B-I-N-G-O and Metrics Was His Name-o!

Dear Internet,

On a conference call earlier in the week I had a horrifying flashback to my first corporate job. For the record, conference calls are the biggest waste of time and traditionally they're set up by people who don't have work to do and want to fill up their days with pointless blather on matters that don't concern anyone on the call but are, nonetheless, required to attend.

But anyway, getting back to my original point, I was on a conference call and someone said the phrase "client facing". I was immediately catapulted through space and time, leaving my home office only to find myself sitting in a conference room on the West Side of Manhattan, wearing ill-fitting tweed pants and a somewhat rumpled collared shirt, looking blankly at a wall thinking, what the hell does marketize mean? I sat there confused and figured I might as well travel back to the proper dimesion and get my game board out.

I reawoke to the same individual saying "leverage the invested stakeholders" and I was lost, and not just because I was busy IMing someone and checking my bank balance. I had no idea what that meant and I examined the recesses of my mind. This didn't really take too long, but by the time I was done, I wasn't sure how long I had had the phone on mute, if someone had asked me a question, or even what day it was.

"Leverage the invested stakeholders," to me means "I'm just saying words because I don't actually know what I'm talking about", which is just about what it translates to anyway. Everyone does it: I'm a culprit myself. When I'm unprepared I like to put together whole strings of words that have no meaning in the outside world because then people will think (perhaps) that I did a bunch of research and that my, ahem, game face is on.

So let me enlighten you to something that a former colleague of mine so gleefully and hysterically invited me to participate in: Buzzword Bingo.



Essentially a play on traditional Bingo, Buzzword Bingo is played in the office (or from home if the case may be) during meetings, conference calls, and webcasts, but rather than numbers and letters the game uses marketing and other business terms (AKA Buzzwords) as scoring mechanisms. As far as buzzwords go, marketing people are the worst. I should know, I am one. But really, there is no end in the level of fun you can have by yourself or with equally sardonic co-workers.

So this is how it works, and you're either in or you're out. By this I mean you are either going to be with the cool kids with game boards printed from the laser jet (PC LOAD LETTER!?) or you're going to be one of the jerks saying all the dumb non-words. Either way, bone up on the business lexicon or get out. Google "Buzzword Bingo" and find a few different game cards. Either for you or your co-workers. Then get on the call. As words are spoken, find them on your sheet and get to winnin'.


For the record, there are no prizes in Buzzword Bingo, unless your company has some type of pot or gambling system that mine wasn't forward-thinking enough to create, just the pure excitement of having known you are a better person for not having said the words. Unless of course you slip up and say them -- and who can blame you anyway? People, this is corporate: say strategize or pay the price.

To get you started, here are links to some of my favorite boards:

- IT Buzzwords
- Starbuck Marketing Buzzwords
- Original Edition

Yahtzee!
Shelly