I am not a technology luddite...really.
Being without my cell phone ranks neck-and-neck with finding I'm without my watch...
it's wrenching and makes me feel like I'm walking around without all my clothes. That last time I suffered a cell casualty (note to file: unlike Oreos, cell phones will not generally survive a dunk in tea...although they will reliably utter the same snap, crackle and pop sounds we associate with a popular cereal...)
The Irish cousins taught me to text -- a handy little pursuit I've learned to love.
In a pinch, I can take a photo with a phone...and I have a dozen of the inside of my car that prove that. I lost the striking one of the elk from Banff during the sad tea incident.
The i-Pod adventure is one I've grown fonder of as I go. I tend to think of different additions
my collection requires while I'm driving...and I tend to forget what I thought it would be a good idea to add by the time I've navigated the last Highway 6 cut.
Hence, my affinity for certain CBC programs and personalities who have put me
onto some of the best and newest additions to my collections. Andy Barrie was an early i-Pod devotee...and shares his favourites regularly. Emma Lee (That Sinking Feeling) was his suggestion...and I replay that one often.
Michael Franti and Spearhead hit my shuffle after Michael had a very thought-provoking discussion about spirituality with Mary Hynes on Tapestry. Say Hey I Love You is a brilliant track -- and it's impossible to hear it without wanting to tap your feet.
Then I discovered the team at GO post the songs performed by their musical guests for free downloading. They feature a lot of new talent -- which has been pretty impressive so far -- but they also regularly host performers including Molly Johnson and Martha Wainwright. Not bad folks to include on your playlist.
My total index is...eclectic. Clancy Brothers selections (keep in mind, official training for St. Patrick's Day opened yesterday, January 17 - please don't tell my Sainted Mother)...The Cure...The La's (whose brilliant track There She Goes Again is actually a devoted tune about - kid you not - heroin. I got that from Terry O'Reilly - also at CBC - who hosts a show about advertising called the Age of Persuasion. Perhaps someone should tell those nice kids Sixpence None the Richer - the Christian band who made the cover of this one popular in the late 90s).
Lyle Lovett can coexist peacefully with The Northern Pikes. Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson fit in nicely too. The Charlie Brown Christmas songs are a good fit too.
It's curious how many artists pair lively little tunes with lyrics so far from lively that you can't get your head around it. Lyle Lovett's LA Country probably gets top billing for this in my books. So there you are, humming along with this energetic, twangy tune...until you realize it's all about a stalker who follows his old girlfriend to LA and splatters her all over an altar as she's marrying someone else. But you still can't help singing it...cheerfully...
Emma Lee is a bit the same. That Sinking Feeling coaxes you in with a great melody but it's all about a woman who goes about merrily rehabilitating romantically bruised boys. As soon as they're back on their feet, they're gone. But you smile singing it. The poor girl should start fostering cats or squirrels or something because if this keeps up, she'll need the company.
I can hardly wait until Rex Murphy starts offering up his suggestions...
After all, he taught me to Twitter (sort of...)
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Sunday, January 11, 2009
the joy of buzzword bingo...
In the first week of the new year (albeit, just before real Christmas, which we non-Orthodox creatures refer to as Little Christmas), I found myself in a meeting room on one of those cheery conference calls most of us thrill to...
The call was with a vendor...keen to sell us a service (and candidly, we are keen to explore that possibility). The two faceless spectres who initially floated onto the line knew one of our colleagues...who was on the line from another location. I sat in a windowless room (but mercifully, one of the warmest rooms in the building) with a particularly bright and noble colleague.
Admittedly, these exchanges are tricky for people who have never met.
Vendors want to convey knowledge...enthusiasm...empathy...
In the absence of eye contact and samples, the common currency of the exchange becomes the dreaded buzzword.
In my world, buzzwords rank (in no particular order) slightly atop fleas for their power to irritate. Like fleas, they're more a nuisance than an affliction. Like fleas, they're far from fatal, but they are -- in the words of the immortal Tommy Makem and Liam Clancy -- prolific; left unchecked, they travel, reproduce and afflict others who spread them as well. Pity the vet doesn't treat this one.
I spend two evenings a week (most weeks) teaching language and communication.
Early on, my students learn the difference between affect (change, cause or persuade) and effect (n. result, consequence; v. to mount legislation or effort toward change) so they needn't default to the dreaded impact.
Similarly, my close colleagues know the third utterance of an errant 'impacted' in any meeting will prompt me to smile, interject sweetly, explain the four things impacted can describe (wisdom teeth lodged in jaws, tumours lodged in human bodies, ore deposits lodged in land and -- my personal favourite -- the anal glands of small mammals full of nasty matter and requiring manual expression) then ask which the speaker means in reference to our clients or colleagues.
So there I sat on a bleak winter afternoon on the end of a tinny VoIP phone as the firm's representatives spoke to their capability. In truth, the earnest representatives were keen but not offensive.; still, they couldn't help themselves.
I was ready for the standard selections: leverage, optimize, high-level (having nothing to do with height...meaning notional...without detail...)...
Feedback is one that cracks me up: it's NOISE emitted by a poor connection in a stereo (a now defunct technology). Feedback sounds pained and unpleasant...so how did it come to mean 'comments we want from our clients and prospects'?
Time-box (or it's cousin, timeline) as a verb was new to me, so it got a good spot.
My bright and noble colleague watched me scratching out what he initially took to be notes. I asked reasonable questions so he know I was 'engaged' in the activity...but part way throught the penny dropped. He muted the phone.
'Hey, you're playing buzzword bingo!' he observed.
'I'm not playing,' I observed, 'I'm winning.'
He might briefly have thought about chastising me, until the vendor's team tiptoed into acromym territory. Suddenly, we were confronted by an unexpected SOW. We looked at each other and neither of our collective experiences got us past a visual image of a pig. 'Excuse me,' I interjected, 'Our phone cut out for a moment there. What was that last thing you were going to send us?'
'A SOW,' came the earnest reply. No easy out on this tussle.
'I'm sorry, but what is that?'
'A statement of work....'
Who knew? For one brief, shining moment, I really thought I was going to get to put lipstick on a pig.
My noble associate might have let it go until we tripped over a mumbled sequence neither of us could untangle and since it was repeated we felt translation was required. 'Excuse me, but was that VLT or BTM you said?' This time they provided concurrent translation: BPM or business process management -- their 'core' business.
At that, my noble associate snapped...and started adding words and checking subsequent references with gleeful abandon.
Iterations
Deployment (of the non-military variety)
Dashboard (of a non-automotive type)
Optimize
Paradigm
Scalable functionality.
Say it with me campers, "BINGO!"
I can hardly wait until our next call....
The call was with a vendor...keen to sell us a service (and candidly, we are keen to explore that possibility). The two faceless spectres who initially floated onto the line knew one of our colleagues...who was on the line from another location. I sat in a windowless room (but mercifully, one of the warmest rooms in the building) with a particularly bright and noble colleague.
Admittedly, these exchanges are tricky for people who have never met.
Vendors want to convey knowledge...enthusiasm...empathy...
In the absence of eye contact and samples, the common currency of the exchange becomes the dreaded buzzword.
In my world, buzzwords rank (in no particular order) slightly atop fleas for their power to irritate. Like fleas, they're more a nuisance than an affliction. Like fleas, they're far from fatal, but they are -- in the words of the immortal Tommy Makem and Liam Clancy -- prolific; left unchecked, they travel, reproduce and afflict others who spread them as well. Pity the vet doesn't treat this one.
I spend two evenings a week (most weeks) teaching language and communication.
Early on, my students learn the difference between affect (change, cause or persuade) and effect (n. result, consequence; v. to mount legislation or effort toward change) so they needn't default to the dreaded impact.
Similarly, my close colleagues know the third utterance of an errant 'impacted' in any meeting will prompt me to smile, interject sweetly, explain the four things impacted can describe (wisdom teeth lodged in jaws, tumours lodged in human bodies, ore deposits lodged in land and -- my personal favourite -- the anal glands of small mammals full of nasty matter and requiring manual expression) then ask which the speaker means in reference to our clients or colleagues.
So there I sat on a bleak winter afternoon on the end of a tinny VoIP phone as the firm's representatives spoke to their capability. In truth, the earnest representatives were keen but not offensive.; still, they couldn't help themselves.
I was ready for the standard selections: leverage, optimize, high-level (having nothing to do with height...meaning notional...without detail...)...
Feedback is one that cracks me up: it's NOISE emitted by a poor connection in a stereo (a now defunct technology). Feedback sounds pained and unpleasant...so how did it come to mean 'comments we want from our clients and prospects'?
Time-box (or it's cousin, timeline) as a verb was new to me, so it got a good spot.
My bright and noble colleague watched me scratching out what he initially took to be notes. I asked reasonable questions so he know I was 'engaged' in the activity...but part way throught the penny dropped. He muted the phone.
'Hey, you're playing buzzword bingo!' he observed.
'I'm not playing,' I observed, 'I'm winning.'
He might briefly have thought about chastising me, until the vendor's team tiptoed into acromym territory. Suddenly, we were confronted by an unexpected SOW. We looked at each other and neither of our collective experiences got us past a visual image of a pig. 'Excuse me,' I interjected, 'Our phone cut out for a moment there. What was that last thing you were going to send us?'
'A SOW,' came the earnest reply. No easy out on this tussle.
'I'm sorry, but what is that?'
'A statement of work....'
Who knew? For one brief, shining moment, I really thought I was going to get to put lipstick on a pig.
My noble associate might have let it go until we tripped over a mumbled sequence neither of us could untangle and since it was repeated we felt translation was required. 'Excuse me, but was that VLT or BTM you said?' This time they provided concurrent translation: BPM or business process management -- their 'core' business.
At that, my noble associate snapped...and started adding words and checking subsequent references with gleeful abandon.
Iterations
Deployment (of the non-military variety)
Dashboard (of a non-automotive type)
Optimize
Paradigm
Scalable functionality.
Say it with me campers, "BINGO!"
I can hardly wait until our next call....
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