quirky

So the IMF made news yesterday for doubling its relief provision to poor countries during this recession from its “exogenous shock” fund.  Not normally much of sales worthiness to report there, although it’s certainly not an everyday phrase and consequently alerts the ear. My memory of what that actually

I read an article in a strategic management mag [http://www.strategy-business.com/press/16635507/18637] from a few years back with timeless resonance for salespeople.  It discusses ten books that unmask story-telling as a definitively powerful tool in persuasion.  It must have been a buzz-topic of the time, as

I experienced a pleasant surprise the other night; excellent service in a London gastropub.  Over the past few years, the usual antipodean supply of waitrons and bartenders has been supplanted by eastern Europeans who, whilst laudably keen, are suffering inevitable confusion from not fully understanding colloquial, real-time English and accompanying

I met up with a friend having his pad renovated by an impressively diligent Polish team. He was chuffed that, as a freebie, they’d offer to do an extra day’s work to help him finish the final painting touch-ups. I wondered how this could be, and he shared

Ouch. The Beeb film can dramas that bomb.  Coldplay can release a rubbish single.  Phil Taylor can throw dodgy arrows.  Apple can make a product no-one buys.  Hey, even Obama can mis-read his autocue.  So we all come a cropper every now and then, but even so, I was beside

A quintessentially British media storm swelled around the latest terror plot arrests this week. To recap, the leading anti-terrorism policeman in the land inexplicably walked into Number 10 with a dossier on the next possible plot clearly visible to the close-by prying lenses.  When blown up in resplendent digital glory,

I blog a lot about what drives achievers in sport. One regular trait is that they concentrate on process first. Glory follows as a consequence. I saw an allied piece of thinking from an interview with the boss of American TV corporation CBS. Piers Morgan [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piers_

The decidedly dodgy exploits of the wheeler-dealer, ducker and diver, Arthur Daley influenced a long generation of people from the late 70s for a decade in Blighty. London’s ‘gentlemen geezer’ encountered weekly scrapes from engaging in business arrangements typically founded in legally grey areas, such as whether certain items

The blogosphere is currently twisting its knickers over the legitimacy and consequences of Google’s apparently imminent $250m purchase of Twitter. Whichever way you look at it, Twitter is a remarkable web 2.0 phenomenon. I’ve been in a room of highly intelligent businesspeople who reached levels of hysteria