The best thing I ever did in the enotions’ office was paint one of the walls with blackboard paint. People scoffed. Some people thought that I was returning to my troubled youth with drawn windows and walls painted black. But I wasn’t.

The blackboard gives space and freedom to scribble, scrawl and record details, significant and minute, at a moment’s notice, for the lifetime of a meeting, or till the shade is drawn on the blackboard for the last time.

Chalk is such a great material to work with. Even with my keyboard heavy hands I can write vaguely clearly with it and mistakes take a moment to erase. Chalk comes in many colours. It gives you a sense of scholarly fulfillment, taking you back to the days of chalk boards, canes and board rubbers (damn, giving my age away now!). Dampen a cloth and with a wipe the blackboard returns to pristine glory.

But the greatest joy is it extracts you from your monitor and gets you UP and focusing on a big impending object in the office instead of a small shimmering bright screen. Blackboards don’t try to hide from you. They sit there, like big black monoliths etched with white and pink and yellow and blue markings, and just ask you to look into them and give your eyes a rest.

People have suggested I should invest in a white board. But white boards say to me sterile lecture halls, health and safety briefings, regimented thinking, corporate compliance. Blackboards shout radical thinking, extrovert, limitless thinking, can do attitude.

Everyone who visits enotions doesn’t look at our work or framed awards or rows of files or nice wooden floorboards. They look at our blackboard and say, “Oh, I like that.”

Running a small business is hard at the best of times. Cash flow is critical and reliance on a good mail service to ensure that those cheques, skillfully teased from clients, get into the post and are delivered through to you on time and in one piece is essential. In the recession, this is even harder, because no one wants to pay!

The action of Royal Mail workers is nothing more than an attack on ordinary people and a vicious one on businesses. Have they no concept of what their service is like to businesses? I would liken it to the Royal Mail being the heart that pumps the mail and payments (the blood) around the country. The workers’ strike is purposefully stopping this heart from beating and, with it, killing off parts of the country (the bodies’ extremities, if you like).

Well, I hate to tell you this, CWU (Communication Workers Union) but sometimes those extremities are painful for the heart to lose! With the increase in commercial organisations focusing on mail delivery the CWU may find their workers have no jobs to return to, or their positions seriously undermine. I have no wish to see the great Royal Mail vanish but these are hard times and we all rely on an efficient and dedicated mail network to keep those payments coming in.

I hate to agree with Mandelson but when he says, “the decision amounts to a death wish” I think he might just be right.

I would just like to point out to customers that our BACS facility is working just fine!

Every year in the weeks building up to Christmas, things always quieten down as people head off for their holidays early or slip into drunken revelry and lethargy.

But this year, more than ever, December has felt an extremely slow and silent month. A lot of folks and businesses seem to be shutting up shop especially early and heading for their fireplaces, mince pies and tots of whisky.

A lot of people seem to be washing their hands of 2008 and waiting until 2009 begins to seem how best to progress.

Lying in bed the other night, where I do much of my best thinking!, I wondered whether there was any weight in the idea that France have adopted for their holiday month of August and just shutting up shop here for the entire month of December

Okay, it’s a crazy idea, but just think about it for minute. The UK goes mad for Xmas. Many people spend their entire year preparing for the silly season. From the start of December productivity begins to take a serious dive with people holding fire on projects until January or simply not being able to focus 100% on the task in hand as parties, hangovers, nativity plays and holiday excitement take hold.

Many people already head off for much of the month as is it. Their absence seriously impacts on projects being run within their respective teams.

So, why not draw the business year to a close on the 30th November, give everyone December off and see how this affects productivity and general good spirits throughout the rest of the year?

Well, maybe a little tipsy.

It was great to see Pat yesterday. Pat came over for some serious London shopping and hooked up with Jamie and I for a few beers and some Peri-Peri chicken.

Poor Pat. She comes over from Portugal and gets taken to a Portuguese restaurant.

Jamie, Pat and Rob

London was bustling with tinsel decked drinkers. For a Tuesday night, it didn’t feel like recession was nigh. Maybe they were drinking up their redundancy packages?