Congratulations to the three of you from all at Slightly Different! Well done.

[* To make the headline really work, Alan would also have needed to be the midwife as well, but we don't think he'd look good in one of those midwife outfits.]

Amidst much talk of “Double Bogeys”, “Eagles” and despairing cries of “Where did that tree come from?”, the Slightly Different team achieved a commendable 8^th place, receiving a trophy for the best score on the back nine.

“It was a game of two halves, and the team looked and played like the champions that they have often described themselves as. The wind was in their hair, and they addressed the ball sternly, with passion and determination in every shot.” So said a non-golfing spectator, watching from the sidelines as the team kicked off on the first tee.

Another spokesman was overheard to say “If this were a different course, and they were three different golfers, their performance would be worthy of televising.” High praise indeed.

The event raised in excess of £3600 which was split between the Cornwall Blind Association, Marie Curie Cancer Care, and a number of local Rotary sponsored charities, and everyone had an enjoyable time so it was a good result all round.

We would like to congratulate the Slightly Different team – Mervyn Spencer (Non-Executive Director, Slightly Different), Julien Payne (Managing Director, Titleworth Healthcare Group) and Steve Edwards (IT Manager, Business Link) – for braving the weather and helping to make the day a huge success.

To illustrate my point (and if you are an economist you can start cringing now) here’s how I see it. In simple terms, the economy is like a merry go round. Let’s take three fictitious companies and an ultra-simplified scenario:

Company A – Steel PLC – a large company that sells steel.

Company B – Tongs Ltd – a small company that sells tongs made from steel.

Company C – Fireplaces Ltd – a small company that sells fireplaces made from steel.

Steel PLC sells steel to Tongs Ltd. They do good trade between them, because Tongs Ltd needs the steel to make its tongs, and Steel PLC needs the tongs as part of its steel manufacturing process. The two businesses are mutually supportive.

Fireplaces Ltd buys from Steel PLC to make its fireplaces. In order to beat its only competitor in the fireplaces market, it also buys from Tongs Ltd to provide fireplaces with tongs, which is a significant added value which its competitor cannot match.

In a positive economy, this market model would work well, with other companies and services fitting around the three companies mentioned.

The problem comes when Tongs Ltd reads the headlines about the economy and panics, worried that Fireplaces Ltd is going to stop buying tongs. Tongs Ltd therefore preemptively reduces its monthly order from Steel PLC, putting the cash away just in case it needs it. The system was working fine up until that point, as people need fireplaces (they do in this community anyway!) and there was no need for Tongs Ltd to panic, but they did.

Steel PLC sees a subsequent reduction in orders, and after a while is forced to scale back production to avoid being left with an excess of steel on its balance sheet tying up its resources. It slows down purchases from other suppliers as a result, and lays off some staff. Many of these staff were planning to buy a fireplace, so Fireplaces Ltd finds that it too experiences a drop in orders, which in turn affects Tongs Ltd because Fireplaces Ltd doesn’t need as many tongs as before because its not selling as many fireplaces. Tongs Ltd therefore further reduces its orders to Steel PLC and is pleased with itself for spotting the looming slowdown in orders from Fireplaces Ltd oblivious to the fact that by panicking a few months previously, it helped to cause the trade slowdown.

After some months, Steel PLC has slowed production and has laid off two thirds of its staff, to the point where it just ticks over, keeping production running at a very basic level with just a third of the output of the plant from previously. Fireplaces Ltd have few customers left, as the staff remaining at Steel PLC are worried about their jobs and they have stopped buying quality fireplaces altogether, preferring the really cheap ones imported from overseas. Tongs Ltd, reliant on Fireplaces Ltd for orders, and now seeing the reduction in orders from Steel PLC looks at the dwindling cash reserves and decides to call it a day before it gets into trouble. A few months later Fireplaces Ltd loses its last customer to the cheap import company because it is no longer is able to supply tongs with its fireplaces. Steel PLC is left with no customers and seeks a Government subsidy to avoid closure, being forced to buy tongs from a more expensive supplier.

While a highly simplified model, this is a microcosmic view of the current market conditions across many countries around the world. Companies like Tongs Ltd are panicking and are putting money under the mattress, thus creating their own problem down the line. As a result companies like Fireplaces Ltd are going out of business on a daily basis, not because of poor working practices or an inferior product, but because they simply cannot afford to continue to trade.

In the above example, with only one company left in the fireplaces market, the cheap importer can suddenly increase their prices without fear of losing any trade because they have no competition left. The major PLC will ultimately fail because nobody is left to buy their product, as evidenced by the demise of the UK steel industry, because the cheap importer from overseas buys his product from a company in China who uses a local steel company that can take advantage of cheaper labour costs and lower overheads.

The creative industry is a little like this. We speak to many smaller companies than us, often providing advice and support for those who are leaving university and trying to find their feet on the professional ladder. Many of these agencies are struggling at the moment, and good talented people are finding work in non related fields purely to make ends meet. Many of these will be lost from the creative sector altogether, and we know of other companies who are finding the going particularly tough at the moment, especially those who don’t have a national presence. The upshot of this just in the creative sector is that this is going to come home to roost in the next decade or two when we are looking for the next batch of visionary leaders with serious industry experience to maintain our key global positioning at the forefront of the sector, but I’m pretty confident that we’re not the only industry that’s going to suffer in this way.

When I met with the Bank of England recently and was advised that the economic situation is likely to continue until at least the end of the current administration, I wonder how many companies like the three fictional ones described earlier were going to be left when the dust settles. Protesting about the situation by sitting in a tent outside St Paul’s Cathedral or throwing rocks at the police isn’t going to make any positive difference at all. Indeed, all this is doing is to cause the various Government’s around the world to clamp down on civil liberties even further.

I fondly recall Dads Army which was on re-runs when I was a boy, and the words of Clive Dunn in his role as Corporal Jones “Don’t panic, Mr Mainwaring” are as apt for the UK economy now as they were when Dads Army was set. Ironically, Mr Mainwaring was also a bank manager as well as a Captain in the Home Defence Force, and he had to put up with chaos within his organisation, not helped by Private Frazer played by the late John Laurie going round saying “We’re doomed, I say. Doomed.” to whomever would listen – a bit like the media today. They never were doomed, of course, and somehow they always came through whatever trials and tribulations they were up against.

If you really do want to do something about the economy, draw your money out of the bank – it’s doing you no good in there anyway – and buy a UK product from a UK company. If we all did this it would re-energise the market for products, kick start retail, which in turn would breathe life into the manufacturing industry, and as a result would create new jobs in all sectors which will allow more people to spend more money, and so the engine of the UK economy would wheeze back into life, and the money go round will keep on spinning regardless what they do in Europe.

You may recall Joe Cabot in Reservoir Dogs saying “Let’s go to work”. Let’s hit the ground running in 2012.

While this sounds like a lifestyle that would appeal to many, particularly those who live and work in the city, what’s the truth? What have we learned from our year in London, and are there any lessons that we could perhaps share with other local businesses thinking of making the move into the big smoke?

Many readers will be familiar with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and to build our pyramid we started from the bottom identifying the office first. This was the longest part of the process, but was the foundation of our move into London. The office had to be central enough to enable us to easily and quickly access all areas of the city, without being prohibitively expensive. This took 3 months to find something that was affordable yet looked the part and eventually we found a four man office in The Media Village in Great Titchfield Street which works well for us and allows for expansion.

Once the office was in place, and mainly by trial and error we then needed to find somewhere to live in an acceptable standard of accommodation that was affordable on a regular basis. We’d all like to stay in five star accommodation, but for two nights a week every week that tends to get a bit pricey! Good negotiation skills paid dividends here and we managed to negotiate a long term rate which would make some Cornish guest houses look expensive in a small hotel in Bayswater, quite close to Hyde Park, which is about 15 minutes from the office by either tube or bus which is less of a commute than most of the team have in Cornwall.

Bayswater is a relatively safe area of London – normal city rules apply – and the location is multicultural which makes for an interesting diversion at the end of the working day, with pretty much every type of food available from Lebanese to Latvian if you know where to look, together with a handful of English pubs within easy walking distance. It also works really well from a transport perspective particularly from the South West, with Paddington Station within walking distance, direct access to both the Central and Circle tube lines, and at least two different bus routes passing within five minutes of the office. To top it all, we’ve even managed to find secure long term parking at a reasonable rate on the occasion where we choose to drive up rather than take the train which is useful, and Bayswater is just outside the congestion zone so we don’t have to worry about being fined when we forget to pay it (and we’ve learned our lesson there too!).

The third Maslow tier is belongingness and love needs.  Everyone needs friends and acquaintances and London is a pretty unfriendly place at times where few people even make eye contact with you let alone say hello, which is very different from a regional attitude where you don’t have to know someone to wish them a good morning.  That said, there are plenty of business networking events to go to in London, happening on most days of the week if you look hard enough.  We’ve found a couple that work well for us, and have a good mix of people to speak with in a broad variety of business sectors.  We’ve also found some that don’t have half the people in the room doing what we do which is always a bonus!  Also, sport is always a good icebreaker, and you can always find someone who is willing to share their opinion about the recent Wayne Rooney antics or the performance of the England Rugby squad.

Then there’s the fourth tier which is esteem needs, and when it comes to it we’ve got an office in London which is more than can be said for many regional companies.  That’s pretty good, and we’ve had it here for a year now which kind of works for me.  No, it’s not got a marble reception or gold taps, but it does have a close up view of the BT Tower, and it is just round the corner from the Radio 1 offices so occasionally we see celebs, or bump into them in the local cafe when buying our lunch.  During our next couple of years we can always upgrade to an office by the Thames, or some top floor office in a skyscraper in the City, but for now keeping it simple is the smart play.  We’ve never wasted money on ego driven items which means we keep our costs down and we then pass these lower overheads on to our clients which works for everyone.

Finally there’s the top of the diagram which is the self actualisation part.  Are we achieving our full potential in London?  Achieving one’s full potential is always something that can be worked on, and it’s always relative to the individual, but we’re now working with some new clients who we wouldn’t have attracted if we had just remained in Cornwall, and we’ve got several exciting projects in the pipeline which are capitalising on our expanded business footprint. We’re also making changes to the way Slightly Different does business, based on our observations of other agencies, seeing what works and what doesn’t, and how bigger agencies than us do business.

Indeed, that’s quite a big factor.  Being in a regional part of the UK it is easy to fall into the trap of being one of the big fish in a small pond and as a result not changing at all with market trends, just with what the local competition is doing.  We see other agencies taking this easy route, but by upping our game and moving into a very big pond we’ve opened our horizons and given ourselves a fresh perspective which can only be a good thing and puts us in an excellent position on a regional basis. We’ve also opened up our market to companies in London who prefer working with a digital company that’s local to them.

I’d encourage others to see what the rest of the world is like, and believe me, you can’t tell anything from a day trip or two to London.  We’ve learnt so much by jumping in with both feet that we’re now a much better company than before which makes it all worthwhile.

What else have we learned?

• Bus drivers will throw you off the bus in preference to having to give you change, particularly at night.
• An Oyster card is a must have accessory for any regular London visitor, allowing travel around London without having to worry about buying tickets or having the correct change.
• When driving in London keep an eye on a 140 degree arc in front of your vehicle at all times to avoid driving into others.  Other traffic behind you will modify their behaviour based on your driving style to avoid driving into you.
• Anyone on two wheels in London is suicidal and/or insane.  They will overtake on both the outside and the inside, often at the same time, and if there’s a gap of a few inches between you and the lorry next to you, you’ll often find a cyclist in it.
• If you don’t like extremely narrow multi-storey car park entrances and extremely tight spaces to park in, don’t try to park a big car in the Chinatown car park.  Or indeed any others come to think of it.
• If you have a choice between the A303 and the M5, take the A303.  There’s not much time difference, and you’ll feel better for seeing the scenery.  Word of advice – don’t take the A303 on the last day of the Glastonbury Festival.
• If you don’t agree with or understand a restaurant bill, say something.  It’s not unknown for a waiter to inflate the bill particularly when he writes it in a language that you don’t understand.  Keep a mental note of what you think the bill should be when you order.
• The Wong Kei Chinese restaurant in Chinatown is renowned for its abrasive service.  Expect cheap food, incredibly fast table turnarounds, and comedy gold if someone around you tries to attract the attention of a waiter.  You could go for a three course dinner here and be out within the hour.
• Finally, if you’re coming to London to work then do so.  Theatres etc. should be reserved for another visit with your loved ones if you’re serious about what you do for a living.  Doing business in London is not for the faint hearted, and takes no prisoners.

If any business in Cornwall (or any other outlying region of the UK) is reading this and you were thinking of expanding into London and need some advice, a helping hand, or even just somewhere to chill out for five minutes with a nice cup of tea in a location that is out of the rain and isn’t packed with other people, give me a ring and I’ll put the kettle on.  You never know, you might find that the conversation includes how we can improve your website performance so you can grow your business even faster!

See you when the fog lifts.

Jeremy

See the BT Tower in the distance? Our office is next to it. Oh, and there's Buckingham Palace in the foreground.

To continue the global domination of Slightly Different, our erstwhile colleague Steve Hanson has donned his arctic woollens and as you read this is probably trudging his way through a blizzard in the snowy wastes of Northern England.

A native of Huddersfield, which is the other side of the world from Cornwall, Steve migrated down South but after a couple of years just couldn’t get to grips with the near tropical Cornish weather, warm seas lapping onto soft sandy beaches, coral reefs teeming with brightly coloured fish, maidens bearing flower garlands, and … (Stop this – Steve was in Cornwall, not Hawaii – Ed.). The upshot is that we’ve sent him back up North on a mission – to establish a third Slightly Different studio, known as SD North, by the end of this month.

Based on the success of our London studio which is proving to be extremely popular with our more central clients, and following a similar expansion plan, we’re now building a critical mass of business in the far North and Scotland, such that we’ve accelerated our plans to establish a presence in this area.

This will be of significant benefit for clients such as Chisholm Hunter who are one of the most established high quality jewellery retailers in both this region and throughout Scotland. We’ve not only developed their website complete with an advanced product management system, but also run their online marketing campaign, and we even designed some in-store promotional displays for their ‘Grow Your Diamond’ campaign which attracted considerable attention and new business for the stores. Having a local presence will help to reduce our carbon emissions, and will also enable us to meet and share ideas more often, with the aim that everyone will be a winner.

This latest news will also appeal to our overseas clients in Ireland with business operations in Manchester and Liverpool, enabling meetings to be held more frequently, and will also serve to attract a new range of clients from around the region who like to work with their suppliers on a face to face basis.

We’ll keep you posted with more details, but as the great man William Shakespeare said “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day.” Time waits for no one. If you’ve got plans to do something with your business, don’t put them off because of what you may or may not hear on the news. Call us at our London office on 020 3008 8045 or  our Head Office in Cornwall on 01326 372416  and we’ll help to put you in front of your new customers today.

Make it count. Be Slightly Different.

Many organisations recognise the potential of sporting events to make money, with the London 2012 Olympic Games being a topical case in point where increasingly ingenious ways of capitalising on this continue to hit the news on a regular basis.  The latest one I’ve seen was someone living near the stadium taking advance bookings for people to pitch a tent in their garden.  The price?  A snip at £75 per night.

Anyway, I digress.  The point is that sporting events are seen by business as a legitimate business expenditure.  Sponsors of football teams regularly spend vast amounts of money to have their name emblazoned on the team shirt, or put a hoarding around the pitch, hoping that it will be caught on camera during an exciting stage of the game.

The key word in the last sentence however is the last one.  These events are just games when it comes down to it, although try telling that to the passionate soccer fan at closing time and you’ll be re-educated quite quickly!

Another form of games is that of computer games, which some would say are just as legitimate a pastime as kicking a ball around a park.  Not all people are good at football, or indeed have an even number of jumpers with which to form goal posts, and for these people whole different worlds exist within the realms of computer based gaming.

From a business perspective, the development budgets of many games are now on a par with that of many Hollywood movies.  Grand Theft Auto has made the news for a variety of reasons, but the development budget for this was over $100m.  For a long time this was the highest amount spent on developing a game, that is until Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was released costing an estimated $200m to develop.

This is pin money when compared to the recurring revenue generated by online games.  World of Warcraft has an estimated 9 million users all who contribute between £10-£15 per month to play.  This has generated a business for the owners worth well in excess of £1bn.  Not bad, considering this is just a computer game, and particularly when considering that it wasn’t so long ago that Manchester United was sold for ‘only’ £790m.

Another smaller example is CCP, the Icelandic company behind Eve Online.  They have just won the Icelandic President’s Award for Best Exporter.  That must wind up those companies that have been exporting bananas from Iceland for decades, because the guys behind this just wanted to create a game that allowed them to fly around space with their friends.  Now almost 500,000 people regularly take to the spacelanes in a global battle for supremacy.  Indeed, at any given time there are around 40,000 people playing at once in the same online world.

Now think back to the amount of money people pay to advertise at football matches to get their brands in front of less people but only once a week.  Online dungeons and dragons and space combat just graduated into the serious leagues, yet corporate sponsors are missing a trick.

Many new games now come with the ability to place adverts in real time on in-game billboards and hoardings, a fact that President Obama didn’t miss when running his campaign for election.  His promotional message was seen on billboards around virtual racing circuits and this helped him to capture the vote of many young people, particularly as his opponents relied on a much less effective way of marketing themselves to this audience which clearly didn’t work.

In the Far East, three out of every four people play computer games, but in the West today our statistics are the opposite. Companies like Nintendo are doing their best to change this and expand the market into the family unit with their Nintendo DS (and the new 3DS), and the Wii consoles.  Others have been swift to follow.

We are at the tip of the iceberg stage of the in-game advertising industry in the West, and what I think is brilliant here is the industry today is almost entirely dominated by young people driving young companies, because many more experienced people almost always switch off when it comes to the subject of games resulting in this falling below the radar of many people.

Perhaps it’s time to reappraise your attitude to gaming as your company might be missing a trick.

http://intersections2011.com/

Intersections, titled – re-designing the future of business spanned two whole days and required quite the commitment from it’s delegates especially those special few that stayed the night in the ‘Shelterbox Hotel’ (loosely described as an open air tent pitched in the Mediterranean biome – key aim, to raise awareness & all important cash for incredibly worthy & home-grown* charity Shelterbox more on that later). *Home for me being Cornwal I might add

The key aim of said event & the general thrust was to explored the emerging trends currently driving business change and where that creates new opportunities for design practice. Sadly we couldn’t all make the whole event thus is the nature of business but I did manage to see the large majority & found the event extremely invigorating & thought provoking from a designers persective.

Essentially Intersections like all good design summits was all about discussion, both from the 45+ experts, mavericks, entrepreneurs and thought leaders imparting their worldly wisdom to the delegates but more importantly between the delegates themselves & there were certainly some ‘lively’ discussions usually towards the end of the night once the bar opened coincidentally..

For those that missed it all the talks were filmed for posterity, you can view them here:

http://vimeo.com/user3737743/videos

The real test going forward from an event such as this will be to put some of the theories, themes & lofty ideals raised over the two days into actual design practice, enough discusion now is the time for action.

Matt

After countless hours* of planning meetings, documentation, design, further meetings, website development, programming, head scratching, more programming, more meetings, systems integration, data migration, database querying, head scratching, training, more meetings, and several rounds of testing including alpha, beta, gamma, and several other Greek types of testing, we are finally in a go-live Defcon 1 position with the new Business Answers website. Oh yes.

Indeed, the time this has taken has almost rivalled the amount of time we spend drinking tea and talking about our favourite films of all time so this was quite some project, but we’re delighted that we’re there, and we’re delighted that our our client is delighted, so everyone’s a winner. More to the point, you’re likely to find this site incredibly useful, so we’re even more delighted about that as well.

Project Objective

Business Answers is the new portal to replace the Business Link for Cornwall, Devon and Somerset website, and we’re rather hoping that the rest of the country will sit up and take notice at what we’ve done here. Indeed, every year the regional version of the Business Link site receives over 200,000 unique visitors, and we’re anticipating that with the new functionality at least this number of people will be using this site to find the latest in business advice and information that, in an unprecedented development, will be uniquely tailored to each individual.

Website Design & Development

Through the Ask An Expert system developed by Slightly Different and integrated with the existing Business Link knowledgebase, a site user can ask a question and have the most relevant answers displayed to them based on an automated intelligent analysis of the question. The more accurate the question, the more precise the answer, and the system is self learning, so new answers will be added to the existing knowledgebase which, over time, will create a significant resource for all sizes of companies and organisations.

In addition to this, the Ask An Expert system will also flag questions up to a network of over 80 Business Link advisers who can add their unique knowledge and experience to the answer thus providing the most comprehensive answers to any business questions. With high levels of knowledge in general business, but also with specialist knowledge in a diverse range of subjects including finance, law, marketing, and e-business, this new resource, available for free as part of the Government’s new initiative to support UK businesses, will make a significant difference to the business community throughout the South West.

Why not visit the site at www.businessanswers.info and Ask An Expert today. We hope you enjoy the Slightly Different experience!

* I have been advised to point out that the phrase “countless hours” has been used for editorial effect, and we know exactly how many hours the project took to do, which was delivered on time and on budget. Thanks for that, Andrew.

Cor blimey govner! …. another one to add to the collection of specialists at Slightly Different. When Andrew walked through the door, we knew we’d struck gold, this is a man who thrives on scheduling, who’s attention to detail is second to none and who has an instant raport with our clients

So Andrew, how are you settling in at SD?

A: Really well thanks. It’s been a very varied and quite challenging first month, but I amextremely happy to be part of the Slightly Different team.

For our clients benefit, can you explain what you do?

Of course – I am a Project Manager. In short, I am here to represent our clients in the office in terms of delivery and quality.To ensure we continually exceed their expectations, I need to ensure that projects are clearly defined from the outset and that they are managed in a consistent and organised way. I’m not really making this sound very fun am I!!

I know you are very organised, so is this the aspect of your role you most like? Or is there more?

Ha ha, oh no way…that would make me sound really dull. It’s a necessary evil to be this orderly with so many things all going on at the same time in the office. I would say my favourite element of managing any project has to be the interaction with a cross-disciplined team; you can’t fail to learn more and more every day.

Are you proper Cornish then? (I only ask as I know you have been out of the county more than once before!!)

Right on; I’m Cornish and proud. I grew up in Redruth and left the County at 18 for the bright lights of London. I had a great time and worked with some extremely inspiring people, but I always knew my time there would be temporary. After 12 years working away, I now have a much deeper appreciation for all things Cornish and am very happy to have made it home.

I heard you have worked in media previously and met a few celebs, any gossip or good stories that aren’t liabless?

Haha, you’re right yes I spent a lot of my time while in London working for ITV, which was a great experience, especially on projects like I’m a Celeb, Coronation Street and X Factor. Any gossip I had is well and truly out of date by now, thanks to magazines like OK! and Reveal, but I’ll happily tell you the rudest celebrity I had the pleasure of working with: Peter Kay – total diva! During the creation of Geraldine and the winner’s song, he lived on a double decker bus in Granada studios for two weeks eating nothing but chips and refusing to talk to any staff.

So what lead you to our front door?

Well my fruit-picking work doesn’t start until June and I fancied a change..no, I had heard very good things from friends about the work that Slightly Different do – it’s refreshing to see an innovative and fresh-thinking agency that really cares about their work and their clients.

What challenge are you most looking forward to then?

The biggest challenge by far is to implement a new process for Slightly Different; a new way of working that is recognised, understood and supported by the team. This process has to achieve a lot, with the client as the focus at all times, so it is really quite complex, but I really am enjoying that.  So far, I have had a very good response from everyone here about the changes I am making.

So if you could describe the perfect project process in less than 10 words what would they be?

I’d be pushed, and I would use all ten words: Realistic timescales, paired development, quality assurance, flexible budget, open communication. Of course, every project is unique and for larger projects, there’s a great value in things like iterative development and regular retrospective meetings to ensure we inspect, review and improve wherever we can as a team.

Do you have any other words of wisdom to share?

Slightly off topic, but I have a very passionate dislike for acronyms and poor grammar – if you can’t be bothered to say something properly, don’t say it at all! I find acronyms and cutting corners on communication leads to misunderstanding, frustration and eventual anger and disappointment – rant ends.

If your life depended on it and you had to make a choice, which would you be? a designer or a developer?

Tricky…If it were simply down to choosing which I would be good at, I would choose to be a designer. I think really good designers, who design for online, have to have an appreciation if not an absolute understanding of the development required on projects – their designs have to be achievable and practical while also blowing the client away creatively. Plus, don’t all developers sit in dark rooms playing video games between Star Trek episodes? That’s not me..

Oh everyone says that, designing is easy…… it’s just colouring in isnt it???? reckon that’s us both off the invited for a drink list now then… Bingo?

The question is, do you know what a bank holiday actually is? Why do we get these days off? Given that every bank holiday costs the country’s economy a small fortune (£6 billion is the latest CBI calculation), and we’re all set for some additional ones both this year for the Royal Wedding, and also next year for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, I thought I’d find out what these were all about and what, if anything, they’ve got to do with banks.

Firstly, in these times where the usual headlines regarding anything connected to the banking industry are likely to be negative, it may be a little disingenuous for us to rubbish banks on the one hand and then take the bank holiday for granted on the other. It turns out that we when it comes to bankers we do have something to be thankful for after all.

At one point in history we had 33 days off throughout the year to cover special religious occasions, and because clearly nobody got any work done this was reduced to four in 1834 namely May Day, All Saints Day (1 November), Good Friday, and Christmas Day. There must have been some complaints about this, so 37 years later Sir John Lubbock (1st Baron Avebury, banker, biologist, Liberal politician, and archaeologist!) sponsored the bill that introduced four more holidays which are today regulated by the Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971. These additional holidays were Easter Monday, Whit Monday, August Bank Holiday, and Boxing Day.

Why these days? Religion was my first thought, but I was wrong. I would wager that, like me, you probably didn’t know that these latter four days were only specified because Sir John Lubbock was an ardent cricket fan and he was keen that bank employees should have the opportunity to participate or attend cricket matches, and these four dates were the dates when the teams around where Lubbock lived played. So, following this logic, and perhaps somewhat controversially, if you don’t play any sport and you don’t watch sport, you really shouldn’t be taking these four days off.

Moving on swiftly, and being a loyal monarchist, what the Queen says goes in my book, and all public holidays are approved today by Royal proclamation. It is the Queen who decides when we can launch into potential unwise DIY projects at home on a Monday instead of being at work, and therefore when one sits back to admire one’s handiwork with a glass of your own beverage of choice to hand, perhaps you ought to say thanks to the Queen for recognising your need for an extra day to build your garden shed, and possibly to Sir John Lubbock for understanding your ardent support for the West Drayton XI.

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Don’t forget, just because it’s a bank holiday doesn’t mean that you can’t be doing business online. Make the Internet work harder for you. Be Slightly Different.