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Group Meeting Bingo
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Group Meeting Bingo!

“If I have to sit through a group meeting or seminar and hear ‘Today I’d like to talk about’, ‘Preliminary data suggest’ or ‘So in conclusion’ one more time, I’m gonna… shout ‘BINGO’?!”

That’s right.  BINGO.  How can a game be such a classic when we’re young and a classic when we’re old, but completely disappear from our lives in the middle?  What prevents us from playing when we’re not wearing diapers of some sort?  Group meeting happens, that’s what.  Work, seminars and group meetings get in the way of precious BINGO time, but alas, no longer.

If we’ve sat through ten group meetings, we’ve sat through them all.  Every once in a while, we’ll be taken aback by a truly inspiring, well-presented story.  But more likely, we can close our eyes and imagine how it will unfold- it will start out with an intro explaining what they’re going to talk about, then move into some preliminary data that’s called ‘preliminary’ because it leaves an opening later to say ‘well, it’s just preliminary, we still need to investigate it further’ should someone find a problem, then conclusions that will overstate the importance of the results and finally acknowledgements that will give a little thanks to people who did a lot of work.

In a painful group meeting or seminar, it’s tough to stay focused, which can lead to mind-wandering followed by light-napping and inevitably heavy snoring – a highly undesirable state to be caught in.  However, if there was just a way to keep us focused, even interested in what the speaker was saying, wouldn’t that be beneficial?  And if we could win lunch off of our labmates at the same time, wouldn’t that be even better?

Welcome to BenchFly’s Group Meeting Bingo.  Simply pick your discipline (Biochemistry, Cell Biology, Chemistry, Neuroscience, Proteomics), generate a card you think has a good chance of winning, print it out and then cross off each square as the speaker says the words.  Be the first one to block off a column, row or diagonal stretch of boxes and you’re the winner!

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Simply click the card below to get started!

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Have any other disciplines you’d like to see available – let us know!

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7 comments so far. Join The Discussion

  1. Udog

    wrote on January 19, 2011 at 3:10 pm

    How about a bingo card for meetings with your P.I.? Words like "not good enough", "more data", and "work weekends" come to mind…

  2. alan@benchfly

    wrote on January 19, 2011 at 3:19 pm

    Oooh- great idea. Although that's pretty high-stakes to play bingo right in your PI's face…

  3. NMF

    wrote on January 20, 2011 at 8:47 pm

    Pet peeve: outline slides. "I'm going to start with an introduction, background information, move into the experimental details, results, conclusions and future directions." REALLY?! THAT'S how you decided to organize your talk? I'm so glad you laid that out for us because I was hoping you'd do the future directions first, then the conclusions, results, and introduction…

    I've also heard a new euphemism for preliminary data- a "pilot study". A pilot study has the same coverage as preliminary data in that if there are any problems you can hide behind "its just a pilot study!" Like: "Did you control for (something obvious)?" "No, this is just a pilot study so we'll have to repeat it with controls, but the results are very promising and we have the patent disclosure paperwork underway…"

  4. alan@benchfly

    wrote on January 24, 2011 at 8:08 pm

    Classic- we're adding "pilot study" to the bingo board… I'm going to start using that for non-bench life as well- "Did you forget to take the trash out again?!" "Uh, no- I'm doing a pilot study to see what would happen if we skip a week…"

  5. JCM_LR

    wrote on January 28, 2011 at 4:20 pm

    If I hear, "At the end of the day…" one more time, I may lose it! Perhaps that tired phrase can find a spot on the card.

  6. alan@benchfly

    wrote on January 28, 2011 at 4:29 pm

    Awesome- just added it to the Biochemistry card!

  7. Fabio

    wrote on March 30, 2011 at 10:25 pm

    Awesome!! It is just like Corporate Bingo!!! Only the words are different!!!

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