That citrus feeling

Recently I've been blocking time out of my calendar just so I can actually do some work and not sit in meetings all day long. It's a bit sad really.

But don't you just hate it when you get invited to a meeting and 10 minutes into it you think "What am I doing here?" because you have nothing of value to add to the conversation. So you then spend the remaining hour sitting there feeling like a complete lemon.

Need to remember to be a lot less promiscuous when accepting meeting requests from now on.

For the record, I prefer to be a lemon than take the more popular option of rambling on in areas that I have no clue about, or simply repeating what has been said in a tone that suggests that it hasn't already been said, just for the sake of being heard!

Not quite your local chippie

I just went into Panera Bread for my usual soup, baguette and packet of crisps (also known as chips to my American compadres).

As usual the lady behind the counter put me down as having baked crisps when I had ordered the fat ones (I think I confuse them by asking for "a bag o' chips"). When I mentioned I hadn't ordered baked ones they of course handed me a packet of fat crisps. But then the woman said I had to take the baked ones too.

When I asked why, I was told that because she had already touched the packet of baked crisps (with her gloves on) she couldn't take them back.

Wonder what the local kebab van would make of that.

The worm turns

I've been feeling a little fed up lately, mostly with having to deal with people who forget the golden rule of business - treat your customers well because without them you are nothing. You'd think that companies would be even more mindful of this fact given everything that's going on in the economy right now. But no.

Take property management companies, for example. After three years of being a model tenant I had enough of being ignored, and enough of being treated like crap when I wasn't being ignored!

At the end of the day people make choices. They chose to be total numpties, so I chose to hand in my notice. I am now moving into a lovely new apartment and directing my monthly cheques elsewhere.

The art of avoidance

I always enjoy going to a good conference or seminar to help sharpen my knowledge, meet new people from different companies and discover that I'm actually not doing as bad as I think, pessimist that I am.

If the conference is fancy, there may even be some kind of expo hall where you can meet companies selling their wares... but most importantly see how much free crap you can pick up.

A month after SES, I am still getting phone hounded and spammed by companies that I must have talked to at the expo. The only reminder I have being the branded power ball, remote controlled car, foam dog or other useless freebie currently collecting dust on my desk.

It seemed like a good idea at the time... When will I ever learn?

Amer-tish

I feel lucky to have experienced living in both England and America. But after a while you start to notice little quirks and differences people have (or lack). So I was thinking how great it would be to take the best from both cultures and clash them together to make a new super culture called Amer-tish. A bit like the Big Bang experiment.

From the American side, Amer-tish people would:
- Be service snobs
- Live in a place where the shops don't close at 5pm
- Have nice teeth
- Sit in public places, using as much free wifi and electricity as they wanted, with only a glass of water in hand
- Say hello to a complete stranger without feeling like horns are growing out of their heads

And then from the British side, they would:
- Have the ability to say please and thank you (and sorry)
- Hold doors open for people
- Give up their seat on public transport for someone who needed it
- Use a knife with their fork
- Spell words without missing letters out
- Tell you they didn't know the answer if they didn't know the answer
- Tip a maximum of 10% and not feel bad about it

Against the machine

In the grand scheme of things, search marketing is a relatively young thing. So to see loads of people attending a week's long conference just on search opened my eyes a little as to how popular (and serious) this topic was amongst many different companies throughout the world.

At first I thought people signed up just to gate crash the party being held at Google HQ, but I was pleasantly surprised at the depth of information covered by the sessions that were held.

The mix of folks attending also made for great people watching. What I've discovered over the past few months is that success in search marketing requires a person to be left and right brained. You have to be good with numbers, data and details but then also be creative and have the ability to see the big picture. The result leaves you bordering on the schizophrenic.

The one thing that baffled me was that no matter which session you went to, people always left at least two seat spaces between each other. I couldn't work out if that was some weird "don't invade my personal space" trait or whether the people already seated had personal hygiene problems.

Of all of the sessions I attended, the most amusing by far goes to Lee Siegal, author of "Against the Machine", a book about how the Internet is turning us into solitary and unsociable beings since "People don't talk or write anymore. They blog and email". Quite fitting since 90% of the audience at the time were on their iPhones Emailing/texting/tweeting. It seems people don't listen much anymore either.

He also talked about bloggers being angry individuals who hid behind their anonymity. I'm not sure I entirely agree with that, but my favourite quote from the discussion was that "If you can't say what you write in a blog to a person's face then you are not entitled to that opinion at all". Hear hear!

Common-sense please

Common-sense is an much underrated skill. I've been blessed with it in some respects, but alas not in others... particularly where flat packed furniture is concerned.

But something happened the other day that got me thinking about the importance of common-sense.

I got pulled into a meeting to give my opinion on an advert that a creative agency put together. The first thing I noticed about it was a very random headline. Cue a ten minute explanation from their very creative director who told me all about the meaning behind it. The headline was so clever in fact, that I can't even recall the explanation behind it now. Mind of a sieve, me (note to self: work on memory).

Now I may not be as creative, or have as many letters after my name as the people sitting in the room... But the ten minute explanation, I think, was reason enough for not using the headline. Someone bring out the common-sense coulée please.