This Just In: Fist Bumps Catching on in Business World

Breaking News: Fist Bumps, once the purview of the sports world, apparently are gaining ground as a means of celebration in the business realm. According to a highlighted story in today's USA Today print and on-line coverage, the traditional handshake still rules, but somehow this momentous cultural shift warrants academic discussion in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Applied Psychology.

As USA Today reports regarding fist-bumping: "So far, executives say, it is exchanged almost exclusively among male business associates who are otherwise friends, or in informal settings such as the end of a golf round. Fist bumping, or two people tapping fists lightly, has a long way to go to unseat the handshake, a gesture that goes back to medieval times when opponents used it to indicate that they were friendly and unarmed."

The phenomena now exists even in the Hoosier state, as USA Today finds: "Scott Jones, CEO of ChaCha, a search engine company in Carmel, Ind., says he now has a business fist-bump encounter about monthly."

A sagging economy, high anxiety about mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the failure of California-based IndyMac notwithstanding, fist-bumping remains a epochal trend to watch in national business coverage...apparently.