This summer, we’re going on a serious diet. But instead of swearing off brownies to better squeeze into our swimsuits, we’re cutting out a different kind of filler: from July 1- August 31, the entire VP+C team is vowing to rid ourselves of the kind of verbal junk food that we find filling out our pauses. We’re ridding ourselves of um, uh, sort of, kind of, and like in order to be better, clearer, more concise communicators.
Meet the Um Jar. And two giant bowls of poms.
We’ve created the Um Jar, a conference room fixture that’s less about competition and more about raising our collective consciousness. The enormous apothecary jar sits on our conference table, along with two big bowls of pompoms (1,500 pompoms, to be exact.) At team gatherings we’re asking staff to grab a pompom from the bowl on the conference room table each time they catch themselves uttering any of our forbidden words or phrases. At the end of the meeting, each team member adds his or her pile (which will hopefully grow smaller with each gathering) to the UM JAR.
We tested it today, and though the pompom carnage was impressive, we left our weekly status acutely aware of speech patterns we normally take for granted.
We may need more pompoms.
We’re not tallying up each team member’s flubs. The point here is just to to raise awareness and banish these loser words and phrases. At the end of the summer, we’re planning a party in honor of our um, liberation, and will hold a popular vote to determine which team member is most improved. That person’s set to receive a cool prize, but in the end, everyone will be a winner.
Who’s up for the #UmJarChallenge? Get on a word diet with us.
Giant beverage dispensers make great
Um Jars.
Purchase your pompoms
here.
