Ambient computing Amazon’s phrase for tech that listens unobtrusively in the background, like Alexa, its virtual digital assistant. The opposite of the immersive experience envisaged by Mark Zuckerberg with the Facebook founder’s vision for a metaverse.
Anchor day A single day of the week (often Wednesdays) when employers encourage all employees normally working from home to attend the workplace — to engage, collaborate, bond, socialise and maybe even “to double-click” (qv)
Architect To architect is to design. London Stock Exchange Group used this lexicological abomination to proclaim its joint venture with Microsoft, which it said would be a “new collaboration to architect LSEG’s data infrastructure”.
Baby bank Philanthropic organisation dispensing free nappies and toys in response to the cost of living squeeze, often sitting alongside food banks. There are 200 in the UK.
Bullwhip effect The phenomenon of a small kink at one point in the supply chain leading to amplified effects elsewhere. Businesses reacting to component shortages by over-ordering and hoarding, making matters even worse, was one example.
Cola DSR Not a fizzy drink. It is any household that spends more than 70 per cent of income after tax and essentials on mortgage bills. The Bank of England is worried about Britain’s 670,000 Cola-DSRs. It stands for “cost of living adjusted mortgage debt servicing ratio”.
Continuation deals Growing and possibly sinister phenomenon of private equity houses transferring assets from one old fund to a new one — without the tiresome business of independent valuation. A kind of pyramid scheme, according to fund managers at Amundi.
Copypasta Any block of text copied and pasted into another document.
Cryptidiots Holders of crypto — “too green, naive and financially unsophisticated to realise that they are effectively bust”, according to author Nassim Nicholas Taleb
.Crypto winter Cunning coinage of the crypto industry that implies spring inevitably will come and will reward the true believers.
Curate Made.com didn’t merely source sticks of furniture for its million customers. It “curated” them, no less, using the word 30 times in its highly optimistic prospectus. Those who didn’t see it as a red flag lost £200 million. The bust company was then itself curated — by Next.
Double-click Verb — to zone in on an idea or proposal. No one brainstorms any more. Do keep up.
Degenerate Insult used by crypto veterans to describe beginners. Not to be confused with “degenerates” — the outsiders who took on Wall Street during the meme stock craze.
De-horning The humiliating process of unicorns dropping below a $1 billion valuation and so ceasing to be unicorns. Similarly, decacorns dropping below $10 billion. The fate of Klarna, the buy now, pay later king whose valuation dropped from $45.6 billion to $6.7 billion in the space of 13 months.
Digital twin Equivalent person or company in the metaverse.
Dogfooding Requiring managers to experience the service they offer personally by, metaphorically, eating their own dogfood. DoorDash, the food delivery company, expects all managers to make at least four deliveries a year, and Brian Chesky, the Airbnb founder, expressed plans to live nomadically in Airbnbs this year.
Doxing, doxxing Publishing personal information about someone online. Elon Musk temporarily suspended the Twitter accounts of six journalists for, he claimed, breaching anti-doxxing rules by revealing his real-time whereabouts, increasing his risk of assassination.
Drawdown Loss or share price fall. Euphemism initially used to disguise investment losses by hedge funds and now creeping into wider investment vernacular. Scottish Mortgage, Britain’s biggest investment trust, started resorting to this hocus-pocus.
Dunkelflaute Literally, dark doldrums. Meteorological phenomenon of cloudy windless conditions that seriously hit the output of both wind farms and solar farms. Nuclear and gas-fired power stations love a spot of Dunkelflaute.
Effective altruism Utilitarianism with a modern twist. The philosophy of Sam Bankman-Fried, the alleged fraudster and FTX founder who persuaded himself that the best way of helping the maximum number of people was first to get stinking rich personally.
Energetic Phoenix Group was one employer to ban this word from its job adverts on the grounds it would put off older applicants. The requirement for applicants to be “enthusiastic” was also banned as ageist.
Enhanced action Euphemism adopted by the energy industry for firing up old coal-fired power stations.
Fake it till you make it Ethos in parts of Silicon Valley that it is acceptable to mislead investors along the way if the prize is great enough. Embodied by Elizabeth Holmes, the Theranos blood-test hoaxer, who was sentenced to 11 years in jail.
Flexers The one million electricity consumers who have signed up to the newly launched Demand Flexibility Service, which requires them to use less than their normal power consumption in pre-notified time slots. Otherwise known as people who will sit in the dark for 50p.
Finsta Fake Instagram account.
Flippening Much-anticipated hypothetical moment when the total value of all ethereum coins, the second most popular cryptocurrency, overtakes bitcoin, the most popular. Hasn’t happened yet.
Fomo sapiens Person driven by fear of missing out.
Friendshoring After offshoring (moving production to low-wage countries), then onshoring (bringing it back to ensure continuity of supply) comes the policy of handing it to countries deemed political allies. The US wants suppliers of solar panels “friendshored” away from China.
Grawda Get rich and without doing anything. With growth shares, crypto and even property, falling, this was the end of the Grawda era.
Greencrowding Sophisticated form of greenwashing in which companies gather behind a cuddly looking pan-industry alliance in order to justify moving at the pace of the slowest improving member. The Alliance to End Plastic Waste, a group of petrochemical companies, perhaps.
Headwinds Explanation or excuse for poor performance. Currency headwinds, cost headwinds, labour market headwinds, interest rate headwinds, compliance headwinds — it was a maelstrom out there this year.
HFSP Have fun staying poor. Retort used by cryptidiots to taunt nocoiners (qv). And vice versa.
Ick Yuck.
Job strain Academic measure of the phenomenon of higher demands put on workers combined with a reduction in the level of freedom they feel about how they work. Formulaic management, rigidities introduced by IT and mushrooming compliance rules have all boosted job strain. It has been associated with obesity and depression and may help to explain the hundreds of thousands who left the workforce this year.
Kwarkrash Nickname for Kwarsi Kwarteng, the KamiKwarsi ex-chancellor.
LDI Liability-driven investment. Routine but flawed £1 trillion investment technique of traditional pension funds, which, when combined with the disastrous mini-budget, pushed the government bond market close to oblivion.
Libertarian jihadists MP Robert Halfon’s phrase for Truss/Kwarteng ideological advisers who, he said, used the British people as laboratory mice.
Mini-budget Budget in all but name. Massive package of tax and spending measures with no oversight from the Office for Budget Responsibility.
Nocoiner Cryptosceptic.
North star Guiding purpose. Popular among young, idealistic private company chief executives, trying to communicate what the hell they are in business to achieve.
Nutrient neutrality A new requirement from planning authorities that developers should ensure that no more nutrients, particularly nitrates and phosphates, enter a habitat as a result of their projects. Brought new developments to a near-standstill in parts of the UK.
Permacrisis Extended period of instability and insecurity. It was Collins dictionary’s word of the year.
Purpose Terry Smith mocked Unilever over assigning a moral purpose to its individual brands. As the fund manager acidly remarked: “Hellmann’s has existed since 1913 so we would guess by now consumers have figured out its purpose (spoiler alert — salads and sandwiches).”
PV01 A measure of sensitivity to interest rate changes. Complete gobbledegook to most pension fund trustees until they realised that their high PV01s meant they’d dropped hundreds of millions in the wake of the mini-budget debacle.
Quiet firing Employers behaving badly to employees they’d like to see go but don’t have reasons or energy or money to sack. A response to quiet quitting (qv).
Quiet quitting Behaviour of employees putting in the minimum hours, effort and enthusiasm contractually required of them. Said to be a function of a new-found desire to avoid stress and burnout. May also have something to do with the profound labour shortage in the UK.
Rescission The declaring of a contract null and void. A paperwork blunder by Barclays led to it issuing $18 billion more securities than it was legally allowed to. It had to buy them all back under a rescission offer.
Rishinomics Return to economic orthodoxy and sound-ish money after the seven-week experiment with Trussonomics
Sentient This was the year a Google engineer claimed the company’s artificial intelligence power chatbot had developed a human-like consciousness. The claim was denied by Google and the engineer was placed on paid leave.
Sustainagility The dubious art of massaging sustainability targets.
Shitcoin (1) Bitcoin. (2) Traders’ name for sterling, which crashed to as low as $1.03 at one point.
Skimpflation The watering down of a service to avoid raising its price in inflationary times. Airlines dropping inflight meals; hotels ditching daily housekeeping. Closely allied to shrinkflation — the practice of food makers reducing pack sizes.
Slowbalisation Slowing globalisation or the faltering and in some cases reversal of the internationalisation of commerce of the past 80 years. The term was coined by Adjiedj Bakas, the Dutch writer, in 2015.
So Verbal space-filler allowing the time to think in response to a difficult question. Rapidly replacing “well”, “umm” and “er”. Ubiquitous in politics and spreading fast to business.
Sportswashing Use of a sport to promote a favourable image.
Tiktoks Ofcom’s tag for children as young as five on social media in spite of rules that users must be over 13.
Trussonomics Ambitious pursuit of growth at all costs, even if funded through uncosted, unfunded tax cuts.
Unacceptable face of capitalism Verdict first used by Ted Heath about sanctions-busting Tiny Rowland in 1973. Resurrected again this year by critics of P&O Ferries over its instant firing of 800 crew.
Waterfall Series of interlinked pools of liquidity devised to ensure pension funds could withstand collateral calls. Ran horribly dry in September.
WFP Working from pub, which saves on the heating required when WFH. Young’s, the pubs chain, started offering WFP days.
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