What do you think of the show so far?

Photo - Glenda Jackson, Eric Morcombe and Ernie Wise

Confessions of an NEC virgin

(by Cary Cray-Webb)

A couple of weeks ago, my husband frog-marched me to the car and then drove me at speed towards Birmingham. While I’m growing very familiar with the western stretches of the A14, I’ve always managed to stop short of the M6 (except for one family trip to Dudley – a different story, and I slept most of the trip so it doesn’t count). On this occasion, our destination was the National Exhibition Centre.

After a couple of minor dramas (like getting caught in a traffic jam while the trip computer threatened instant doom in the shape of an empty petrol tank), we arrived at the NEC. The ‘helpful’ multi-coloured traffic management system sent us round most of the site before we found a car park that seemed to be full of vans, each occupying four spaces. Eventually, we found a couple of free spaces that were the perfect size for my Ford Fiesta. Unfortunately, Chris, my husband, drives a Mercedes; so getting the car in the space was a struggle followed by a performance that can only be described as a sot of Limbo Dance.

Off we go …

After a brisk walk across the car park and a short stop to pay £12 for the privilege of forced contortions and the expectation of dinged paintwork, we joined the queue for the shuttle bus. Things started getting better. We managed to time our arrival for late morning, and there was only one person waiting. When we got on board there were only two other people already there, so we chose a comfortable seat near the exit door.

The bus then performed a slightly weird dance of its own while the air suspension levelled things out, and then we were off toward the exhibition halls, largely retracing the route we had followed in the car as we drove in.

I don’t often use buses. Not because I’m posh, but because we live in the country and the bus service near home can only be described as crap. But I have to say that the NEC’s shuttle buses are very comfortable and sensibly driven.

Upon arrival …

Arriving at the exhibition halls I was met by a security guard who wanted to search my bag. I wasn’t really prepared for this. However, the guard didn’t seem to find the contents of my bag either too threatening or too amusing, so it wasn’t too much of an embarrassment.

A quick comfort break before entering The Dentistry Show (we were there on business) revealed a major shortfall of the NEC. There are equal numbers of gents and ladies loos. However, the internal layout of ladies loos vs gents means that they have less ‘capacity’, meaning they always seem to form a queue. Additionally, the gents and ladies are not sited next to each other. So while my husband found a loo right next to the exhibition entrance, mine was miles away, near the Baby Show, so the queue was enormous.

It turns out that the problem was exacerbated because the loos inside the exhibition halls themselves did not have facilities for disposal of sanitary ware. This mean ‘ladies’ were dumping their used items on the floor, which was pretty disgusting even by 11:30, and that in turn meant one visit was enough to send you walking around the central concourse and joining the 50 or so expectant mums outside a loo there.

Note to the NECYUK!

The Dentistry Show

The Dentistry Show 2018 offered plenty of verifiable CPD
The Dentistry Show 2018 offered plenty of verifiable CPD

Once I’d eventually rejoined my husband, we produced our tickets (sent prior to the show) picked-up our show guides and lanyards, and had our badges scanned at the entrance. All very straight forward. We walked through the door and bang! 400 stands and exhibits covering every aspect of dentistry.

The immediate impression wasn’t good – it looked a bit like a marketplace in some areas, with stands basically ‘flogging’ probes and mirrors, mostly staffed by what appeared to be bored looking Chinese people who seemed confused that no-one was buying handfuls of the shiny treasures.

Pushing through the bazaar, things started to take shape and became more recognisable. Brands and suppliers, prospective customers and trade organisations became discernable, and we started to make sense of the floor plan. As we were there for two days we decided to use day one for looking and day two for talking. So we wandered around, looked at what was on offer, picked up some freebies and brochures and learned new things.

I had no idea of what to expect. As I wrote above, I’ve never been to the NEC, and I’ve never been to trade show of this scale. My husband (who has been to lots) told me that it was not the biggest in terms of floor space, but it was probably the busiest he’s been to.

What did Cary do next?

Very simply, I discovered why Chris is always grumpy and knackered whenever he comes back from working at a trade show (he doesn’t usually visit – he works the stands or the press office). It is so tiring.

We stayed in central Birmingham. Finding our hotel was a performance enhanced by an out of date satnav and Birmingham City Council’s decision to pour every drop of EU development funds they could get hold of into digging up the city centre. However, we eventually arrived at the Hyatt Regency, and this turned out to be a very comfortable hotel.

Chris’ plan had been to show me around Brindley Place, and the pubs and restaurants by the canals. They were teaming with happy people, but frankly, I was too tired to enjoy them. Instead, we found a very nice Indian restaurant next to our hotel called ‘Gateway to India’ and had a fantastic meal, followed by a drink in the hotel bar and bed.

Saturday is a work day

After a very nice breakfast and some more of Chris’s dreadful navigation, we arrived back at the NEC to queue (this time) for a carpark. The queue was long and slow-moving, though oddly, there were loads of full-sized, easy to access spaces once we eventually got into the car park.

On this morning, because we were there a bit earlier, there was a proper queue for the shuttle buses. However, Chris has a shuttle bus trick. When he gets near the front of the queue, he lets other more eager people on ahead of him and catches the next bus (told you he goes to lots of these things). As that next bus was sat behind this first bus, we didn’t exactly have long to wait, but we had the first choice of the seats. We sat in comfort while others jammed themselves into every possible piece of floor space. Meanwhile, a third bus sat empty behind.

Even fully loaded on Saturday, the bus was just as super smooth as it was when empty on Friday.

Arriving at the exhibition halls, I avoided the bag search as I was instead sniffed by a Cocker Spaniel wearing HiViz. One woman asked the dog handler if she could ‘stroke the puppy’. His response was that she wouldn’t like it if he asked to stroke her puppies when she was working – which I think made a good point in a slightly questionable way.

More goodies on the way in, badges scanned, this was a day for focus and hard work.

We had a list. The editor of The Probe, four of our client’s competitors (for various reasons), a pre-arranged prospect meeting, trying to get meetings with other prospective prospects, hand-shakes with people who had contributed to articles. We also had to have discussions with the exhibition organisers and publishers about exhibitions and adverts. Our list had twenty stands to visit, and we got to most of them in the next few hours, as well as some interesting discussions with a couple of others.

That’s enough …

Eventually, I couldn’t do anymore. I was shattered and went looking for food while Chris finished the last few ‘must do’ meetings. When he found me, he too was pretty much done, so we ate our crisps and sandwiches, picked our moment to join the bus queue, and went back to the car.

By some miracle (previous evidence suggests it wasn’t Chris’s navigations skills) we were on the motorway and heading for home about 10 minutes after retrieving the car. The A14 was kind to us or a change, and we were back home again in a couple of hours.

So, what did I learn?

That the NEC is BIG is probably the first thing I would say. Truly big. This is something you really need to understand and to think about, whether you are exhibiting or just attending.

The National Exhibition Centre is truly BIG.
The National Exhibition Centre is truly BIG.

It’s also expensive. £12 per day for parking (and shuttle bus) and £16 for lunch (two sandwiches, two packets of crisps and two bootles of waters) also needs factoring into your visit. And the loos can be a bit ‘3rd-world’.

Of The Dentistry Show itself, I was mightily impressed. Because of our involvement with one of the main Practice Management Software vendors, that was our focus. Only one of the top six that wasn’t there. We were also keen to see CEREC and Imaging systems, and again, just about all of the manufacturers you’d want to see (including Carestream, Sirona, Fona and Vatech) all had stands. I was also impressed by a number of more niché application providers such as Dengro’s CRM and VPM’s data compliance system.

Then there were the proper ‘suppliers’ – the people selling cement and composites and implant componenets and gloves and autoclaves and an endless list of things you can buy from a catalogue. And the catalogue companies such as Henry Schein and Dental Directory.

There were also quite a few services companies, such as specialist accountants and lawyers, training companies and of course, labs. But there were two types of service company that really caught my eye.

The first was the Compliance companies, several of which were riding the ubiquitous and confusing GDPR wave.

The second group was the various ‘agency’ companies that make their living through buying and selling practices. It had never before registered with me just how frequently practices change hand, or why these transactions happen. Dentistry is, after all, a business just like any other, and businesses change hands all the time.

And what do I think of the show so far?

It wasn’t what I expected. Some aspects of it and the venue were better than I anticipated, some were worse.

Will I go again? YES – but I’ll go the day before, make sure I rest, and try to take advantage of Brindley Place or the Birmingham Rep Theatre during my visit.

Morcombe and Wise (with Glenda Jackson) - What do you think of the show so far?
Morcombe and Wise (with Glenda Jackson) – What do you think of the show so far?

Would I recommend that clients exhibit at the Dentistry Show? They certainly need to think about it. The organiser’s efforts to secure a very comprehensive schedule of verifiable CPD definitely drew in the crowds. Those stands where exhibitors had made efforts before the show to reach out to potential buyers were very busy. Those stands where exhibitors turned-up and hoped were less so.

Should dentists and nurses attend? Yes. You have the chance to hear some excellent presentations (with free, verifiable CPD points), to learn new things, and to refresh your enthusiasm for dentistry. In our case, to also meet people face-to-face who we have worked with over the ‘phone and email.

So while ‘Morcombe and Wise’ might have thought the show to be ‘Rubbish!’ I for one am very pleased that my husband twisted my arm to go and see the Dentistry Show. I look forward to my next trip to Birmingham with a far better appreciation of what that city has to offer.

We’ve been filming … 6Ws of video

Photo - video still shot

Hint’s and tips on creating videos

We recently started work on a series of videos for one of our clients, which has prompted us to write this blog about some of the things we believe you should think about when creating videos.

As in all communications, the 6Ws are a good starting point.

Why

Think about what you are trying to achieve.

Sage is using a video of Peter Jones on social media and TV.
Sage is using a video of Peter Jones on social media and TV.

Creating videos is expensive, so think as carefully about why you’re doing it as how your’re doing it.

What are you trying to achieve? There might be easier, cheaper or more effective ways to spend that money.

What

Think about what you want to say.

Video is a very powerful medium. You can get a lot of information across in a very short period of time, and in a way that is easily assimalated. But it can also become an ‘information avalanch’ if you try to do too much.

Write a script to guide your presenter to formulate and structure your messages.

Where

Think about where you’re going to promote your videos.

Having a video is a bit pointless if you don’t bring it to the attention of your target audience. So, like any other form of content, plan a campaign of promotional activities that will place the video in front of your audience.

Use advertising, direct electronic mail, social media and any other method you can think of, but don’t just load it to your website and expect it to do something on its own.

Karl Lang explains Epsons CLO output in comparison to competitors
Karl Lang explains Epsons CLO output in comparison to competitors

Who

Choose the right team.

Make sure you have the best presenter you can find on the project. They don’t necessarily have to be subject matter experts, but they MUST sound like they are.

If different people in your organisation have responsibility for the marketing channels you want to use to promote the video, make sure they are included in the planning.

They will need to plan their own campaigns and might need to organise resources you are not aware of. Additionally, their channel may have specific technical requirements.

Plus, involving other members of your organisation means you also get their ideas and enthusiasm for free.

When

Think about all aspects of timing.

It might take longer than you think to produce a video, so start with the date you need it and work backwards.

Think about all your compnents. For example, if you need screen shots of a software product or still of a physical product, make sure you can actually get them ahead of editing.

Also consider the physical timing. If you want to use outdoor shots, would it look right to film those shots on a dark winter’s day if the video is going to launch in high summer?

Still taken from a video for Kingfisher Cricket by our partners CWM Studios
Still taken from a video for Kingfisher Cricket by our partners CWM Studios

How

Think carefully about your choice of production company. They need to be a good fit for your brand AND for the project sponsors.

There’s no point in hiring some zany, wacky, newly qualified art student type if your brand calls for you to demonstrate technical competancy. Equally, hiring a highley structured, ultra-slick outfit won’t work if your project sponsor is looking for ‘something new and different’.

Once you have settled on a production company, listen to what they have to say. While it’s true that they have all the cameras, lights and editing suites you need, what you’re really buying is their expertise.  They will have created many more videos than you, so ask them what they think and take on board their advice.

 

Video is a growing content format and it’s important that everyone running online marketing campaigns should consider using it. It’s not ‘magic’, but neither is is ‘rocket science’. What it is is infact simply a different way of getting your message across to your target audience.

If you would like to talk about video production we will glad to hear from you.  We’ve written many video scripts and worked with several videographers in the past and can find the right team for you.

 

 

I’m Accredited !

Logo
Chris Webb - Director - Precision PR Limited
Chris Webb – Director – Precision PR Limited

I’ve got an Ology …

I’m chuffed to bits to announce (or if you like ‘brag’) that I’ve just been granted ‘Accredited PR Practitioner’ status by the Chartered Institute of Public Relations.

CIPR Accredited PR Practitioner LogoNot quite sure what it means yet, but I had to do a load of courses and training sessions to get it, and I’m delighted to have some more evidence that I haven’t been wasting my time over the last 26 years in the profession.

Feel free to email me and tell me how unimpressed you are : chris@precisionpr.co.uk

New website launched – Heditude 2018

Heditude 2018 – website by Precision PR

Precision PR - Heditude 2018
Heditude 2018

We were recently asked to create a website for Heditude 2018, a local community music festival.

The site took us just over a week from approval of our initial design to launch. This includes managing approvals by the volunteers who run the festival in their spare time.

Precision PR - Pearl Dental Software
Pearl Dental Software

We’ve now built three websites (as well as our own) that have each driven sales inquiries for their respective owners. We can produce simply structured text-driven websites, post-driven news based sites, or more complicated brand-critical sites for national organisations, and we’ve also written text for other marcoms agencies for use in their own customer projects.

If you have a website requirement, please get in contact. We will write, project manage or design and build the site you need.

For more information please get in contact.

Two great articles on Pearl’s site

Oh My Lord! They use our articles

We recently wrote two new articles for our client BHA Software which have been posted on their Pearl dental software site to fuel their ongoing social media campaign.

http://www.pearldentalsoftware.com/oh-my-lord-they-use-pearl/

http://www.pearldentalsoftware.com/nurse-training-retention-time-act/

 

If you are looking for specialist content that sounds special but doesn’t necessarily sound ‘specialist’ please get in contact.

New win – ghost writers

Specialist copy writing services

Chris has recently been engaged to write blogs and website copy for a large, Thames Valley-based marketing agency. He was selected for his flexible approach to the task plus his previous experience in the subject.

Although we can’t disclose the name of the client or the end-user of the copy, we’re pretty damn happy to have be part of such a prestigious project.

If you have a copy writing project that you need help with on any aspect of corporate / B2B technology and information, please get in touch – we will be delighted to discuss the project with you in confidence.

Press Release – New Win

Pearl Dental Software gets social with Precision PR

Everyone loves a trip to the dentist, right? Well, maybe not, but the team behind Pearl Dental Software are determined to help make the process as painless as possible.

As part of its efforts to bring the company’s powerful, UK-specific solution to as many dental practices as possible, Pearl’s developer – Baker Heath Associates Limited (BHA Ltd) – has appointed Precision PR Limited to manage a social media campaign.

“We’ve probably reached the limits of selling Pearl by word-of-mouth,” says Ben Baker, MD of BHA Ltd. “Precision PR is going to help us tell more UK-based dentists, practice managers and other dental professionals about our system.”

Precision PR’s initial brief is to help build a multi-channel social community, defining and creating a range of content, and providing wider marketing consultancy. The company was chosen for the Pearl project because the founders have a history of success in both digital imaging and dentistry.

“Chris has a good background in PR and social marketing for 2D and 3D-CAD, visualisation software and other imaging technologies. Cary is a fully trained and registered dental nurse. The perfect skill-mix for our products,” explains Mr Baker.

The campaign is designed to consolidate and improve Pearl Dental Software’s share of the highly competitive practice management software market. Precision PR plans to demonstrate Pearl’s ease-of-use, excellent support services and the cost-effective UK-focused reporting functions needed for NHS, mixed and private practices. Early activities have already increased LinkedIn followers significantly (for the company’s directors and sales team), and the first of a series of case studies will be published shortly.

Further information about Pearl Dental Software can be found at: www.pearldentalsoftware.com

Notes to editors
Pearl Dental Software is developed by Baker Heath Associates Limited in Leicester, and is designed to be used by independent dental surgeries and businesses running a small chain of surgeries. It has the specific features needed to support treatment both NHS and Private patients. It works seamlessly with all leading brands of imaging and x-ray sensor, and with most leading brands of CEREC system (used for on-site manufacture of dental prosthetics and devices).

Pearl Dental Software’s LinkedIn page is:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/11252778/

Pearl Dental Software’s Facebook page is: https://www.facebook.com/PearlDentalSoftware

Other channels launching soon…

Precision PR Limited is an independent PR agency, specialising in B2B and imaging technologies, ERP and manufacturing software, online security software, and software for the music industry. The company calls upon extensive experience of pan-European and Transatlantic PR campaigns, as well as domestic campaigns.

Contact Chris Webb:
Email: chris@precisionpr.co.uk or Tel: 07432 189 149

Awards and stuff like that

The Academy Awards – an OSCAR is probably the world’s best known award.

And the winner is…

Everyone loves an award ceremony, don’t they? Especially the organisers who charge finalists and corporate sponsors hundreds of pounds for each person that attends. So, based on 25-years of entering and attending awards ceremonies for various software products, projectors, printers, etc., here are a few observations.

Should a PR agency enter an award ceremony?

Nope. Never. Not no-way. That is to say …

I don’t mean that nobody in any PR agency ever does any brilliantly successful or fabulously creative work; I think most of us do amazing things from time to time. But think about what a PR company is supposed to do. It promotes its CLIENTS, represents its clients, and gets third-parties talking about its clients.

So in my view, a PR company should enter its clients’ campaigns (see the subtle shift in ownership?) Because the client paid for the work, and it’s the client’s products and services that the PR company is promoting, isn’t it? Without a client, a PR company is NOTHING.

Whenever I’ve created a successful campaign for one of my clients I’ve sought ways to promote the client through awards. They in effect get double-bubble for their investment if they choose to enter that award. And yes, I’ve been invited along to a couple of award ceremonies by clients, but if they make the final and splash out on a table at the ceremony my advice is always to take a cust0mer instead of me.

Jimmy Carr – love him or hate him on the TV, he is an utterly brilliant award ceremony MC

Should an in-house team enter an award ceremony?

Yep. Always. Everytime.

In-house PR teams are often overlooked by their management (unless something goes wrong), but an award for a PR or marketing campaign, and DEFINITELY for products and services, gets the attention of management for the RIGHT reasons. And if you make the final it’s an opportunity to show the boss what you can do.

Again, taking a table at the ceremony can become a fabulous way to entertain customers – particularly if one of them has contributed a case study to the award entry.

Should you seek accreditations?

Yep. Always get your product certified by governing bodies, professional membership organisation, or whoever sets and administers standards for that industry. It’s rarely a false economy, and frequently these days it can be an in/out switch in an evaluation process.

The obvious thing to look at is compliance with the relevant ISO or British Standard. But recognition by organisations such as the ICAEW (for accountancy software) or the BDA (for dental products) proves that your solution is a credible and functional solution that meets the needs of professionals in practice.

Awards and reviews are now an integral part of PR and product marketing

Should you seek product reviews?

If you have a consumer product it’s absolutely essential to get plenty of good product reviews from consumer group websites and magazines. But while the reviews themselves are usually ‘free’, being able to use your hard earned endorsement probably comes at a cost. Using the logo of publications such as What HiFi or AV Magazine (other publications are available) can cost hundreds or thousands of pounds in fees to the organiser. Budgets and awards should go hand-in-hand.

One of the most important aspects of being successful in gaining recommendations and product awards is positioning your product correctly. While a very expensive product might outperform a cheaper one, if it’s significantly more expensive than the category norm it still may not gain a recommendation. Equally, there’s no point in entering a product with a lower than expected specification as it won’t be taken seriously, even if it’s really cheap.

So should you bother with awards and stuff like that?

Yes. But you need to approach awards with thought and strategy. Consider what you want to achieve from the award process. If you make the short list or final, think how you can turn your investment into an opportunity. And if you win, think very carefully about how you exploit your recognition.

Awards and reviews are these days an integral part of PR and product marketing. At Precision PR we have extensive experience of most types of award and review, and we would be only too happy to advise you, or even create and manage your entry.

For more information on any aspect of awards or product reviews please call us.

Is ‘Big Data’ out of fashion ?

Hero to Zero at the speed of a new buzz-word

Last year, as far as I could could make out, the world was about to be saved by ‘Big Data’. The phrase was EVERYWHERE, and the idea was being used for everything you could possibly imagine. But what wasn’t clear was what it actually meant. This year, for what ever reason, ‘Big Data’ doesn’t seem to make its presence felt so often in the news. I wonder why that might be?

Delilah proved to Samson that buzzwords are like haircuts : a new one reduces the power of an old one, even it it was actually a good one

Back in the day, I was International PR Manager for Hyperion Solutions Inc (now the data analysis division of Oracle Corp). Hyperion Solutions Inc. was result of the 1998 merger of two companies – Arbor and Hyperion Software. Arbor created the concept of OLAP (OnLine Analytical Processing) and the first genuine OLAP product, Essbase (still published by Oracle). Hyperion Software developed several critical back-room financial analysis applications. Together they created a company with great connections and a portfolio of tools, platforms and applications to cover just about every type of data analysis that a business could dream of.

But in the four years that I spent there NO-ONE ever said ‘Big Data’.  So what the Hell is it?

Big Data – a definition

Wikipedia seems a sensible place to start. It defines Big Data thus: “Big data is a term for data sets that are so large or complex that traditional data processing application software is inadequate to deal with them..”  But it then goes on to say; “Lately, the term “big data” tends to refer to the use of predictive analytics, user behavior analytics, or certain other advanced data analytics methods that extract value from data, and seldom to a particular size of data set.”

For me personally, herein lies the problem. I hate the way that people create flip little descriptors for immensely complex problems that few people really understand. More to the point, I hate them then getting picked-up and used by people who want to sound like they know what they’re talking about (but who obviously don’t). Not only that but the nonsense continued to suggest that people could draw conclusions by analysing large volumes of unrelated data.

Well, I don’t think you can. In fact, I’m pretty positive that you can’t because the answer you would get would be stupid. You would get things like; 53% of men over 45 wish they had owned a Ford Capri while only 15% had ever heard of butter nut squash, therefore we should target our new soap powder at women who own a Ford Capri but dislike butter nut squash and related products.  That’s basically NOT how these things work.

Worse than that, commentators and journalists really should know better, but frequently suggest disparate [types of] data can be used to create insight. For example, photographs, maps, statistics and temperature. Can you think of anything you could work out from that?

Silver bullets and magic wands

The Silver Bullet solves only one problem

Please note – silver bullets only ever solve one problem and magic wands don’t exist. More to the point, last year I read so much non-sense about ‘Big Data’ being ‘implemented’ by companies that (frankly) hadn’t even been making proper use of ‘ordinary data’.

Rant over – and back to Hyperion. Soon after I joined we got a new CFO. Preparing for his first board meeting David Odell allegedly received reports on over 200 different financial metrics from around the company, many conflicting with each other, and all just too vast to draw any real conclusion.

I don’t actually know what was said in the meeting, but he redefined the metrics driving Hyperion. From then on we were governed by just four measures. From that point the company joined together and worked towards improvement on just those four points. They were big points, reducing the amount of work not yet paid for, increasing revenue and improving profit. And that’s the real point. Data needs to be timely, accurate and ACTIONABLE. Otherwise it’s a waste of time.

Companies and people respond to targets and how they are measured. If you measure the wrong thing and set the wrong target you end up with the wrong result.

We’re all aware of the banking crisis, now about nine years old. Very few of the bankers who caused that did anything actually wrong, and in fact many over performed against their targets (there were of course exceptions). However, in setting individual targets that encouraged behaviour that unsettled the overall business balance their employers ensured that something would eventually go wrong. And it did !

And the point is …

So my point is this. Data analysis is a good thing. Target setting is a good thing. Be very clear in your over all aim. Use measurements to track progress that are simple enough to analyse quickly and unambiguous enough to reassess and react to things going wrong (or right).

Don’t get caught up in the tail-end of the Big Data fashion parade. Workout what makes YOUR business tick and devise simple ways to measure it’s progress and to incentivise the behaviour of your team and staff.

 

And back in the room …

Some post-holiday thoughts

Cornwall. Preferred holiday destination of Prime Ministers, surfers, and a surprisingly large number of people from The Netherlands and Germany.

We’ve just returned from a brilliant two weeks in Cornwall, staying in Mullion on the Lizard peninsula. We didn’t take computers with us and we tried our hardest not to stress over our business, and it was bliss (thank you to our associates for holding the fort and our clients for their understanding). So here are a few thoughts about holidays:

How to make a quiet car unpleasantly noisy

Before a holiday

1. Plan – if you haven’t figured out how to get stuff done before you leave you’ll spend the whole time worrying about it and would be better-off not going on holiday.
2. Check your car properly – sounds obvious, but if you’re driving 400-miles each-way make sure you check all your levels and fluids, set the right tyre pressures for all that luggage and the canoe on the roof, and make sure you have AA / RAC /Green Flag cover. You’d be amazed by how many cars we saw broken-down at the side of the road.

Poldu Cove, The Lizard , Cornwall

On holiday

1. Don’t do work! You’re job on holiday is to relax enough to be creative and productive until next summer when you can do it again. Enjoy the opportunity to clear your mind and reset your perspective and priorities.
2. Don’t get sunburned. It hurts when you get home.
3. Hire a canoe – don’t take one with you. It makes your car less fun to drive, makes it difficult to park under cover and is noisy when on the move. Plus if there isn’t someone hiring out a canoe on that beach it’s probably because the beach is not suited to canoes.
4. You would have thought the beach from which Macaroni transmitted the first transatlantic radio message would have a mobile ‘phone signal, but it doesn’t 🙂

Boris

Back from holiday

1. Plan what you have to do. Check WiP reports, review deadlines and think before you act – there’s no point in turning all that relaxation into instant stress.
2. On the way home, buy milk, bread and a few basic ingredients to make a couple of meals.
3. Remember to collect your dog from the kennels.
4. Go to bed early and have a day off to recover from the 400-mile return trip
5. Brag about your holiday only to those people who ask what it was like.
6. Start planning your next holiday.

For various reasons, we haven’t had many ‘proper’ holidays for a while so I’m extra happy that our trip to Cornwall was so enjoyable. The Lizard is much less busy than the North Coast. It was sort of like going home to Ireland but with fewer sheep and more sunshine, and we’re going to do it again.

I hope everyone we work with has an equally enjoyable holiday and I look forward to a brilliantly creative and productive year ahead.