paper and paint

Now we’re back in the UK, for a few weeks at least, we’ve started thinking about our new place, which I introduced a while back. Step one involves choosing some paint colours.

Colour representation isn’t great; the top three are distinctly different shades of grey,  bottom left is chocolate, middle is mid-brown, right is olive green. [...]

goodbye black friday

A while ago, I’d have assumed Black Friday was a particularly bad day on Wall Street. Now though, I realise it’s one of the most important days in the US retail calendar.

Black Friday (yesterday) follows Thanksgiving and is regarded as the busiest shopping day of the year in the States…though this probably isn’t the case.

True to [...]

have you heard?

If you pay any attention to what I say here or on twitter (and let’s face it not everyone does!) no doubt you’ll have heard about our sale several times already.

This got me to thinking, announcing a sale used to equal big advertising spend. These days though it’s less about money, more about time.

Also, providing you’ve [...]

twitter trends scam

A bit off topic but I’ve been thinking about Twitter Trends recently and today’s developments compelled me to post. If you’re a regular tweeter then you’ll know what I’m on about but if not then excuse this crude explanation…

Twitter Trends are the topics most talked about on Twitter. It’s easy to search tweets by these [...]

does location maketh the brand?

I’ve been tweeting about our possible US relocation recently. Our shipping costs are big and most of our customers are US-based, so it makes perfect sense to move there…doesn’t it? We’ve been contemplating this for a few years anyway.

Obviously there are monetary, logistical and even emotional factors that influence our decision. Something which has recently become apparent though is the question [...]

do you play 'follow tag'?

Slightly off-topic again (sorry) but why the obsession with quantity when it comes to Twitter? All this talk about more tweets, regardless of content or more followers, irrespective of who!

Is the pursuit of followers human nature or just part of our online-socialisation? Have we all become a bunch of stat-obsessed ‘friend’ chasers and where’s the measure of quality?

I just don’t get the attraction of playing rapid ‘follow tag’ with [...]

what's the plan?

I’ve been working on our business plan today, reviewing and updating what we wrote a year ago, setting new objectives etc, you know the kind of thing. Not the most thrilling activity you’d assume but please stick with me.

Things change a lot in a year, that much is obvious, particularly after the year everyone’s just [...]

community service

OK, so I’ve definitely got the Twitter bug now! As well as connecting with lots of friendly and helpful  ’tweeple’, I’ve stumbled across some fab communities that exist outside of Twitter.

One such community is TwitterMoms a brilliant network with an amazing 7,000+ members, 179 of which are male, so perhaps there’s hope for me yet!

In all seriousness, [...]

first 100 twitter followers

It’s been such a hectic weekend, with little time for posting. As I settle in to watch Superbowl 43, just thought I’d give you a little update on our Twitter status…

We’ve got our first 100 followers! OK, so we’re not setting the ‘Twittersphere’ on fire with that total, but we haven’t been actively ‘pimping’ ourselves [...]

crisis? what crisis?

As you probably know (especially if you’ve checked our new blog banner) we are based in England. Over here, the media have whipped the public into a frenzy over the banking crisis.

Not a day sneaks by without a barrage of over-used terms like ‘credit crunch’, ‘economic downturn’, ‘financial crisis’ and so on. The media just can’t [...]