[Closed] "Ringfencing the unicorn"

Nice. Next time see if you can get monkey and spanking past him.

Or W@nking off a dead dog...

Or W@nking off a dead dog...

We've all done it...

Or "put this one to bed", whilst pointing at the person in the room most likely to be a virgin.

Edit: Unless that's yourself.

I was in a meeting all day when various people kept talking about a disconnect of some of our systems. I assumed this to be a technical issue. But it then transpired that we people in the field, are in disconnect with the office. So I now think it actually means that we are just in a huff with each other. Which is right. We are. Because they keep talking to us in code.

Because they keep talking to us in code.

They'll be looking for more granularity next

Yes, we'll do that. Moving forward.

You need to cascade this phrase to the rest of stw.

But it then transpired that we people in the field, are in disconnect with the office.

Wow. Verbing nouns is commonplace, but I think that's the first time I've seen someone noun a verb.

Verbing weirds words

My favourite real life one was when i was once asked if I could "take care of the situation from soup to nuts"

The question and the company had nothing to do with catering.

BBSB, you're welcome 🙂

so, what does ringfencing the unicorn mean?

talking boll0x about something which doesn't exist is always the way forward in meetings.

Kev

@brakes - i think it means helicoptering out of the quicksand to enable a holistic paradigm shift and thereby access the low hanging fruit. Though I'm just running that up the flagpole to see who salutes.

Ringfencing
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ringfencing or Ring-fencing occurs when a portion of a company's assets or profits are financially separated without necessarily being operated as a separate entity. This might be for:
regulatory reasons,
creating asset protection schemes with respect to financing arrangements, or
segrating into separate income streams for taxation purposes.

and a unicorn is obviously a mythical creature...

😕

Kev

We've all done it...

"keep f*cking that chicken"

talking boll0x about something which doesn't exist is always the way forward in meetings.

Kev

These people need throwing under [b]A[/b] bus not [b]the[/b] bus but an actual bus.

Save the UK some money.

@brakes - i think it means helicoptering out of the quicksand to enable a holistic paradigm shift and thereby access the low hanging fruit. Though I'm just running that up the flagpole to see who salutes

are you sure? i was thinking more about empowering the synergies to ensure we're all singing from the same hymnsheet whilst moving forward collectively as a group. That said, taking it off-line, it is hard to argue with a contextual paradigm shift.

So, ringfencing the unicorn is a tax break then? Those Tories will stop at nothing to get one over on us!

Just because it's worth posting again. I didn't even make it up:

"Firstly, we have signed a transformational outsourcing deal with xxxx which will deliver an increase to our cost synergies from the £112m per annum in 2013, which we will still hit on time, to £143m per annum by 2015. This deal de-risks the embedded value, contractualises the delivery of the cost synergies, and it de-risks the execution of our plans, allowing us to focus on the other opportunities we have as a business."

is that real? wtf does it even mean?!

It is absolutely real, from an all company email from the head honcho.

I have absolutely no idea.

It means: "the company has a signed a ***-off big deal with a service partner that will increase savings from the original forecast of £112m pa to £143m pa over the course of 2013 to 2015. The contract puts the onus on the service partner to deliver these savings, so if they arent delivered its their fault, not ours. And in doing so it affirms the increase in value of the company following the merger and means we can concentrate on doing more shit."

I take it some poor bugger must have the sole job of deciphering that crap!

Glide path
Sleeping policeman on the road to progress
mind manuring
preparedness benchmarks
Thought shower
Rotational amnesia
Mood music
Enabling design levers
Institutionalized ad-hocery
Hanging the flesh on the bones
Platform-centric stovepipe
Architectural decoupling

My mate curates a new list every year for our conference and these are all legit and I don't know what most of them mean.

[i]Platform-centric stovepipe[/i] love it 😆

Platform-centric stovepipe

HETAS installer standing on a pallet.

Firstly, we have signed a transformational outsourcing deal with xxxx which will deliver an increase to our cost synergies from the £112m per annum in 2013, which we will still hit on time, to £143m per annum by 2015. This deal de-risks the embedded value, contractualises the delivery of the cost synergies, and it de-risks the execution of our plans, allowing us to focus on the other opportunities we have as a business

That makes no sense whatsoever!

Its an attempt by someone with a feeble mind to try & sound clever. Shocking.

Probably a fan of The Apprentice I think..

Institutionalized ad-hocery

This means someone is a habitual bull-sh1tter.

Stoner - Member
It means: "the company has a signed a ***-off big deal with a service partner that will increase savings from the original forecast of £112m pa to £143m pa over the course of 2013 to 2015. The contract puts the onus on the service partner to deliver these savings, so if they arent delivered its their fault, not ours. And in doing so it affirms the increase in value of the company following the merger and means we can concentrate on doing more shit."

Well, of course it does. I'm not stupid 🙂

and we can fire IHN for being a smartarse too

😉

Platform-centric

[img] http://static.wix.com/media/d4b33bedc4d2667bf0b68a2fb1241768.wix_mp [/img]

Can someone translate this for me please?? From the Team Torq website...

TORQ’s Performance Mountain Bike Team is a heavily sponsored professional outfit and the objective is simple. To unite some of the countries most accomplished Mountain Bike racers into a team with unrivalled strength in depth and to set an example to everyone involved in the sport that high-end performances are achieved in symbiosis with generosity of spirit, courtesy and integrity.

Thanks

DrP

high-end performances are achieved in symbiosis with generosity of spirit, courtesy and integrity.

= "More tea vicar, FTW!"

^ no need; it's

simple

they shout "RIDEERRRRRRRRRRR" during races to force lesser mortals out of their way?

I didn't say that out loud did I?

Sounds like an 'Engrish' translation of some Chinese TV remote or something!

Along the lines of...
"This remote has generosity of spirit for the channel changing integrity...."

DrP

"If we can hit that bullseye, the rest of the dominos will fall like a house of cards. Checkmate."

My favourite real life one was when i was once asked if I could "take care of the situation from soup to nuts"

I have to write a report thingy about my placement, I'm going to have to get ringfence the unicorn in it, aren't I?

Institutionalized ad-hocery

That's "making shit up as we go along", isn't it. Also, very meta.

Rotational amnesia

I have no idea what this means, but I love it. We forget to turn round? Set in our ways, can't change direction maybe?

If you want to endure daily language strangling, hang out with lawyers.

We're brilliant at knocking the fun out of everything.

I have to write a report thingy about my placement, I'm going to have to get ringfence the unicorn in it, aren't I?

Said by a deputy headteacher addressing a whole-staff meeting:

"Let's look at the www's and the ebi's..."

Apparently:
www = what went well

ebi = even better if...

What happened to 'strengths' and 'weaknesses'?

This is the best thread for ages.

I keep meaning to play corporate b/s bingo when the head of our business-stream comes in to talk to us but I've never got round to it.

Is it only my business who are obsessed with talking about 'silos' and 'silo-isationalism'?

What happened to 'strengths' and 'weaknesses'?

Probably some idiotic way to avoid assuming that someone is better or someone else worse.

During my placement, it was emphasised that attempting to ringfence unicorns is a largely pointless exercise as doing so will only encourage others to ringfence their own unicorns rather than ringfencing the corprate unicorns, which, in essence are those unicorns most desperately in need of ringfencing

But surely by ringfencing both corporate and private unicorns you create a public-private partnership thereby leveraging the synergies of blue-sky unicorns as well as brown-field unicorns?

Note - these are not the unicorns you're looking for:

What if, in this scenario the unicorns represent myths and the ringfencing represents the gathering up and compartmentalising of all those myths in order to see the true situation more clearly.
Or in otherwords:
"Let's just cut out the BS" - making it BS squared or Unicorn Sh*t.

Is it only my business who are obsessed with talking about 'silos' and 'silo-isationalism'?

Hello Ed!

No, my lot have been obsessed with it, though it seems to have fallen away recently.

Mainly, everyone is overusing "in my world", "that's Dave's world".

I have no idea what this means, but I love it. We forget to turn round?

We keep putting different people in the job every 6 months, we re-train them and turn them into someone useful, then we change them for someone fresh who we train and turn into someone useful....repeat until further notice.

I have just left a terrible 2 hr brief. There a couple of pearls that fit this thread:

Sweating the assets

Botox the capability

and a beautiful mixed metaphor (unintential but perhaps more lovely for it):

Talking off the same songsheet

I love my life 😥

Handsomedog - do you have 'polished silos of excellence'? We do.

Sweating the assets

Worryingly I sometimes find myself using this sort of language at work and considering it normal.

I have a hard stop for this meeting at 12 = I have to leave at 12
Let's freeze it here for a bio-break = I need the toilet

Hey guys, I know I am seeing a lot of back-and-forth on this topic, but I really need to push back and raise some red flags here. Some of these phrases are foundational to our ability to drive efficiencies in a corporate landscape. Sure, some are just boilerplate solutions, leveraged to the hilt and really only keeping us at a 30,000-foot-view of things. Others, however, really allow us to get better granularity, find better directional-indicators, or loop back and dive deep into some critical issues on a go-forward basis.

I think if you all start using more of these phrases, you'll find yourself trending toward the positive, but you'll have to keep an eye on the puck. Gut through it, reduce thrash, and let's stay in lock-step on this. Yes, we will synergize!

What's the root cause of the hatred of management speak? I'll put my layman's hat on and guess that it comes from movies such as Office Space and Dilbert cartoons. But we all know that these phrases allow us to touch base in a much more efficient manner.

I have to time-box this comment, as I have a hard-stop in a moment when I will have to jump onto a call. So, just one more point that I want to cover-off on: let's socialize the idea of speaking with more management speak and loop back to see whether we're being more impactful. From a management standpoint, I think that we can get the traction to do it.

So, net/net, ignore the naysayers, sidebar the folks that are stuck in the weeds, and don't waste cycles or bandwidth on folks that don't align strongly with this mission. Try it out, and we'll have another touch point in a little while to see if we've moved the needle.

If you need me, I will be online again in a bit.

-- sent from my iPad

Brilliant! I don't think I'm cut out for the corporate world, if people were talking to me like that all day I would have to exterminate their mockingbird (with extreme prejudice), or something.

The plain english campaign have a gobbledygook generator. This should help get one noticed in a meeting with management present.

[url= http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/examples/gobbledygook-generator.html ]Gobbledygook[/url]

or should i say,

[i]Only geeks stuck in the 90s still go for regenerated third-generation processing.[/i]

Hey guys, I know I am seeing a lot of back-and-forth on this topic, but I really need to push back and raise some red flags here. Some of these phrases are foundational to our ability to drive efficiencies in a corporate landscape. Sure, some are just boilerplate solutions, leveraged to the hilt and really only keeping us at a 30,000-foot-view of things. Others, however, really allow us to get better granularity, find better directional-indicators, or loop back and dive deep into some critical issues on a go-forward basis.

I think if you all start using more of these phrases, you'll find yourself trending toward the positive, but you'll have to keep an eye on the puck. Gut through it, reduce thrash, and let's stay in lock-step on this. Yes, we will synergize!

What's the root cause of the hatred of management speak? I'll put my layman's hat on and guess that it comes from movies such as Office Space and Dilbert cartoons. But we all know that these phrases allow us to touch base in a much more efficient manner.

I have to time-box this comment, as I have a hard-stop in a moment when I will have to jump onto a call. So, just one more point that I want to cover-off on: let's socialize the idea of speaking with more management speak and loop back to see whether we're being more impactful. From a management standpoint, I think that we can get the traction to do it.

So, net/net, ignore the naysayers, sidebar the folks that are stuck in the weeds, and don't waste cycles or bandwidth on folks that don't align strongly with this mission. Try it out, and we'll have another touch point in a little while to see if we've moved the needle.

If you need me, I will be online again in a bit.

-- sent from my iPad

that's all microcooler and jazzhands, but if we're going to Brangelina this mother i need to initiate opticals on a unicorn.

I suspect that "bio-break" originated in World of Warcraft; certainly that's the first time I came across it, long before it bled into the boardrooms.

Years ago now, I heard a young hot-shot sales director come out with "just to chuck a **** on the woodpile" in a meeting, in front of a board that was at least three quarters ****stani / Indian. Oddly enough, that was the last time I saw him.

Struggling to see how anyone could think that was an appropriate turn of phrase anywhere, let alone in a business meeting. Eejit.

Is it still just me that thinks "ring-fencing the unicorn" sounds like yet another euphemism for "sinking the Bismarck" or "dropping the kids of at the pool"???

Maybe use it next time you need a dump at work... "I'm just off to ring fence the unicorn, I'll be back in 10" I think would go down quite well... At least all the serial bullshitters would think you're off working hard, not checking STW on your iPhone whilst sat on the John...

Who's with me? 😀

**** on the wood pile reminds me of an email I received once asking me to "nail the companies coloureds to the mast"

Interestingly this was sent by a chap of afro-Caribbean descent. He had only ever heard this phrase, assumed it was racist and used it completely incorrectly.

Meaning. To defiantly display one's opinions and beliefs. Also, to show one's intention to hold on to those beliefs until the end

His meaning. Get rid of anyone who doesn't agree with the company line.

Handsomedog - do you have 'polished silos of excellence'? We do.

Nope, all silos are bad. We strive for boundaryless boundaries...

Rotational amnesia

This is what goldfish do, isn't it?

(Also standing ovation for philconsequence 🙂 )

Interested in battling BS? [url= http://www.dorisandbertie.com/goodcopybadcopy/category/words-that-should-be-banned/ ]Good copy, Bad copy[/url].

My old boss, one of the UK's leading corporate lawyers, boomed along a corridor in the office "I'm just the **** in the woodpile".

At exactly the same moment the only black secretary in the department appeared into view.

Oh, and djglover, that is a work of genius.

Hope you wrote it on the bog.

WHAT????

it may be that what the op's speaker is ostensibly referring to is some form of bonus chat but what he's actually revealing is his interest in late fourteenth and early fifteenth century medieval european textiles, specifically the unicorn tapestries which, by no means the only representation of the unicorn but, in the uk context, probably the most famous. (there's an interesting correlation between the unicorn figure and those of the winged stag tapestries woven in rouen. see also women and unicorn tapestries - das eindhorn mit jungfrau).

his choosing of this specific image is interesting and makes a metaphorical bridge between 'the bonus' and the sacrifice of christ, the unicorn in this context traditionally being a metonym for death and resurrection. thus the ringfenced unicorn raises the task in hand from quotidian labour to that of a divine mission.

while a copy may be seen in stirling castle the original ringfenced unicorn can be see at the cloisters in new york
http://www.metmuseum.org/metmedia/interactives/adults-teachers/the-unicorn-tapestries

i claim my prize

What about talking about things offline. WTF Does that even mean. I'll tell you, it means either. Let's call somebody or you're boring everyone else here. Shut up.

and what's a "strawman"?

and what's a "strawman"?

This, silly.

[img] [/img]

Thanks Dorothy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

A straw man is a component of an argument and is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position.

To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by replacing it with a superficially similar yet unequivalent proposition (the "straw man"), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position.

I think I might email a link to this to my g/f. She's a civil servant working with the Army in primary clinical health care, and I'm sure she might be highly amused by some of this b/s; even have a use for some of it...

do you have 'polished silos of excellence'?