "notion" all of the time. Not idea, not concept, but notion. So the graph game was modified to count how many times he said notion. He also mispronounced ampersand (he used to say amperstand - used to make me cringe every single time) and my friend and I would graph that as well.
This helps to avoid the heavy-lidded appearance Setanta mentioned above. Actually, heh, have I ever mentioned that I once quite literally fell asleep in a meeting? This was a meeting with only some half a dozen people and it was not cool but yeah, I did so. Oy.
jespah, if you ever want to host a 'team-building' event in T.O. just give me a call. Sure, I make you cook your own dinner, but we ply you with booze, and I make sure the food is good in the end, and no bullshit either. Hey, isn't Amperstand in the Netherlands?
I've always thought that 'market penetration' sounded a bit like 'I really need a date.'
No. Ampersand is a senior partner in the firm of Ampersand, Ampersand, and Ampersand.
Is that the old accounting firm that went kaput?
following the downturn.....
when I was teaching we had a column of popular nonsense words used at the time (This was in Reagan Years so the words "dismanltrle " and "Enhanced radiation" were popular . Wed make a list made of three columns. !0 words in a column. We put lists of 3 number sets in a hat . Everybody (anybody associate prof or less) would draw and , if you got , say 345, youd refer to your jargon /babble list and put the three worded phrase that was deroven from that number set.
Youd have to use your phrase in a faculty meeting at least once . Anyone who failed , bought many flagons.
The hell of it was, very few people ever batted an eye, thus proving
1 most scientists dont listen to anybody else , and are only waiting for their turn
2 most people dont really know what theyre talking about anyway
3 listeners think that if its sounding on the weighty side, must be that stuff means something
I saw this in a Meyers Briggs personality brief.
"If I had more time to prepare I could have explained it simpler"
I suppose that's the point of all this farmerman...instead of the buzzwords and cathphrases, a slap to head and a Moonstruck-inspired "Snap out of it" is probably more effective.
jespah, buzzword bingo, you really need to market that as a board game. That is hysterical!
chrome wrote:jespah, buzzword bingo, you really need to market that as a board game. That is hysterical!
well it might 2 hours in a meeting to get the key buzz words - well my experiences
No I mean just as a regular board game. You know, roll the dice, draw a card, player reads buzzword to you and you have to define it, if you succeed... you move forward however many spaces you got on the dice.
You wouldn't have to play this at work. However, the buzzwords would also prompt you to share your "buzzword flashbacks" with the other players, resulting in 2x the fun.
Just a thought...
Good idea...
Hmmm, that one may percolate! The concept will take off!
I agree with Craven that they be useful sometimes. Fr'instance, it's fairly common in my office for people to say "So, how do we move forward from this?", which does sound more professional than "Right then. Now what?".
At an Irish site i often visit, one of the members once posted in its entirety a memorandum which some IT developers had put together to communicate their newest project to management and staff. She deleted any references which could have identified anyone, but it was otherwise intact. Judging (with sufficient experience to be accurate) from the lenghth of the post there, i'd say it ran to three pages at the least. She was complaining about much the same thing in that thread. I summarized the memo as: "We intend to carry out the plan presented by management. We think it will work as planned. Don't expect the impossible."
When someone writes a message such as that in a three page memo, they're infected with a serious disease which equates a forest of jargon verbiage with productive work. Washington was once informed that two soldiers had been apprehended for rape, and he told their Colonel to keep him informed. This was the exchange, all written by both on a small scarp of paper:
Col.: Recommend execution.
Wash.: Concurred in.
Col.: Executed.
Grand Duke, I would suggest that your example is more simple manipulation of language than buzzwords. Let me give you an example of my own. I was working for a caterer/specialty food shop, and there was a long list of things to do. Seeing as I was the one setting up the shop, I was there earlier than anyone else. I went in, checked the list, and got to work. In the middle of my work, the boss shows up, looks at the list, ignores the fact that I am working on it, and halfway done anyway, and says: "Okay, let's do some 'battle-mapping'" Battle-mapping....that, my friend is true jargon. Then she pulls out a chalkboard and starts drawing pictures, or charts, or god knows what....I wasted 20 minutes of work time telling her how things were going to get done, rather than just getting them done.
True, Cav. Maybe insecure people like to have a visual record of the work so they can prove that they have done something, even if it is only planning what it is they actually have to do.
I did have a manager at a previous job who liked to be 'one of the lads', perve on the secretaries etc. This was just about tolerable, but his business jargon was hilariously outdated. The best two (both strangely to do with being in trouble with the boss) were:
"Our cocks are on the block over this one..."
"I'm getting my balls felt by him upstairs..."
They may have been trendy expressions amongst businessmen in the early 80's but they sounded very strange to my young ears in the late 90s!
Business is a strange thing, with many changing trends, and hopefully the buzzwords will become more comprehensible as the years pass. Or people will start using proper English instead. This gets me in the mood for a rant about spelling & grammar in the Internet age (If it's worth saying, it's worth spelling properly. If they can't take the time to type properly, I won't take the time to read it...) but I'll save that for another day.
Heh heh, that kind of jargon and behaviour is indeed completely outdated, not to mention innapropriate, but it gave me a good larf.
Memories.... of useless flow charts...
Business buzzwords, legal terms, pyscho babble, medical terminology are all design to alienate the person outside of the clique group. This allows them to charge more because they sounded so intellectual.
