Things are picking up ...

Am I the only one seeing things picking up across a wide range of clients? It feels like the world has been holding its breath since the banking crisis and is a little terrified of accepting that things are looking up. I'm not suggesting that business is soaring, but what I can see is that clients in all sorts of sectors are making good progress. Long may it continue and let's hope we start seeing some confidence coming back - I for one am a little fed up of all the doom and gloom reports on broadcast and print media. Can we start giving airtime to some of the good news please?

Turning a small venue into St Mark's Square

BEFORE

AFTER

It's been a fun couple of months, with lots happening for all my clients. Vortice announcing double digit sales growth despite a really tough market in the building trade, Richard Watkinson & Partners opening their new estate agency office in Melton Mowbray extremely successfully, I've celebrated a big birthday and managed to create Piazza San Marco from a very small Leicestershire venue and Las Vegas Market held their best show for several years. Onwards and upwards 2012!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone! I'm looking forward to an exciting new year and I hope you are. Just preparing for the launch of Richard Watkinson & Partners estate agency in Melton which opens next week, Dave's Leicester Comedy Festival which will see a whole raft of great comedy at The Belmont Hotel Leicester and the January Las Vegas Market which opens on the 30th. What more could I wish for? Apart from losing a few pounds after the Christmas feast! Wishing you all a happy, healthy and prosperous 2012.

New website for enterprise educators UK

Delighted to see the new website for our clients Enterprise Educators UK is now online. This is a great resource for universities throughout the UK. Check it out at www.enterprise.ac.uk there are events, case studies, news and resources galore!

Opening of the Waterhouse Bridge

A lovely celebration for the opening of the restored Waterhouse Bridge today. It was great to see people there from Natural England, Severn Trent Water, Leicestershire County Council, Hoby with Rotherby Parish Council plus lots of others who've played a role in the restoration. Here's a photo in its newfound glory.

Taking time out

It's all too easy to get swallowed up in the day to day running of your company, I can't believe it's October already but I am very pleased that I've taken some time out over the last few weeks to attend a couple of events that are outside the 'day job'. The first was an Integra event held in Leicester at which the speaker was Deb Leary OBE, Founder and CEO of Forensic Pathways. Her refreshing account of her career path reminded me of my own and highlighted how sometimes being in the right place at the right time can transform the direction of your business and your life.

That event led nicely to one I attended yesterday at Nottingham University's conference centre, organised by UKTI, the subject matter was 'Sell British - using technology to go global'. There's no doubt that selling British goods and services abroad is vital to transforming the fortunes of our economy and I for one love the work that Nicky Stephen Marketing does for World Market Center Las Vegas. We were in the right place at the right time, recommended by a British journalist, we met the client in 2005 just before launch of Las Vegas Market and we now help them reach their international audience through PR, marketing and advertising in Asia, Australasia, Latin America, Canada and Europe. Technology has certainly been pivotal to the way we communicate worldwide.

Beautiful West Wales

A short weekend break in beautiful West Wales and we visited a wonderful gallery run by Suzi Park showing work in ceramics, textiles, glassware, jewellery and art as part of the Riverside Festival in Cardigan. The gallery is also online and features work from recent graduates as well as more established artists - take a look http://www.suzipark.co.uk/