by Rodney Marks | Jan 17, 2017 | Business, Comedian, Comedy, Corporate, Entertainment, Events, Hoax, Keynote, Speaker, Speaking
- All probabilities are really 50%. Either a thing will happen or it won’t.
- All the world is a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed.
- All work and no play will make you a manager.
- Any theory can be made to fit the facts by means of appropriate additional assumptions.
- Anyone who is popular is bound to be disliked.
- (Anything in parentheses can be ignored.)
- Better latent than never.
- Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.
- Complex problems have simple, easy to understand, wrong answers.
- Creativity is no substitute for knowing what you’re doing.
- Dare to be average.
- Don’t be irreplaceable; if you cannot be replaced, you cannot be promoted.
- Due to recent budget cuts and downsizing, the light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off.
- Efficiency is a highly developed form of laziness.
- Eighty percent of all people consider themselves to be above average.
- Enough research will tend to support your theory.
- Everything is actually everything else, just recycled.
- Rule of defactualisation: information deteriorates upward through bureaucracies.
- Some of it plus the rest of it is all of it.
- Stay in with the outs.
- Success can be assured only by devising a defence against failure of the contingency plan.
- The best way to lie is to tell the truth, carefully edited.
- The bigger they are, the harder they hit.
- The first 90 percent of the task takes 90 percent of the time, the last 10 percent takes the other 90 percent.
- The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to save all of the parts.
- The light at the end of the tunnel is a train hurtling towards you.
- The longer the title, the less important the job.
- The man who can smile when things go wrong has thought of someone he can blame it on.
- The moment for calm and rational discussion is past; now is the time for senseless bickering.
- The more time you spend in reporting on what you are doing, the less time you have to do it in. Stability is achieved when you spend all your time doing nothing but reporting on the nothing you are doing.
- The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from.
- The only important information in a hierarchy is who knows what.
- The organisation of any program reflects the organisation of the people who developed it.
- The trouble with doing right the first time is that nobody appreciates how difficult it was.
- There is no evidence to support the notion that life is serious.
- There is no job so simple that it cannot be done wrnog.
- If a straight line fit is required, obtain only two data points.
- If enough data is collected, anything can be proved statistically.
- If there is a 50:50 chance that something can go wrong, then nine times out of 10 it will.
- If you’re already in a hole, stop digging.
- If you can’t measure output, measure input.
- If you consult enough experts, you can confirm any opinion.
- If you think the problem is bad now, just wait until we’ve solved it.
… … … … …
Rodney Marks
I’m an Australian comedian, hoax speaker and corporate impostor. I mainly present comic hoaxes at business events. If you like these blogs, you’ll like my live comedy. If you don’t like these blogs, you still might like my live comedy.
Add comedian.com.au to your bookmarks, and one day: book Marks. I don’t do cheap jokes, and I’m freer than you think. I’m comical not anatomical, economical not astronomical.
For more info – and to contact me directly – see my LinkedIn profile, and website: www.comedian.com.au. I’m based in Sydney and travel widely.
by Rodney Marks | Jan 15, 2017 | Business, Comedian, Comedy, Corporate, Entertainment, Events, Hoax, Keynote, Speaker, Speaking
To beg your indulgence, to begin with, I’d like to begin at and in the beginning, as clarity begins at home. Lets start from scratch, or even before then, at the itch. After all, or before all, or above all, all in all, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. A single step begins with a hop, and a hop begins with a tiptoe. Same goes for a thousand kilometres, although the step would be smaller. Or shorter. Anyway, let the games begin. I hardly know where to begin, when to begin or how to begin. I’m sure you’re beginning to see the light.
Even before we begin, if that’s possible, given that we must begin at some stage, but before we begin, in a state of, if you like, pre-preparedness, we are in development, embryonic, nascent, incipient.
Having begun, or begun to begin, one is merely abecedarian, a fledging, an apprentice, trainee, debutante, rookie.
From this elementary stage, at the outset or even the onset or outbreak, we set off to the kickoff, the conception of the commencement, the dawn of day one, the inocculant, the germ of the idea, the root or seed or seedling or cutting or simply the start.
… … … … …
Now we’re all in a muddle at the middle, somewhere approximately equidistant between the beginning and the end. To split the difference, we’re at the mid-point of the centre of the fulcrum. Something of a grey area.
Not that being in the middle makes me a middleman. But certainly my role is now that of the intermediary, the liaison, the go-between. I am the intermediate factor.
Sometimes I’m median, sometimes mean depending on the distribution.
Being mediocre by birth, training and capability, I’m well-equipped, here and there, to be halfway between here and there. And in the midst of that, I’m in the midst. Lost in the mist. Im the point thats missed.
In another sense, you could say that being in the middle is core, central and medial. It feels re-medial, even middling, but being in the intervening time is a very average experience.
… … … … …
The end of the line doesn’t always lead to a new paragraph. A one-time-only offer in its last days is available for those who believe in some sort of apocalyptic Armageddon. An end in and of itself must have a termination at the terminal or terminus, a use-by date, an expiration, a cessation, a conclusive conclusion, a culmination.
That’s all for now, that’s final, this is this, that’s that, it is what it is and what will be will be.
Fate and destiny have us all totalled in our pursuit of closure.
As we draw to an end its time to put the finishing touches on the homestretch by signing off:
Yours truly sincerely, respectfully, faithfully and affectionately.
With love, regards, and good wishes.
Cordially yours, ever yours, to you and yours, all the best, thinking of you, wish you were here, see you soon.
Cheers!
… … … … …
Rodney Marks
I’m an Australian comedian, hoax speaker and corporate impostor. I mainly present comic hoaxes at business events. If you like these blogs, you’ll like my live comedy. If you don’t like these blogs, you still might like my live comedy.
Add comedian.com.au to your bookmarks, and one day: book Marks. I don’t do cheap jokes, and I’m freer than you think. I’m comical not anatomical, economical not astronomical.
For more info – and to contact me directly – see my LinkedIn profile, and website: www.comedian.com.au. I’m based in Sydney and travel widely.
by Rodney Marks | Jan 14, 2017 | Business, Comedian, Comedy, Corporate, Entertainment, Events, Hoax, Keynote, Speaker, Speaking
1. aluminium
2. ash
3. bat
4. battleship
5. bitumen
6. charcoal
7. chrome
8. cinder
9. cinereous
10. colourless
11. concrete
12. dove
13. dust
14. flint
15. fuliginous
16. granite
17. graphite
18. greige
19. grey
20. gunmetal
21. hoary
22. iron
23. lead
24. mercury
25. moleskin
26. monochrome
27. mouse
28. mushroom
29. neutral
30. nutria
31. obsidian
32. oyster
33. pearl
34. pelican
35. pepper-and-salt
36. platinum
37. plumbago
38. pumice
39. salt-and-pepper
40. silver
41. slate
42. smoky
43. soot
44. steel
45. stone
46. storm cloud
47. tarmac
48. taupe
49. tin
50. wan
… … … … …
Rodney Marks
I’m an Australian corporate comedian, performing comic hoaxes at business events. If you like these blogs, you’ll like my live comedy. If you don’t like these blogs, you still might like my live comedy.
Add comedian.com.au to your bookmarks, and one day: book Marks. I don’t do cheap jokes, and I’m freer than you think. I’m comical not anatomical, economical not astronomical.
For more info – and to contact me directly – see my LinkedIn profile, and website: www.comedian.com.au. I’m based in Sydney and travel widely.
by Rodney Marks | Jan 14, 2017 | Business, Comedian, Comedy, Corporate, Entertainment, Events, Hoax, Keynote, Speaker, Speaking
Feel free to use this opening sentence when delivering your next keynote address at a business event:-
Generally,
referentially,
computationally,
bibliographically,
encyclopaedically,
serially,
organisationally,
journalistically,
collectively,
philosophically,
psychologically,
metaphysics,
epistemologically,
causally,
humanly,
paranormally,
phenomenologically,
logically,
ethically,
morally,
theologically,
biblically,
comparatively,
religiously,
socially,
scientifically,
statistically,
politically,
economically,
legally,
administratively,
problematically,
educationally,
commercially,
communicatively,
customarily,
folklorically,
linguistically,
mathematically,
astronomically,
physically,
chemically,
earthily,
paleontologically,
paleozoologically,
botanically,
zoologically,
technologically,
medically,
psychiatrically,
agriculturally,
managerially,
artistically,
architecturally,
decoratively,
painterly,
graphically,
photographically,
musically,
recreationally,
performatively,
literately,
historically,
geographically,
biographically and
genealogically …
… I’d like to begin.
— — — — — —
Rodney Marks
I’m an Australian corporate comedian, performing comic hoaxes at business events. If you like these blogs, you’ll like my live comedy. If you don’t like these blogs, you still might like my live comedy.
Add comedian.com.au to your bookmarks, and one day: book Marks. I don’t do cheap jokes, and I’m freer than you think. I’m comical not anatomical, economical not astronomical.
For more info – and to contact me directly – see my LinkedIn profile, and website: www.comedian.com.au. I’m based in Sydney and travel widely.
by Rodney Marks | Jan 12, 2017 | Business, Comedian, Comedy, Corporate, Entertainment, Events, Hoax, Keynote, Speaker, Speaking
Here ends the episodic publication of The Management Contradictionary (Benjamin Marks, Rodney Marks, and Robert Spillane. Michelle Anderson Publishing: Melbourne) … not with a whimper, not with a bang, but with a full stop.
It’s available in all good libraries, and quite a few bad ones, too. The book is in alphabetical order, so feel free to keep reading the blog posts – past, present and future – from eh? to zzz.
The Management Contradictionary defines the real meaning behind management terms.
… … … … …
Index
It’s a dictionary.
Afterword
We’ll talk about this later.
Encore
Here we have about 20,000 words, many of them different. There are also a few numbers, reflecting our mathematical mellifluousness. Hopefully, the content is readable and the format acceptable. For example, among other things, we have tried to put all parenthetic thoughts where they belong.
Also, because our writing is usually a bit messy, we spent a long time handtyping, with correct syntax, grammar and stuff, all for your reading pleasure.
It is a given in this work that meaningless, non-descriptive words are onomatopoeic, and that those words which only have phonetic meaning sound just as they are said. Proof: the word “spot” is vacuous, and is like the sound that a spot makes.
Conclusions
Like words and phrases, these are hard to define.
Recommendations
- Look both ways before you cross the road.
- Invest in gold.
- Group things in threes.
Editorial committee
Affirmative action: Marietta Mann
Agriculture: Sandy Playnz, Beau Vine
Astronomy: Buck McCluster
Aviation: Aaron Orticle
Chemistry: Dan Gerus
Comedy theory: Hugh Moore
Corporate governance: Haydn de Mudd, Rudy Koulis, Perry Pheral
Economics: I.T. de Pendes
Electrical engineering: Anton de Mitteran
Finance: Rhet Eyerment, Seymour Mahoney, Adam Marp
Food technology: André Mayne de Zërt
Futurist studies: Thom Morrow
Gaming: Jacques Podt
Genealogy: Charlie Sarnt, Bob Zyrunkl
Government: Beau Rocraci
Holistic research: Jan Ited
Hospitality: Rob de Geste, Alf Resco
Housing: Mort Gauge, Ulysses Voyd
Information Technology: Artur Pfischel
International affairs: Haydn Zich
Knowledge management: Noel Hedge
Leadership: Mike Bleave, Harry Diculus, Dick Tait
Legal studies: Laura Byding
Logistics: Frank de Poeste
Management: Lou Dicrus, Lou Natick, Lulu
Management consulting: Matt Ricks, Val Yuad
Marketing: Chris Tallein
Mathematics: Cal Kyulaszn
Meetings, Incentives, Conferences & Exhibitions (MICE) sector: Motti Veight
Military history: Gen. Al Rounder, Admiral Rusty Stern
Mining: Doug Macquarie, Phil Macquarie, Rich Vain
Museum studies: Art Easte
Not-for-profit management: Phil Anthropei, Al Truism
Organisational behaviour: Seren Dipitee, Shelby Wright
Philosophy: Rayson Detra
Pluralism: Juan Sidednesc
Political science: Con Volluted
Psychology: Guy Dance
Publishing: Lex Icon, Dick Schonery, Eddie Torriolle
Standards: Ben Schmuck
Systems management: Cec Temik
Transport: Kerasch Dumhi, Ilya Ford
Water and waste management: Phillip de Poule, Sue Ridge
Work-life balance: Candida Cockburn, Pauly Dunbuy
Further reading
Recommended.
Font
The Generic typeface used in this volume is the work of Fontov Wisdom, the noted Eastern European fine artist, radical calligrapher and thief. The Generic font is based on the classical English alphabet prior to before the introduction of vowels being introduced in 1066. It is strongly influenced by the painterly style of pre-Raphaelite public transport graffitists, whereby each letter flows to the other, and each word connects fluidly with the sentence structure. The decisive clarity is reminiscent of the Mauritius dodo quill that Wisdom used in his famous mural inside the Moscow pissoire.
Paper
The caustic text is printed on acid-free paper, for balance. The paper is made from mostly -recycled toilet paper, which, in turn, was made from old growth Radiata pine, grown in shallow soil above sea level in south-west Tasmania. Its subtle aroma has been known to seduce bookworms, bibliophiles and lexicographers into purchasing softcover first editions, when normally they would order a copy via inter-library loan.
Order form
Please feel free photocopy this section, the only part of The Management Contradictionary not subject to copyright.
For one or two copies of this book, please google the publisher or the authors. To buy in bulk, negotiate.
In previous decades, a reader would complete a photocopied form and fax it off; later, such a form would be scanned, filled in onscreen and emailed as an attachment. These days, online ecommerce has taken over, and books can be purchased through Iinternet bookstores. Or maybe not. Check it out: it might work.
Perhaps just ask a real person at your local bookshop.
So, that’s the form.
… … … … …
Rodney Marks
I’m an Australian corporate comedian, performing comic hoaxes at business events. If you like these blogs, you’ll like my live comedy. If you don’t like these blogs, you still might like my live comedy.
Add comedian.com.au to your bookmarks, and one day: book Marks. I don’t do cheap jokes, and I’m freer than you think. I’m comical not anatomical, economical not astronomical.
For more info – and to contact me directly – see my LinkedIn profile, and website: www.comedian.com.au. I’m based in Sydney and travel widely.
