The Innovation Blog

I'm going to go out on a limb here and postulate that Monday mornings are the bane of the working (wo)man's existence. No matter how many cups of coffee you down, E-mail notifications you silence, or meetings you skip, there's just a heavy mood that permeates the planes, trains, and automobiles that brought us to work this morning -- with no reprieve in sight.

In an effort to try and fight the inevitable doldrums, I've written a little MadLib about Monday's and invite you to play. A couple of us here took turns filling in the blanks and actually got quite a laugh from some of the stories we'd created. While it may not be enough to carry you through to Friday, go several rounds with a few of your buddies and it'll be lunch time before you know it!

Instructions: Fill in the blank spaces below with words that match the word descriptions. Then read your story aloud as it matches with the corresponding number.

1.     Beverage ___________________

2.     Noun ___________________

3.     Adjective ___________________

4.     Noun ___________________

5.     Mode of Transportation ___________________

6.     Adjective ___________________

7.     Plural Noun ___________________

8.     Adjective ___________________

9.     Verb ___________________

10. Plural Noun ___________________

11. Part of Body ___________________

12. Verb –ing ___________________

13. Plural Noun ___________________

14. Noun ___________________

15. Adjective ___________________

Monday’s Meeting

It was a typical Monday morning – I just finished my cup of ________¹ (cream and 2 packs of sugar) and was about to dig into my second donut of the morning when my _______² notification buzzed: “Attention Marketing Department: Mandatory meeting at 11a today. Make sure to bring your _______³ caps!” “Oh great,” I thought, “another time-consuming _______⁴ where no one knows why they are there, ideas get shot down like gangbusters, and we leave with no real next steps.” To say I’ve become jaded is an understatement. When 11 rolled around, I took the _______⁵ up to the 22^nd floor and was quick to see this wasn’t going to be what I had been dreading all morning. Toys, and pipe cleaners, and _______⁶ _______⁷ greeted me at the door. I found a seat closest to the windows, giving myself a quick _______⁸ strategy in case the meeting took a turn for the worst. “Business Innovationists”, as they referred to themselves, asked us to _______⁹  ideas as they related to our task of “Create a game-changing, billion-dollar new product that makes our _______¹⁰ happy ”.  The energy in the room was palpable, people’s _______¹¹ shooting up; laughter erupting spontaneously; the respecting of bad ideas and problem-_______¹² around them. My colleagues -thinkers, talkers, dreamers, doers - from _______¹³ company-wide working together was a thing of wonder and _______¹⁴. Needless to say, this was unlike any meeting I’ve ever been to. I left feeling _______¹⁵, with the words echoing in my head, “You get what you play for.”

Please share your stories with us in the Comments section below. Can't wait to read what you've come up with!

By Amanda Hines, Associate Business Innovationist, @amandaehines