Overused

When I lived in NY and read NY Magazine religiously, one of my favorite sections of each issue was “overheard.”  You know, random things you hear, completely out of context, that are funny. Now I read the Overheard in New York blog, where I pulled some of these:

“Just because she has a tattoo doesn’t mean she’s an alcoholic!”

“Hey, what month is eleven?”

“I don’t need more drinks to choose from. I’m not that interested in beverages. I like my Diet Coke, I like my vodka, and that’s all I need.”

“Sex with Steven is more boring than church.”

“This is the B train. B like in Bitch.”

For me, the opposite of Overheard is “Overused.” Random words or phrases that become too popular. They start off innocently enough. You only hear or read them occasionally.  Then some kind of social inertia kicks in, and these words seem to be everywhere: spoken in meetings, seen on web pages, blog posts, print ads, even radio spots. Might I dare say they’ve reach a tipping point?  (Hmmm. Tipping Point. Might have to put that on the list, too…)

It’s around this point that I just stop paying attention.

Here are few of my personal “favorite” words and phrases that are overused, approaching overused status or just plain annoying:

• Ecosystem
• Outside my comfort zone
• Join the conversation (Come on. Even Anderson Cooper is using this now.)
• Reach out
• Meet up
• We’re committed to…(insert any company initiative here)
• Paradigm shift
• Across the pond
• Let’s discuss that offline
• Synergy and/or synergistic
• Workflow

What words or phrases drive you nuts?

Testing New Polling Funtionality in WordPress

[polldaddy poll=1043879]]

Vote No for Yes…Yes for No…Huh?

Having a conversation today with a co-worker about a question  we ask around here often:

Should we do direct mail for this campaign or not?

We both are thinking no. It’s expensive. It doesn’t work as well as it used to, and really, who reads their office mail anymore?

He suggested starting a campaign he’d call Propostion 1, with the message:

Vote No on Direct Mail.

But I told him, if it were a true proposition, you’d have to make it a YES vote for no direct mail, and a NO vote for direct mail, so it’s written in true political backwards speak.

He’d have to get the postal service and various state groups to support a NO vote in an attempt thoroughly confuse people.  Then he’d need various other state groups, two or three random guys and the Pulp Paper Commission to support a YES vote. And, of course, he’d have to run incomprehensibly stupid ads on radio and TV that support both sides but do nothing more than make people want to avoid voting at all.

So remember, this November, vote YES if you don’t want direct mail, NO if you do.

Who couldn’t see this ridiculousness as a real proposition on the ballot?

Confessions of a Shoe Whore

Calling myself a shoe whore may be too kind. I might just be sick.

Here’s why:

I have a slight obsession with a particular pair of black leather boots by Donald Pliner. I bought them about 2 years ago retail and paid $225. At the time I was horrified to be spending so much.

But money be damned, I loved them. I wore them all the time. I had to buy another pair as a “back up” because, you know, I might ruin them should I get stuck in snow storm (where I live in the very snowy San Francisco) or a rainstorm (as I drive to work everyday in my car from one enclosed garage to another…)

Then, about a year ago, I saw them in fabric at the popular Norstrom’s Annual Sale. Woohoo. My size. But there was only one. Not one pair. One boot. The sample on the rack. The sales person couldn’t find the match. She took my number. Said she would look for it and call me.

A day passed. No call.

Another day passed. No call.

Finally I called her. She wasn’t working that day. OHMYGOD! What if someone else already found the match and sold it to another customer??

But sales person #2 found me the match and I drove there as fast as I could before they closed for the night. They were both waiting for me. One beautiful pair of boots and the sales person. Yes, thank you for holding them for me, here’s my credit card, goodnight.

I thought my obsession was fully fed. Until last weekend I was poking around ebay looking for who knows what. I searched Donald Pliner. I found my boots. A brand new pair, my size, never worn. Opening bid $25.00.

I starting watching the auction. Hello sickness?

It was ending at 5:15 tonight. I made a appointment in Outlook to remind me at 5:00 that I should watch the auction, “just in case.”

“Just in case” happened — right about the time I thought someone was going to get “my” boots for $59.00 plus $12.00 shipping. So after a few rounds of very fast, last minute bidding, I was finally the highest bidder with just 4 seconds to spare. $75 bucks, plus shipping, those boot were mine!

I don’t even need them. The economy is crumbling around me. Layoffs are rising. Yet I just spent $87 bucks on a pair of back up boots for the pair of back up boots already in my closet.

There’s a marketing message here somewhere. The power of brands? Clearly. The excitement of bidding on an ebay auction? Without a doubt. The way that ebay connected someone who has an obsession (me) to someone across the country (the seller) who wanted to offload what they thought was a bad purchase? I’d call that some form of social media in action.

Whatever the message, I am now am the proud (?) owner of a new my fourth pair of Donald Pliner boots. Um. Let’s just keep that between us.