Last September, I wrote a column pointing out that the crash had made the bottom fall out of market in management bullshit; business people seemed to have renounced waffle and were being rather sober and sensible. While this might have been a good thing for the world as a whole, for my awards ceremony it was a catastrophe.
However, I have just looked in my 2008 twaddle cupboard and found, to my huge relief, that it is almost as well-stocked as usual. Not only are there some very fine twaddle entries from the first nine months of the year, but even in the past three months there has been much to commend. It seems that managers' ability to create twaddle is so fundamental that, after a brief hiccup in September, it is now business as usual. Which means I am now delighted to announce that my 2008 Top Twaddle awards will go forward as usual.
● My first award this year is a new category called Rearranging The Deckchairs. The clear winner here is Citibank, which, just as its business was getting really tough last summer, sent a cheery message to all staff suggesting they download the Citi theme tune to their mobiles. “Citi's audio brand was composed especially for Citi and ladders off our purpose of ‘Driving Success',” the message said. The twaddle judges were particularly impressed by the phrase “to ladder off”, as they previously only heard the verb ladder used in connection with stockings.