Here's a cautionary tale for the corporate social media consultants of the world. Last week, McDonald's launched a Twitter campaign using the hashtag #McDStories; it was hoping that the hashtag would inspire heart-warming stories about Happy Meals. Instead, it attracted snarky tweeps and McDonald's detractors who turned it into a #bashtag to share their #McDHorrorStories.
—Kashmir Hill, "#McDStories: When A Hashtag Becomes A Bashtag," Forbes, January 24, 2012

Steve Inch, chair of the Scotcash board, said the collaboration — which sees a loan advisor based full time in the offices of North Glasgow Housing Association, also helped avoid the phenomenon of "zombie" loan accounts.

"There's a new term being coined for payday borrowers who are able only to pay the interest on their loans — zombie debtors — so that the principal debt just rolls on, and while there's talk of those institutions having a code of conduct introduced, that's only in the pipeline at present and we want people to know that there is an alternative in the shape of Scotcash," he said.
—Joan McFadden, "Loan service launches attack on the zombies," Herald Scotland, December 30, 2011

Nobody wants to speak too soon, but the horrors of the past 12 months seem far away. Nothing has changed, of course. All the old nasties are still there, including looming Eurogeddon, but we're told that every possible hazard has been "priced in".
—Jeremy Thomas, "US investors busy making other plans," Business LIVE, January 21, 2012

Now everybody with a cardigan and crocheted beanie has to have their own special food-limited diet. Not content with mere veganism, we have freeganism (people who only eat free stuff), flexitarianism (a vegetarian who occasionally eats meat) and pollotarians (those who eat chicken or other poultry but not red meat).
—Tim Elliott, "Eating their words," The Sydney Morning Herald, December 17, 2011

The patrons — 30 per seating, two seatings per night — enjoy cuisine from a rotating roster of local star chefs. The buzz about the venture has been almost rabid, with passionate bloggers speculating on the identity of each surprise chef (the first was Marc Cassel from Park), leading to sellouts. It's all for a good cause, as each seating is expected to raise about $500 for a group of local charities.

48 Nights' organizers clearly have the followers, which draws the coveted chatter. Add in an expiration date and the potential FOMO — fear of missing out — only escalates the notion of exclusivity.
—Jason Sheeler, "Temporary shops, galleries, eateries popping up in Dallas," The Dallas Morning News, March 2, 2010

Did you go into the office this past Labor Day weekend? Did you work this past Labor Day weekend? If your answer to the first question is "no" but you answered "yes" to the second," you and your business are part of the growing trend toward workshifting.
—Rieva Lesonsky, "How Workshifting Is Changing the Way We Work," Small Business Trends, September 7, 2011

Around the same time, I noticed that those who part with $2,285 a night to stay in a cliff-top room at the Post Ranch Inn in Big Sur pay partly for the privilege of not having a TV in their rooms; the future of travel, I'm reliably told, lies in "black-hole resorts," which charge high prices precisely because you can't get online in their rooms.
—Pico Iyer, "The Joy of Quiet," The New York Times, December 29, 2011

The Janopause describes the post-Christmas abstinence from anything remotely pleasurable.

Look around your workplace and you'll see people on the Janopause everywhere. They'll be the ones with a litre bottle of Brecon Carreg on their desks, a packet of pumpkin seeds and an expression of utter misery.
—Carolyn Hitt, "Abstinence and grim resolutions of Janopause just don't fit in," Wales Online, January 9, 2012

"Cardiff council operates a 'no can do culture' and morale among general staff is low. The council operates as a private club, with the Liberal Democrats, Labour and the Conservatives all too happy to perpetuate an ineptocracy."
—Neil McEvoy, quoted in Phillip Nifield, "Call to cut council bosses' wages," South Wales Echo, August 31, 2007

What gives Adams grist for the "Dilbert" mill is the way managers mishandle downsizing, not only in the often cruel manner in which the news is broken, but in its sometimes counterproductive effects. Nynex, for instance, has shed thousands of employees since 1990. Union rules protect senior workers, "but our younger employees were the ones who had taken more time to educate themselves," says a remaining technician. "We have actually gotten rid of our best people." This practice — of getting rid of the brightest workers — happens so often that it has its own term: brightsizing.
—Steven Levy, "Working in Dilbert's World," Newsweek, August 12, 1996

But when Mr. Schick and his business partner, Blake Tally, decided to open Le Truc, a San Francisco "bustaurant," with a gourmet kitchen and dedicated seating area inside a converted school bus, the two quickly learned that the kitchens in food trucks are very different from their brick-and-mortar equivalents.
—Todd Lapin, "The Vehicle of Street Food Is Getting an Overhaul," The New York Times, January 14, 2011

According to Codex Group, a book audience research firm in New York, people use their neighborhood stores as a form of literary dressing room: Try it on for size, but buy it elsewhere. It's a trend that shows no sign of abating, said Peter Hildick-Smith, president of Codex.

Earlier this year, his firm surveyed 5,067 book buyers from around the country about their buying habits and 28 percent said they "showroomed."
—Rosalind Bentley, "Bookstores losing browsers to Web," The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, December 17, 2011