Monday, February 25, 2008

Law Enforcement Quote of the Week

"You've gotta be instrumental in thinking out of the box."

-A technical surveillance expert during a presentation I attended, in which he showed an audience of police officers the latest developments in CCTV cameras, night vision and tracking devices.

8 comments:

SkylersDad said...

Oh really? And just how do you be instrumental in thinking outside the box? Be the first to use that worn-out catch phrase in some meeting?

I thought maybe your job was safe from that sort of idiocy...

Unknown said...

Does "the box" mean anything anymore?

Dale said...

If someone's not blowing it out the box, it ain't worth it.

Mob said...

Presumably in reference to the need to take the CCTV cameras out of the box for them to be more effective?

He wants his presentation attendees to be the geniuses who decide to open the packaging when the new equipment arrives.

Right?

Is there a prize?

Joe said...

Mob, there was no prize, but there was a free lunch.

Dale, something like that.

Mathman, for him, evidently, yes.

Skylersdad, I think he identified all of us as stakeholders, and he was looking for buy-in. My job is not immune to that type of jargon--we get it usually about 5 years after the private sector does, which makes it doubly hilarious.

Johnny Yen said...

Gee, I'll bet that's the first time someone's used that phrase in a meeting. Let me guess, he's a middle manager.

bubbles said...

Hey, I used to do some Organizational Development, Corporate Communications type stuff. Nothing is worse than needing to spin the B.S. message when everyone has ruined all the good words. Frustrating, so frustrating. Cause you know, we have to go make up some other new sh*t after everybody wears out the old new sh*t.

Hey, don't judge me. It used to put lots of food on the table. We didn't kill anybody. Sure, we made 'em sick, but we didn't kill 'em!

:-)

justacoolcat said...

Combine the three with some geo-fencing and wrap them up with a dash of data mining.

Aggregates and pattern matchings are a great boxed way way to think outside the box.