Unbearably cute, self-congratulatory conference room names are a startup office cliché, but money collection app Tilt takes home the prize for most simultaneously lofty and bizarre choices: Famous sites of human suffering.
Bloomberg talked to Tilt about its unusual conference room names:
Want to get together with colleagues to discuss app upgrades, mobile marketing strategies, or the office’s new hot desking arrangement? You first need to pick a meeting space named after Tiananmen Square, Tahrir Square, or another location “where collective action changed history,” as Tilt Chief Executive James Beshara explains.
Besides the site of an infamous massacre and that of a failed political movement, Tilt named another conference room Robben Island, after the South African prison Nelson Mandela was held for 18 years.
It could be a dark joke about meeting length, because Robben Island was a hellhole — a political prison and leper colony where hopes, dreams, and people died. My guess, based on Beshara’s insistence on making history, is that these names are earnest. It’s like naming a conference room “Auschwitz” in honour of Elie Wiesel’s activism after surviving, or “9/11” for the firefighters’ collective bravery.
At least they’re better than Dropbox’s “Bromance Chamber” room?
Image: Flickr