Omniscient, I regularly encounter “ping” at my workplace. This is a computer company, so people are aware of the unix command. It generally is used in the same context as another corporate phrase, “touch base”.
Possible, but unlikely. Where I work, nobody has a Blackberry, and people clearly say “ping”, with a “g”. It’s also a computer-laden company, and so the meaning of “ping” (the Unix command) would be known to almost everyone here. In context, “ping” clearly is used to mean something like “touch bases with”, or “find out current status”, or sometimes “prod the person to start working on the item in question, or to work harder on it”.
I find this highly amusing. “Ping” was used in that context by my network engineering group in the 1980s, and when it was overheard by management, they were likely to respond with something like “speak English, willya.” And now it’s considered a corporate catchphrase? It is to laugh.
A la “low hanging fruit” and “on our radar” … I’m now thoroughly sick of things having “traction.” They started having traction about a year and a half ago, and since then, the stupid phrase has only gotten MORE traction.
Puke-ola!
We try to humor you guys more these days. It’s part of sensitivity training.
Ping usually means a real-time contact, and that usually translates to “trying to contact via OL chat”.
“ping
A computer networking term meaning “a quick, pointless query”; has now been popularized to mean an email or text message containing a quick, pointless query.”
http://www.portfolio.com/resources/business-intelligence/corporate-speak?page=2
Yep. In my experience, which is primarily in enterprise software companies and their customers, the connotation of real-time, synchronous, non-verbal communication is definitely there, which means it’s used vastly more often to refer to instant messaging or chat-based communications than to e-mail or phone communications. The implication, in declaring that you plan to “ping” someone, is that you will IM the target and will stand by for a response, instead of just sending them an e-mail. The further implication is that you will attempt other alternative means of communications should the ping not be responded to. Very often this ping is a prelude to a further communication via a different medium – an e-mail exchange, or perhaps most often, a conference call involving the pinger, the pingee, and the person to whom the ping was being reported. This is directly analogous to the use of the “ping” program or command, where the intent is generally to establish that another computer (or, to be specific, another IP address) is on and responding before attempting to communicate with it in some other way.
Missed the edit window. Wanted to add the following:
Maybe it’s just because I’m a consultant and am expected to talk in cliches and catch phrases, but “ping”, when used in this specific way, doesn’t really bother me. When generalized to other types of communication (a usage I’ve heard to a degree), it does, but it’s useful shorthand when everyone understands what’s meant. There’s a really fine line to draw here – some of what seem to be cliches or mindless “corporate speak” actually are useful in this way, when used in a specific way. What’s always objectionable, and ruins any usefulness they have, is when they get picked up on by the brain-dead types who think they sound “cool” or “techy” or whatever and used in ways that are inappropriate or misleading. Enough middle-managers saying they “pinged” someone to mean that they called and talked to them for an hour about something, or that they sent an e-mail that they knew the recipient wouldn’t respond to for a week because they were on vacation, and the end is near for “ping” as a useful expression.
The company I work for had most of it’s employees go through sales training over the last couple of years, even the non-salespeople. Part of the process taught was to listen for “Pings” when talking to a customer/client.
In that usage, it’s supposed to mean a bit of information that comes out in a conversation, that should be marked as a useful topic to explore further. I.E. if someone mentions a new project, remind yourself to ask them what the new project is and what materials they need for it.
You know when the kid goes behind another and flicks their ear with the finger coming off the thumb? It hurts like hell That is what I think of when told somebody is going to ping somebody. That should always be good for a grin in a long meeting.
This has never been the meaning of “ping” in computer networking. It is a method of determining the existence of a connection to another computer on a network, and a series of pings can be used to measure performance and reliability. Nothing “pointless” about that.
Maybe I missed it in this thread, but the contemporary use of the term to me is an Internet command to see if a server is alive and how long it takes to get a response.
Example – if I type this on a command line:
PING STRAIGHTDOPE.COM
I get this response:
Pinging straightdope.com [208.100.26.200] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 208.100.26.200: bytes=32 time=29ms TTL=54
Reply from 208.100.26.200: bytes=32 time=29ms TTL=54
Reply from 208.100.26.200: bytes=32 time=27ms TTL=54
Reply from 208.100.26.200: bytes=32 time=29ms TTL=54
Ping statistics for 208.100.26.200:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 27ms, Maximum = 29ms, Average = 28ms
Translating that to human use, I would assume it means, “See if you can readily contact or communicate with this person.”