Brainstorming Bad - Who Knew?

Hat tip to the Cranky Professor

Now brainstorms are off the agenda

Henry McDonald,
Ireland editor
Sunday June 26, 2005
The Observer

David Brent would never approve. 'Brainstorming', the buzzword used by executives to generate ideas among their staff, has been deemed politically incorrect by civil servants because it is thought to be offensive to people with brain disorders.

Instead staff at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment (DETI)
in Belfast will use the term 'thought-showers' when they get together to think
creatively. A spokeswoman said: 'The DETI does not use the term brainstorming on its training courses on the grounds that it may be deemed pejorative.'

Sources inside the department said there was concern that the term would
cause offence to people with epilepsy as well those with brain tumours or brain
injuries.

Now I know some of you out there may feel that this must be a spoof, but it is not. It's serious business and it is our duty to re-educate our colleagues immediately. No nomenclature must be left untouched and no expense spared. Form a committee now and ... er .... thought shower .... your implementation strategy so that you may transition in a seamless manner.

If you meet with resistance to the new "thought shower" terminology ask the curmudgeons among you to envision their ideas as thousands of brilliant meteorites showering down upon the earth below... entering the atmosphere in an incandescent flourish of short-lived and quite useless magnificence. That'll be sure to grab 'em. It's an apt description of most brainstorming sessions I've ever attended.