If the recent civil disturbances in England showed the worst side of human nature, the aftemath shows a more positive side.  Both the army of volunteers cleaning up affected areas (Riot Wombles, RiotCleanup)

Is watching the Apprentice a guilty pleasure?  how about Dragon's Den?  or The Secret Millionaire?  You need feel guilty no longer because apparently all these shows are educational.

Did you know that up to 30% of a company's products might be returned by customers? Not just because of faults. For example, a customer (bad customer!) unsure what size will fit her best might order two sizes of clothing from a mail order retailer, returning the item she doesn't want.

Many mail order retailers facilitate this by providing free postage for returns. Neither are bricks and mortar retailers or wholesalers immune from customers changing their minds, and in the interests of long term relationships, will accept returns for credit or refund.

A few months, and a lot of desk research ago I began to get a bit ticked off with articles or websites or conferences that promised to discuss the return on investment of organisations' use of web 2.0. They just did not deliver.

Recently, I was trying to find some consoling words for a friend experiencing a protracted work-related crisis.  He stopped me in my tracks by mournfully admitting “Just when I thought this was the light at the end of the tunnel, it turned out to be an approaching train..” Ah, the cruelty of the false dawn. 

Rather different from the bullet point slides I’ve been happily using, as recently as last week (Business use of Web 2.0 technologies to a local CIMA branch, thanks for asking).  It's far more effective to use images or metaphors, as all the speakers did at a cracking conference on social media I attended just a few days later. 

Apparently using images can more than treble your audience’s recall of your presentation, because human memories are both visual and verbal.  Therefore to fix a memory in both systems, you need to use both images and words.

Blogs are strange beasts, with the informality of a conversation, but the durability (and searchability) of any information published on the web. Since my blog last week - in which I quoted the statistic that 95% of product costs are fixed at design stage - I've been consumed with guilt that I didn't provide more information about that statistic.

Yay, my first blog. Sorry. Bit excited. Milestone moment.

I must have been the only accountant in London not glued to TV/radio/internet on Wednesday. Instead I attended an Innovation Summit. Far more enjoyable than listening to the Chancellor’s budget speech.