Business Buzzword Bingo
When I was at HBS, a bunch of us who sat in the back row (the "skydeck" in HBS parlance) would play buzzword bingo based on the class discussion.
Google books has a way of querying their books database for word frequency. I laughed when I saw this chart for "incentivize." It's the hockey stick!
greg:
it's a cool feature. I've never seen that before.
HA!! Put in the terms 'liberty' and 'communism', then try not to cry too hard.
December 17, 2010, 5:22 amScott:
Greg, if you search those two terms separately, it does look pretty bad. Search for "liberty,communism" to see both at once, and you'll be laughing instead of crying. Add "socialism" and it's even better.
December 17, 2010, 6:40 ammorganovich:
search for "unprecedented".
December 17, 2010, 9:53 amcaseyboy:
I always liked paradigm, win-win, buy-in, and a Microsoft Corporate favorite, tee-it-up.
December 17, 2010, 10:04 amDouglas2:
I searched for "microphone" and discovered a prescient text published by NASA in 1712.
December 17, 2010, 11:30 amEarle Williams:
The real travesty:
http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=scientific+method&year_start=1700&year_end=2008&corpus=5&smoothing=3
December 17, 2010, 1:43 pmcolson:
Yes, my favorite drinking game word: "sustainability". Definite hockey stick. This rate of usage is entirely unsustainable and must be stopped.
December 17, 2010, 3:20 pmjoshv:
Search for "tulip mania" the results nicely track, and predict, the US economic boom/bust cycle.
December 17, 2010, 5:29 pmMatt:
Some other fun things to plot there:
objectivism
police brutality
vagina
stateless society
principle
selfownership
Note that you can manually change the "smoothing" value in the URL.
December 17, 2010, 9:42 pmme:
This one gives me hope: ("learnings": http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=learnings&year_start=1700&year_end=2008&corpus=5&smoothing=3)
I cringe every time I see that un-word in print. What's wrong with "lessons" (or, when I have a forgiving day, "teachings" or "take-aways")?
December 18, 2010, 10:04 amme:
This one gives me hope: ("learnings": http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=learnings&year_start=1700&year_end=2008&corpus=5&smoothing=3)
I cringe every time I see that un-word in print. What's wrong with "lessons" (or, when I have a forgiving day, "teachings" or "take-aways")?
December 18, 2010, 10:04 amme:
Although this one gives me pause: http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=liberty&year_start=1700&year_end=2008&corpus=5&smoothing=3
December 18, 2010, 10:06 amIgotBupkis, President, United Anarchist Society:
You may find this tool of particular interest:
Wordle
An example of an interesting usage (not my idea):
SOTU 2010
Fodder from which to make your own:
December 20, 2010, 6:13 pmAll the former SOTU addresses
What Me Worry?:
You may find this tool of particular interest:
Wordle
An example of an interesting usage (not my idea):
SOTU 2010
Fodder from which to make your own:
December 21, 2010, 3:50 amAll the former SOTU addresses
IgotBupkis, President, United Anarchist Society:
You may find this tool of particular interest:
Wordle
December 21, 2010, 1:42 pmIgotBupkis:
An example of an interesting usage (not my idea):
December 21, 2010, 1:42 pmSOTU 2010
IgotBupkis:
Fodder from which to make your own:
All the former SOTU addresses
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Sorry for the triple post, stupid %^*%*% spam filter wouldn't allow a unified post through.
Clearly, anyone who wants to link to (GASP!!) three things MUST be spamming!
December 21, 2010, 1:45 pmEqually obviously, you couldn't possibly program a spambot to do what I just did...