March 6, 2012
Seymour Chwast (b.1931) an American graphic designer, illustrator, and type designer. Chwast was born in the Bronx, and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Cooper Union in 1951. With Milton Glaser, Edward Sorel, and Reynold Ruffins, he founded Push Pin Studios in 1954.
The bi-monthly publication ‘The Push Pin Graphic’ was a product of their collaboration. Chwast is famous for his commercial artwork, which includes posters, food packaging, magazine covers, and publicity art. Often referred to as ‘the left-handed designer,’ Chwast’s unique graphic design melded social commentary and a distinctive style of illustration. Today, he continues to work and is principal at The Pushpin Group, Inc. in New York City.
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March 6, 2012
In political jargon, a self-licking ice cream cone is a self-perpetuating system that has no purpose other than to sustain itself. The phrase appears to have been first used in 1992, in ‘On Self-Licking Ice Cream Cones,’ a paper by Pete Worden about NASA’s bureaucracy.
It has come to be used as a metaphor for any similar system, particularly in contexts such as the War on Terror and the military-industrial complex.
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March 6, 2012
‘Asshole: How I Got Rich and Happy by Not Giving a Shit About You’ is a 2008 spoof self-help book and memoir by American author Martin Kihn. The first line of the book, is ‘I was the nicest guy in the world and it was killing me.’ Kihn, who worked for a marketing company, was told by his boss that unless he started ‘playing hardball,’ they were going to demote him and upgrade a colleague Kihn calls ‘The Nemesis’ to a window office. So to save his career, Kihn decided to turn himself into an asshole, and in telling his story, he describes exactly how the reader can can follow his lead.
To become an asshole, Kihn builds a team, consisting of an acting coach, life coach and both personal and dog trainer – to help ‘master the art of assholism.’ Kihn then creates a ten-step “assholism’ program which involves ‘ignoring other peoples’ feelings, never saying sorry, dressing in black silk and only eating red meat.’ Other tasks saw Kihn signing up to the National Rifle Association, learning kickboxing, screaming at colleagues and eating garlic bagels on public transport. Additionally, Kihn takes inspiration from famous figures whom he considers ‘assholes’ such as: Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Martha Stewart, David Letterman, Nicole Kidman, Machiavelli, Scarface and Paris Hilton. He also takes inspiration from Ayn Rand’s ‘The Fountainhead’ and ‘The Virtue of Selfishness.’
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March 6, 2012
Creative consultant is a credit that has been given to screenwriters who have ‘doctored’ a movie screenplay. It is often given by producers in lieu of official credit. Those given this credit in the television field work closely with an Executive Producer, Head Writer/showrunner, and Casting Director. They are involved in the writing process (proposing and editing story outlines/scripts), casting roles, and hiring/firing writers, producers, directors, and other crew members.
Sometimes they are given the credit of Executive Consultant. A Story Consultant is strictly involved in the writing process, and has no influence in the hiring and firing of writers or other crew members. A Script Consultant is only involved in the proposal and execution of a script. The Writers Guild of America disapproves of the credit.
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March 6, 2012
A buzzword (also fashion word and vogue word) is a term of art, salesmanship, politics, or technical jargon that is used in the media and wider society outside of its originally narrow technical context. Buzzwords differ from jargon in that jargon is esoteric but precisely defined terminology used for ease of communication between specialists in a given field, whereas a buzzword (which often develops from the appropriation of technical jargon) is often used in a more general way. Buzzwords are used as a form of thought-control via intentional vagueness.
In management, by stating organization goals with opaque words of unclear meaning; their positive connotations prevent questioning of intent, especially when many buzzwords are used. they also are used to inflate the trivial to something of importance and stature, to impress a judge or an examiner by seeming to know a topic, by name-dropping it, or to camouflage chit-chat while saying nothing. Examples include: ‘Going forward,’ ‘Leverage,’ ‘Long tail,’ ‘Next generation,’ ‘Paradigm,’ and ‘Incentivize.’
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March 6, 2012
Management fad is a term used to characterize a change in philosophy or operations implemented by a business or institution.The term tends to be used in a pejorative sense, as it implies that such a change is being implemented (often by management on its employees, with little or no input from them) solely because it is (at the time) popular within managerial circles, not due to any real desire for organizational change. The term further implies that once the underlying philosophy is no longer popular, it will be replaced by the newest ‘popular idea, in the same manner and for the same reason as the previous idea.
Several authors have argued that new management ideas should be subject to greater critical analysis, and for the need for greater conceptual awareness of new ideas by managers. A key determinant of whether any management idea is a management fad may be the number and timing of published articles on the idea. If an idea has been discussed for around 3-5 years and the number of articles on the idea in a given year decreases significantly (similar to the right-hand side of a bell curve), then the idea is most likely a ‘management fad.’
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March 6, 2012
Management consulting refers to both the industry and the practice of helping organizations to improve their performance, primarily through the analysis of existing organizational problems and development of plans for improvement.
Organizations may draw upon the services of management consultants for a number of reasons, including gaining external (and presumably objective) advice and access to the consultants’ specialised expertise. As a result of their exposure to and relationships with numerous organizations, consulting firms are also said to be aware of industry ‘best practices,’ although the transferability of such practices from one organization to another may be limited by the specific nature of situation under consideration.
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March 6, 2012
Martin Kihn (b. 1950) is an American writer and digital marketer. Martin Kihn was born in Zambia, where his parents met while working in a hospital. His South African-born father is a doctor, and his Scottish mother, a former actress, is now a drama teacher. He grew up in Michigan. He has earned a BA in Theater Studies from Yale, and in the late 1990s was Head Writer for the popular television program ‘Pop-Up Video’ on MTV Networks and was nominated for an Emmy for Writing. He lost to ‘Win Ben Stein’s Money,’ decided to quit writing and got into business school. He received an MBA from Columbia Business School.
Kihn’s first book was an expose of the consulting agencies called ‘House of Lies: How Management Consultants Steal Your Watch and Then Tell You the Time’ (2005), based on the three years he spent working for a large consultancy, Booz Allen. It was adapted by Showtime as a series with Don Cheadle playing Marty Kaan, an ‘outside the box’ management consultant, loosely based on Marty Kihn himself. Kihn reemerged a few years later with a satirical memoir called ‘Asshole: How I Got Rich and Happy by Not Giving a Shit About You’ (2008).
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March 5, 2012
The Avedis Zildjian [zil-jin] Company is a cymbal manufacturer founded in Istanbul by Armenian Avedis Zildjian in the 17th century during the Ottoman Empire. At nearly 400 years old, Zildjian is one of the oldest companies in the world. The first Zildjian cymbals were created in 1623 by Avedis, an alchemist who was looking for a way to turn base metal into gold; he created an alloy combining tin, copper, and silver into a sheet of metal that could make musical sounds without shattering.
Avedis was given the name of Zildjian by the Sultan Osman II (from the Turkish word ‘zil’ – ‘cymbal,’ ‘dji’ – ‘maker-seller,’ ‘ian’ – a common suffix used in Armenian last names which means ‘son of’). The details of the company’s main product remained secret for generations. It became family tradition that only the company’s heirs would know the manufacturing process. The Zildjian Company moved from manufacturing noisemakers to frighten the enemies of the Ottoman Empire to manufacturing its cymbals as musical instruments in the 19th century.
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March 5, 2012
Not safe for work (NSFW) is Internet slang or shorthand to mark URLs or hyperlinks which contain material such as pornography or profanity, which the viewer may not want to be seen accessing in a public or formal setting such as at work. Determining a site to be NSFW is invariably subjective. The less frequently used warnings PNSFW (Probably/Possibly Not Safe for Work), LSFW (Less Safe for Work), TSFW (Technically Safe for Work), and PNFO (Probably Not for the Office) are sometimes used to indicate content possibly considered salacious (lustful) by certain censors, such as images of underwear or swimwear models, or a news story about sexual issues that does not contain explicit images.
NSFW is also sometimes used to refer to any media that produces sound, such as a game or video file; the implication being that the noises may alert others in the vicinity that the user is taking a break with entertainment materials instead of working. An alternative abbreviation is NSFL, meaning not safe for lunch or not safe for life – this indicates subject matter too grim, shocking, stark, or frank to be recommended without a disclaimer.
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March 5, 2012
A viral video is one that becomes popular through the process of Internet sharing, typically through video sharing websites, social media and email. Viral videos often contain humorous content and include televised comedy sketches, such as The Lonely Island’s ‘Lazy Sunday’ and ‘Dick in a Box,’ amateur video clips like ‘Star Wars Kid,’ the ‘Numa Numa’ videos, ‘The Evolution of Dance,’ and ‘Chocolate Rain,’ and web-only productions such as ‘I Got a Crush… on Obama.’ Some eyewitness events have also been caught on video and have ‘gone viral’ such as the ‘Battle at Kruger.’
The proliferation of camera phones and inexpensive video editing and publishing tools credited with fueling phenomena. These consumer-shot videos are typically non-commercial, intended for viewing by friends or family. A video becoming viral is often unexpected, and an accident, and therefore a video cannot be called viral purely in the creator’s intention at the time of recording.
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March 5, 2012
Kitbashing is a practice whereby a new scale model is created by taking pieces out of commercial kits. These pieces may be added to a custom project or to another kit. For professional modelmakers, kitbashing is popular to create concept models for detailing movie special effects. Professionals often kitbash to build prototype parts which are then recreated with lightweight materials. Although it has a long history, kitbashing came to the attention of a wider public via the fine modelwork seen in TV series such as ‘Thunderbirds’ and the films ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ and ‘Star Wars.’ Many of the spaceship models created for these programs incorporated details from tank, speedboat and car kits. Another example is the Tumbler from the 2005 film ‘Batman Begins.’
An important aspect of kitbashing in model railroading is the reconfiguration of structure kits, most often to fit the geometry of a specific space. Walls can be shortened or lengthened, and/or corner angles changed to fit a given location on the layout. Another application is to use the wall parts to create a ‘flat,’ or shallow relief model to be displayed against the backdrop. For example, since it isn’t needed in this case, the rear wall can be abutted to the front to double the length of the building; usually, but not exclusively, done with industrial structures. Plain sheet styrene or other material is typically added to the rear to strengthen the resulting model.
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