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And all that jazz

There seems to be no shortage of role models for the busy manager – Thatcher, Branson, Churchill. There's even a handy little manual called Jesus: CEO. But according to academics at Warwick Business School the best way of running a company would be to, like, pick up a sax, and blow, daddy-o, blow.

Entrepreneurship professor Deniz Ucbasaran has been leading research looking into how jazz giants ran their teams. Apparently Duke Ellington's laid back approach to musicians' foibles was the price he paid for talent, but he had partners who stayed with him for decades. Miles Davis preferred creative tension, hiring musicians who didn't know each other because relationships hampered innovation and improvisation: if it worked, brilliant. If not, start again. Meanwhile Art Blakey was a father figure, intent on bringing on young musicians, was concerned about decorum and behaviour.

"Talent's not easy to manage," says Ucbasaran. "To what extent do you accommodate wayward behaviour? You have to give freedom and space, but direct in subtle ways so the end result comes together harmoniously."

So next time you hear your offspring deafening the household on some overloud guitar, console yourself that it's just a bit of management training. Honest.

Putting the B into Brum

In his ceaseless pursuit to bring you the fresh and the novel, Ringer typed 'Brummie' into the Youtube search box and came across one of the most surreal bits of footage yet to hit what we oldies refer to as cyberspace.

The denizens of Birmingham's sister city in Alabama have started adopting the moniker Brummie for themselves. It's led to a truly bizarre film - the Tale of Brummie the Bhamster - which involves a hamster in a bee costume taking on B-Ham, a pig wearing a T-shirt with a "B" on it, and an evil cat genius armed with a ray gun.

Anyway, judge for yourself and decide whether it's put the B into Birmingham or taking the P out of promotion...

In the buff

Now that we have nail technicians, mixologists, and mortar logistics engineers – or beauticians, bartenders and builders as we used to call them – perhaps every job could do with a bit of a polish and an upgrade. Certainly bosses at ACF Car Finance think so.

The Willenhall used car dealership reckons its valeters should be reclassed as "car cosmeticians" and has created a special training programme for them.

Divisional group buying manager Leyton Cooper says valeters deserve higher status in the motor industry. "It's ultimately their skills which deliver perfect result. Many of our managers started in manual roles, and there's no reason why valeters shouldn't finish up in the driving seat."

Which, to this lowly information input and current affairs creative officer, or hack as we used to call journalists, sounds pretty fine.