Check out my latest piece about women’s fashion glasses, on Fashion Beans here.

My latest piece on Fashion Beans… 10 rules for a stylish new year:

The ten commandments of Spring/Summer 2010

Last night I was lucky enough to be part of a group to be given a brand new, free Palm Pre. Ariadne Capital’s strategy in building the brand profile of the new Palm phone being simply to get it into the hands and minds of London’s creative community and the adulation and recommendations would follow. My review to come later this month…

But enough about Palm and the fact that around 300 new Pres will probably be floating about Ebay this morning for half the retail price, as in order to get the phone, we had to sit through a two-hour presentation on the topic of ‘Forward thinking is a beautiful thing.’ One of the worst presentations I have ever had to sit through. So to save the world from ever having to sit through something similar again, here are some definite do’s and don’t’s, when it comes to public presentations:

1. Do choose an environment your audience already feel comfortable in.
2. Don’t adulterate it by plastering the doors, walls and windows with corporate logos, we’re not stupid, we know why we’re there.
3. Do fill us up with food and wine before the event, especially when you present over the dinner hour.
4. Don’t serve one awesome dish and then five other vegetarian ones. The Chorizo ran out in five seconds flat and the vegetable moussaka did not compare.
5. Do integrate creative magnifiers that will stimulate your audience and get them thinking abstractly.
6. Don’t split your presentation in two, the first half with nothing but countless metaphors about nothing to do with the second half, and the rest about business facts and figures alone.
7. Do use multiple presenters who are skilled at engaging the audience in different ways.
8. Don’t use one who is so captivating you don’t want him to stop and then finish with someone else who can’t stop saying a phrase that inspires the crowd to make it the cue for a drinking game.
9. Do hand out goodies at the end, I would have sat through a lot more for that great, and free, Palm Pre
10. Don’t make us sit through two hours of lecture on a topic the audience is more knowledgeable, and certainly don’t entertain that idiot at the end who asks why you’re standing up there in the first place.

Neck Candy is my latest piece on Fashion Beans this week… stay tuned for my Ten Commandments of the Spring/Summer season later this week…

From today I will be contributing a weekly article on tricks and trends to the Fashion Beans website.

 You can check out my first piece here:

Look good nude…

The new Hermes campaign preview is out and took me by surprise, I’ll admit. Compared to the usual print executions, this one seems relaxed, and a lot less exclusive, positioning the classic scarf as an everyday piece. A response to the recession perhaps?

The beauty of it, despite this, lies in the way it manages still to exude an air of exuberance and luxury as naked a lady lays across what I can only imagine to be the softest stack of Hermes silk-clad cushions ever.

If my credit card wasn’t still recovering from Christmas, I would probably go out and buy one in every motif, to brighten the rest of this dull and dreary week.

Cool new concept for the album cover of Rachael Dadd’s new album, Moth in the Motor. My mate Dan did the one on the bottom right. It’s definitely the best one, I think you should get it.

Moth In The Motor is a collection of Rachael Dadd’s studio & home piano recordings, set for release on 15th February 2010. In addition to the artist-submitted sleeves below, the mini-album will be available on limited edition 10″ vinyl (only 300 pressings), with every sleeve hand-printed using block paint and a variety of linocuts created by Rachael herself. Every cover is unique and handmade to the last detail. The sleeve material is handmade Himalayan Lokta, each pressing is hand-numbered, and even the vinyl labels have been hand-stamped.

The vinyl release includes a free digital download of the mini-album, plus a bonus track and stop motion animation by Betsy Dadd.

Every record sleeve will enclose a pressing of the Moth In The Motor mini-album on limited edition 10″ vinyl, and include the free digital downloads.

Tracklisting: Table / Caught In The Weight / Until We Fall Apart / Age Of The Clock / The Incident Of The Capsized Boat / Moth In The Motor / Elaine (In The Kitchen With Matches) – bonus track

One of the hardest things to do is market your own brand. There are a lot of people looking for jobs out there at the moment finding it difficult to get their names stuck in the minds of contacts and employers.

Sending generic emails and hundreds of online applications these days wont get you far. I was speaking with a HR manager at a major global financial institution the other day who told me that last year almot 80% of their new hires knew someone at the company personally and got the interview through a personal recommendation. It’s all about networking. So what can you do to make yourself a little more memorable?

One of the perks of living in a city like London is that there are hundreds of networking events on all the time which you can attend for free and mingle with some of the city’s more creative, savvy and openminded professionals. I have made some amazing contacts through Open Soho events and UKJPR. Shoreditch Twit is another event that always ensures a great night and a few extra business cards in my rolladex for future reference.

What’s important is that you make contact and maintain contact. The first point is tricky enough but an online store called MOO might offer a helping hand to freelancers, or more junior professionals. They enable you to create high quality business cards for a really very affordable price. I’ve used them twice now, for a previous role and once as a gift. You can use any of their hundreds of pre-made designs or design your own from scratch.

It’s just a stylish little way to show you have the initiative to get ahead.

Check them out here: http://uk.moo.com/en/

Note that handheld devices is double that of regular computers, incredible. Assuming we sleep at least 6 hours thats non-stop data consumption during waking hours…