Singing for your supper...

The auditions must be the cheapest, most effective team-building exercise I have ever witnessed. Anyone who's worked for big corporations is aware of how much money is spent on team-building efforts which are often ineffective and wasteful.

But the Idols teams were attaining all the goals of team-building in that M-Net studio, from leadership skills to trust and support issues, while having a great deal of fun. All for a meager R10 000 - and that's tax-deductible and great publicity for the company. In addition, the winner gets a voucher for a substantial amount of airtime on M-Net channels.

Why didn't more companies take advantage of this great opportunity?

Of course some contestants may need psychiatric care after the vitriolic comments made by the judges - Julian von Plato from EntertainmentAfrica.com in particular. But then that has become standard fare for Idols.

The judges change daily, except for Von Plato, who is the music expert and deciding judge. There is a representation each day for a radio, print and celebrity to judge. Rian van Heerden is the presenter and the first broadcast is scheduled for this week on M-Net Series Channel.

Office Idols is joint initiative from Oracle Airtime Sales and M-Net. It was launched to give entrants a true Idols experience and to support a good cause - the Beeld Children's Fund.

Companies enter 10 "talented" people, pay the entry fee and pack them off to auditions. The auditions are screened on DSTV's channel 37, with a chance to appear on a specially-packaged show on M-Net's Series Channel.

The winners from each company will compete against other winners in their category, with the ultimate aim of finding one winner from your company category. All the category winners will then compete against each other in a final on the actual Idols set, for the chance to be crowned as the Office Idol.

Well done to the companies who entered: Three Cities Hotels, Clearwater, Planet Fitness, Hollard Insurance, Hunt Lascaris, Monte Casino, ABSA, MultiChoice, e-tv, Motion, Discovery, OUTsurance, Hot Dot, Tembo Gas, M-Net, Hot Dot / Ducks in a Row / Hot House, Gold Reef City, GO Open Source, Holy Rosary School, Goldfields Casino, Pick n Pay, Team Strategy & Nick Robinson Properties, Tribeca Coffee, Aladdin Homes, Riverbend, SA Breweries, Ellies, Media 24, Warranties Regent Insurance, Parmalat, Citroen, Heat Magazine, and last-minute competitor Standard Bank.

As bad as some of you were... you're all stars for taking part!