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| GOING POSTAL 2.1 Billion: Average number of e-mail messages sent daily in the United States in 1998.
The personal computer industry "has created more wealth than any legal activity in
history." "The Internet will create even more wealth than the PC."
What do you call a would-be voyeur captured on tape trying to install a snooping video camera? A peeping Tom Smothers? An electrician employed at a professional football stadium got the idea that it would be nice to own a private tape showing the goings-on in the cheerleaders' locker room. So the guy installed a video camera in a light fixture there, all without a hitch. But he must have forgotten to read the camera's operating instructions because the tape was recording as he put the camera in. It was then accidentally ejected. The result? No cheerleaders on film. The only shot was of himself, with his bare face hanging out for all to see.
The made-up words popping up in business meetings and e-mails get more troubling all the time. Customers are incentivized; issues toplined. Though the liberties being taken are enough to give linguistic purists heart attacks, some fabricated terms can be amusing—and appropriate. Here are a few "work words" we've come across recently on-line. William Safire, you can be sure, has not sanctioned these. ALPHA GEEK: the most knowledgeable, technically proficient person in an office or work group. "Brian will know; he's the alpha geek in our department." PRESENTEEISM: when an employee is at work but not doing anything productive. SEAGULL MANAGER: a manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, poops over everything, and then leaves. CONCEPTING: devising concepts. Formerly "thinking." UNINSTALLED: euphemism for being fired. "You have reached the office of an uninstalled employee. Please dial the main number and ask for assistance." BLAMESTORMING: sitting around in a group discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible. DRIVE-BY MANAGER: a manager who cruises in, pelts you with a series of requests, then whizzes off before you know what's happening.
"Trust the computer industry to shorten 'Year 2000' to Y2K. It was this kind of
thinking that caused the problem in the first place."
"At first, the quest was to write the Great American Novel. That was replaced by
the Great American Screenplay. Now, everyone wants to write the Great American Business
Model."
With all the money being made on the Web, there ought to be extra cash to pass along to the less fortunate. Sure enough, organizations dedicated to charity are sprouting up on the Internet. With names like iGive and shop2give, they operate on the same principle as the affiliate programs companies such as Amazon.com use. On-line shoppers visit a charity site (or are directed to it by participating not-for-profits) and follow a Web link to one of several Internet merchants. Then, once a sale is made, the retailer shares a small portion of the price of the purchased items with the designated cause (and with the charity site that referred the customer.)
By installing electronic kiosks in REI stores that link up to the REI Web site, the outdoor equipment retailer has effectively merged its on-line and in-store experiences. That means shoppers can buy the products they want, even if they're not available at the store they've visited. Customers can also get in-depth information on any given product they desire, or even book adventure trips. The real innovation, according to the Webonomics Stories newsletter, is that customers logging on to www.rei.com will find, in addition to a list of store locations, notices that direct them to events taking place in the stores. "If there is a bicycle maintenance clinic happening in the Cary, N.C., store," Evan Schwartz writes, "the site will tell you that you simply must go. This, of course, drives people back to the store again, and perhaps even gets them socializing with other people who also like shopping there. The REI mail-order catalog does the same, completing a three-stop customer traffic loop among its different retail channels." |
