Meetings? There are better ways to pass the time

Meetings, as everyone knows, are cul-de-sacs down which creative ideas are often lured and then quietly strangled. Or as professor J K Galbraith said: ‘Meetings are indispensable when you don’t want to do anything.’ And when you don’t care about the matters under discussion, you soon lose the will to live.

The only way to alleviate the pain (and stay sane) is to play games. A good game for two or more is ‘Drag in the word’. Before the meeting each of you gives the other a silly word. The first to drag their silly word into the meeting wins. But beware: silly words that look difficult to drag in often aren’t.

Take hippopotamus, for example. Hippopotamus looks difficult but is easy-peasy, thus: ‘With this BOGOF we’ll lap-up sales faster than a hippopotamus in a muddy pool.’ Marshmallow is far trickier, unless you are in a confectionery meeting. Placenta, parsnips and pantaloons are also all good.

There are only three rules. The words must be in the Oxford English Dictionary: no inventing. The words have to be used in a relevant way, not yelled as expletives such as: ‘Pantaloons, dammit!’ Third, if anyone but the players spot a word has been dragged in, the dragger bites the dust.

A nice adaptation of ‘Drag the word in’ – devised by Jeremy Bullmore – is ‘Invent a proverb’. In this game, each player’s first task is to invent a false proverb that sounds like a real one, tried and trusted, wise and meaningful. But the false proverb must have no meaning at all. The players then swap the false proverbs, and the first to drag theirs into the meeting is the victor.

Here are some exemplary falsies: ‘You don’t need to look through the glass of an open window’, ‘Success is only failure in reverse’ (or vice versa), and the ancient Arabic ‘Only a foolish camel piles the last straw on its own back’.

And you score double if your falsie has marketing overtones, viz: ‘A strong brand can be worth twice its value’, ‘Never sniff at a supermarket trolley’, and the topical ‘There’s no point in online shopping when you’ve already got your wellies on’.

If you can’t invent a proverb you can always try ‘Half my advertising is wasted but I don’t know which half’, which game-players have been using for centuries, though it has no meaning whatsoever.

If you prefer to play alone, use your handheld, if it’s handy, and have a shot at Angry Birds (the Prime Minister’s favourite), The Moron Test, Cut The Rope, Golfshoot, or a million more. Otherwise if you don’t play games, you’ll just have to doodle. But beware. To expert eyes your doodles may reveal more than you realise.

 The only way to alleviate the pain (and stay sane) is to play games. A good game for two or more is ‘Drag in the word’

Winston Fletcher writes extensively on advertising and marketing. [email protected]