20 June 2005
in arrrrr
“Webinar” Say it out loud a couple times. The word just rolls right off the tongue, doesn’t it? First brought to my attention over a year ago, it hasn’t emerged from any casual conversation or other interaction with anybody until today, and then only indirectly.
Nevertheless I cringed. It’s not a real word, and it’s not enough of a sound-alike to pass as one. There is no easy way to get, logically or phonically, from “seminar” to “webinar”.
Anyway, this matters not, as not only is the word lacking in my approval but also in general meaning, as an email my coworker received today.
He’s the new guy but I suppose I won’t be able to call him that much longer. His position is senior to mine and it won’t be long before he runs out of questions to ask me.
Since he is still new to the organization, he is midway through his so-called ‘onboarding’ process. Today he received an email ordering him to participate in a webinar.
By ‘participate’, of course, I mean to say that he was supposed to open a PowerPoint presentation attached to the email and call in on a conference call to follow along.
Not one bit of this so-called webinar was being done with the Web. Not one bit! Of course, “phonecallandpowerpoint-inar” doesn’t sound any better, does it?
What comes below ‘meaningless’? I mean, after ‘buzzword’, of course?