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.

Unfortunately, very little in life is free, aside from the best things obviously. Assuming that Sinatra telling you that the best things in life are free isn’t good enough, if you are going to ignore ‘Ol Blue Eyes and you are like many millions out there endlessly searching for more, you’re going to pay for it with advertising.

An increasing trend for the web is making the entire browsing experience more personal. Google’s latest algorithm changes are a major change where they are now factoring into your search results what your friends are recommending. Filtering your search results so that the results are based on your location is another, and sure if you’re web savvy you can turn this off, but most people don’t.

What you may have noticed much more recently though is contextual advertising where your browsing activity is monitored – yes, even that activity – and adverts appear contextually on other sites based on what you’ve been looking at previously. This is not a new technology, but it is certainly being used a lot more and this will become something to behold as, just like any statistics based information, the more data there is, the more accurate the statistics become. In the context of online advertising, the results will get smarter and smarter the more data the system knows about what you are doing.

It doesn’t always work though, which often leads to amusing results. I use the Internet to browse a whole range of different topics, some of which interest me personally, and some which I look up for work undertaking online research, or perhaps looking for information on behalf of others.

Recently I spotted a good campaign for recruitment for Royal Marines officers which has been done as an interactive video – good work WCRS – and the video plays and you get a second or two to make decisions which then play out as the success or failure of the mission. I qualified and my team achieved the objective, but I guess being aged 42 I wouldn’t get too far with the selection process these days despite my being invited to apply at the end of the film. It would be a bit like the scene in Apocalypse Now where the dossier said that Kurtz completed airborne training at the age of 38 when he was twice the age of the other recruits, except in real life this kind of thing doesn’t happen.

Some time later I was doing some research for a client involved in selling a cosmetic product – the name is still under wraps unfortunately, but it’s a new and exciting product that women (and some men!) are going to love – and I was looking at a parenting website to see if it would be an appropriate forum for advertising. Sure enough, contextual advertising kicked in, and it was emblazoned with the Royal Marines Officer ad that you can see on the right. In context with the parenting information on the left it didn’t seem to fit somehow!

While the ad displayed was entirely out of context in this example with the website it was displayed upon, the one point that was consistent and made it contextually relevant was me. We’re going to see a lot more in the way of personalised adverts in the future. These will be delivered to you in all forms, not just on the web. Imagine walking down the road and being greeted personally by a digital billboard ad, or walking past a crowded bar at lunchtime and having an advert with a discount code appear on your mobile phone for lunch in that location.

I heard of an edgy ad campaign for a website which utilised the data provided by some web services where a user ‘checks in’ to a real world location to identify if there are any other people nearby that they might know. The agency behind this campaign used this information to phone the bar or restaurant where the person had checked in and they asked to speak with the person. Naturally the person picked up the phone intrigued to know who was calling them, only to be told that ‘Death could find them anywhere’ and asked to visit the website which was a tongue-in-cheek site dedicated to leaving messages to be transmitted in the event of the user’s death! The controversy surrounding this led to $1.5m of free advertising as various news media throughout the US reported on the story and the reactions that the message provoked.

While this is an extreme example, it does indicate that we’re only just started with personalised advertising messages. One thing’s for sure – if you think an ad that you’re seeing is a coincidence, you can be pretty sure that it won’t be. Big Brother is watching.

It is assumed that you’ve got the fastest PC that you can afford with the most memory and the largest hard drive. If not, you’ll need one of those, and try not to compromise on the motherboard or the memory as these are essentials. You don’t need a floppy drive, or a blueray player, or a see through case, or LED lighting, you just need something that works very, very quickly. I’m running an augmented Dell Studio XPS system which works for me. Also, one thing everyone forgets is the power pack – if it’s underpowered, everything will slow down, so it’s worth taking a little longer to make sure you’ve got a good one with the right power output. You’d be surprised what difference this can make.

Even if you’re not a hardcore gamer, the software within the games market today is amongst the most demanding software on the market, so unless you’re into video editing in a big way, you’ll be well served by these recommendations for pretty much anything else for some time to come.

[NB - While cloud based gaming as a service is with us, so technically you shouldn't need that massive hard drive for all your gaming software, in most places (in the UK certainly) the broadband consistency and speed aren't here yet. In my opinion this makes cloud services like OnLive a little too ahead of their time, although things are changing. You should be aware that today it's a serious etiquette failing when you're on a US server and you're the one ruining the game for everyone else because your ping is too high. That, and you won't last two seconds when the rest of the opposing team appear to be playing from within their ISPs building. To avoid you being pwned, subjected to flaming, and at worst being kicked, in short you'll need the big hard drive to install the software so that only the smallest data packets need to pass between you and the game server, which even if you've got 'Internet from Africa' as I was accused of having recently - thanks Eclipse - means that you should have a reasonable ping for a reasonable amount of the time. Anyway, I digress...]

There’s loads of advice and guidance on the Internet, so everyone will have a different take on this, but for my money you can’t beat NVidia when it comes to graphics performance for games. Many of the top games are actually optimised for use with the NVidia chipset and without spending a king’s ransom on it, there are a few pretty good cards which are available for less than £200. The GeForce 560Ti is pretty good value, it supports DirectX11 and has been optimised specifically for several top games including Skyrim and Battlefield 3 which should mean that it can run almost anything else on today’s games wish list and it should last for at least the next 6 months before the next Crysis is released which will no doubt require liquid cooled madness to run in safe mode.

From a monitor perspective, they all do much the same thing, unlike graphics cards which are actually worth spending the money on. I didn’t bother upgrading my monitor when I upgraded my gaming rig, so I’m still using a fairly old 19″ Iiyama ProLite which works for me. That said, if you want something awesome then there’s a load of newer ones on the market, although from a brand perspective I’ve stuck with Iiyama who I think make some really good kit.

There’s a good article at Tripwire Magazine about which monitor is the right one for you which is worth a read, and this contains some recommendations if you desperately feel the need to upgrade your monitor. You can read this here – Gaming Monitor Guide.

I don’t really care about viewing angles as it’s only me that uses my machine, meaning that I’m generally directly in front of the monitor as you are most likely to be. If you’re anything like me, watching someone else repeatedly being killed when fighting back the zombie hordes on the hardest difficulty level rapidly becomes a non-spectator sport once the first 24 hour marathon session concludes (what do you mean after the first five minutes? – Ed), so viewing angles really won’t be a problem.

What is important to spend the money on is getting the biggest screen with the highest refresh rate at the highest resolution that you can a) afford, and b) have space to put on your desk!

As they point out in the TripWire Magazine article, response times are critical – if you’re up against a hardcore gamer you’ve got to be fast and accurate and the higher the screen resolution and refresh rate combination the better. A high screen resolution is mandatory so you can see them from a distance and you can target almost at a pixel based level, and the second so you can fire the instant they pop their heads around a corner before they duck back into cover – it’s quite satisfying being able to take your opponent’s head off at a distance with a non-scoped rifle. A few rounds of something like Day of Defeat:Source will demonstrate this point adequately, and also show you how hardcore your skills actually are! Decent kit will definitely help. Decent kit and skills will dominate most other non-clan players. Clan level skills need to be earned.

I would suggest avoiding monitors with built in speakers – they’re all rubbish and they just end up compromising on the monitor quality. You need to be able to hear the enemy sneaking up behind you, or the just thrown grenade fizzing quietly at your feet, so I’d suggest getting a decent sound setup, particularly if you’re into FPS games where things explode. This also helps to double your PC as a home cinema system if you invest in a projector later on and have a blank wall to project your movies onto. [This works really well, and with the lights off it's like you're actually in the cinema. Popcorn and shadow hand puppets are optional.]

Going back to the topic – if you are a gamer, a sub-woofer is a must. There’s nothing like the first time you play a familiar game and you blow up the petrol station on that level and you’ve got the bass setting too high on your new sub-woofer and you’re teeth nearly fall out. You’ll never, ever use those tinny plastic desktop speakers again, I promise you. You’ll also need some really tolerant neighbours.

Alternatively, if you’re really minted, a decent set of headphones will do the trick. It might sound odd, but there’s more money involved with good headphones than there is in getting a reasonable 4.1 sound system so that needs to be considered.

Also, a good microphone is essential. Hardcore gamers taunt their enemies before killing them…

Finally, if you’re unsure what all the fuss is about, and you haven’t seen the graphics quality of some of the latest games, here’s the trailer for The Elders Scrolls – Skyrim. It’s borderline cinematic quality when full screen in high definition and is an example of graphic design at its finest. If you’ve got any questions, our Marketing Manager, Alan Law, is battling his way through this at the moment!

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.

1. World Economy – The economy will continue to falter with commodities being stockpiled by wealthy nations causing prices to rise exponentially. China refuses to trade with anyone else, requiring its natural resources for its own wellbeing and the West is forced to initiate compulsory purchase measures from its own citizens. The price of gold reaches record highs.

2. Oil – A new oilfield will be found in Antarctica large enough to sustain the world for another 100 years. This will cause a major problem with environmentalists who will seek to stop oil exploration, but a new world oil committee will force through a bill allowing slant oil drilling to take place in approved areas only in order to bolster a faltering global economy. China will be excluded from this agreement until it agrees to join the world oil committee.

3. Middle East – Regime change in Syria causes a ripple effect throughout the Middle East, with US commercial interests further reducing in the region. Saudi Arabia reduces its diplomatic connections with the US. Iran is found guilty of repeated incursions into neighbouring countries and global sanctions are imposed against them with stiff penalties for any countries that breach sanctions. US and UK stealth operations within Iran are exposed when a drone spyplane is captured. Million Person March 2 happens simultaneously in London, Paris, and Washington.

4. Far East – Kim Jong Un, the new leader of North Korea, signs partnership agreement with South Korea, in exchange for open borders and increased trade opportunities with the West. Japan opposes this move. A new leader is elected in Japan. An earthquake in the Phillipines creates a new island with unusual plants.

5. Olympics – Britain wins more gold medals in the Olympics than ever before. The US win most medals, although France also does surprisingly well. A new 100m world record is set by Usain Bolt with a superhuman time of 9.39 seconds, prompting a scandal where unbelievers declare that the time is impossible to be set by a human being and eliciting an investigation where Usain Bolt is cleared of any wrongdoing. The opening ceremony is marred by anti-Government protests.

6. Space – Definitive evidence that there was once life on Mars is uncovered, prompting questions about its origin which would only be plausible if the life came from another planet outside our solar system. This prompts renewed international fervour in space exploration. An amateur astronomer receives a faint electronic signal from outer space. A second attempt to position a Chinese satellite in space fails, and foul play is suspected. The first commercial voyages around the moon are advertised.

7. Entertainment – A new television sensation is broadcast simultaneously in multiple countries where one person stands a chance to win £1m per year for life. The largest television audience in history watches the weekly show. Holographic televisions are demonstrated for the first time by Google. A reality show public voting scandal causes several shows to be taken off air.

8. Business – Commercial sponsorship of the military is made possible, with corporate webcams attached to each soldier in the field broadcasting live images of combat situations. The gambling industry capitalises on this. Walmart announces record profits and moves into the pharmaceutical business by buying a major drugs company in the US, selling off a number of retail assets in the process. The first commercial advertisement appears in space that is visible with the naked eye by the world’s population. Global trading tax incentives are increased, prompting a surge in globalisation and expansion into different countries by SMEs. A new invention promises to revolutionise the way we work. Recycling becomes the new boom industry.

9. Internet – A new battle between Facebook and Google causes Google to lose stock value when Microsoft buys Facebook and launches a credible service. Yahoo forms a partnership with Baidu, but rapidly fades into the background, with Baidu reaching market dominance within the first year. Google is hacked and its latest search ranking algorithm is stolen and released on the Internet. Twitter is taken over by the US Government in a secret deal worth several billion dollars.

10. Technology – A computer is taught how to create its own code to solve problems. The first domestic robots are released at an affordable level to the general public capable of domestic chores, and with various modular upgrades for different activities. A new electric car is released commercially by Google that can drive itself. Evidence comes to light that the first self aware computer has evolved. Will Smith buys a dog.

That’s about it. Any of this stuff could happen, and it might be interesting to look back in a year’s time and see how I did. I’ve been kind of generous to myself though, as some of it will probably happen, but if any men in black are reading this, I don’t know which parts!

Happy New Year to you all. May all your hopes and dreams come true, and may good things happen to you all. Above all, keep smiling.

Cowslip workshops very own Jo Colwill, is appearing on Kirstie Allsopp’s TV programme, Home for Christmas on Channel 4 tonight at 8pm.

Jo is so completely unassuming and so I’m sure she won’t be shouting about this too much, but all the team at SD would like to wish her good luck anyway! We’ll be watching

Cowslip workshops have been providing courses and workshops for over 12 years on their idylic  farm in Cornwall, and Jo herself has been working with textiles all her life.  The team at Cowslip are completely focussed on providing a easy, relaxing and inspiring environment for people to learn, and from the worhsops to the cafe and the shop, they achieve this with great ease.  People come from all over the world to attend the workshops and courses..and for good reason too.

You have to see the work that is produced to appreciate how truely lovely it is, so for any of you budding crafts people out there, who fancy signing up for a course, or attending a workshop or  if you need any last minute Christmas Present ideas….

Cowslip Workshops are one of our longest standing clients, are an absolute pleasure to work with, and just for info, we are also just about to launch a new Cowslip website… watch this space..

Office Hours

London Office

Our London office hours over the holidays are:

Closing on Thursday 22nd December at 5pm

Re-opening on Tuesday 3rd January at 9am

Head Office – Cornwall

Our Head Office in Cornwall usually closes between Christmas and New Year, and this year we close at 5pm on Friday 23rd December, then from the 28th – 30th we will be operating with a small team where we will be available to deal with any emergencies.  We’re back to full power on January 3rd at 9am.

If you have any serious website problems over this period, please use the following email address to contact us:

Christmas related emergencies relating to Turkeys, sprouts or other culinary disasters are best directed to here:

www.britishturkey.co.uk ………………….They have a Turkey hotline!

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.

Yes folks, Google is having another go at social networks. Let’s be honest, they don’t exactly have a great track record in this area (orkut, wave, buzz – all went the way of the dodo) and they seem just a little bit desperate to muscle in on Facebook’s market share.

Firstly, lets start by saying that it isn’t officially live yet, so things may well change, but a quick run down of some of the features are as follows:

On the surface Google + is all about social. It hopes to tap into the millions of people who have google accounts, and add some features they might find useful, such as ‘Sparks’ which looks for videos and articles it thinks you’ll like, so “when you’re free, there’s always something to watch, read, and share.” Another (potentially) useful feature is ‘Hangouts’ which is group video chat, ‘Circles’ is a way of grouping your friends, and Stream is like Facebook’s news feed.

The Google +1 button that now appears next to content on Google, is a way of telling people you are connected to that you like it. Let’s, for the sake of argument, call it a ‘like’ button. Oh, Facebook already did that. Ah well.

There are many other features to Google+, and that is part of the problem. At the moment, it all feels a little like they are just too late to the party. I fear that Google is on a social losing streak. I think that possibly the biggest hurdle that Google faces with this is the reluctance of people to start on another network, when they already use Facebook. Do people really want to start again? Only time will tell…