Who's that Brit?

Despite trips to the supermarket (due to Mrs’ Ryan’s aversion to shopping brought on by being the size of the Ocado mother ship), ferrying the youth to rugby/cinema and a 9 year old sleep over, I managed some quality time this weekend.

My favourite part of the whole lot was nearly 4 hours of unbroken Piers Morgan. Let me qualify that, I’m not his biggest fan; in fact he is clearly up himself. But let’s face it, we had seen the best of Larry King, and to see a fellow countryman taking on a US broadcast institution is a big deal. When interview no.3 (Condoleezza Rice) was asked if she knew who he was, could only manage “Of course, he’s a Brit.”

My suspicion this was a slur was confirmed when she went on to say “We all know the Brits can make the telephone directory sound intellectual when they read it.”

Putting that aside, the interviews with America’s largest media icons, Oprah Winfrey and Howard Stern, were fantastic. Both difficult to interview for different reasons, both with their own constituencies these were difficult interviews. Taking them on first was with hindsight stroke of genius because he pulled it off, but had it gone the other way would have been foolhardy.

I wish the best of luck, and sincerely hoe he goes onto be an icon of the US media that rivals his first two interviews and the greatest talk show host of the all, his predecessor.

One top shop and being done up like a kipper

If 2010 didn’t bring enough change; I expect 2011’s to be even more far reaching. Anytime in the next few weeks will see the arrival the newest addition to our family, a baby.

Relax, I’m going to use this opportunity for a stream of emotional consciousness on becoming a father, but I would like to reflect on the phenomenal capital investment such a project is extracted from the un initiated. Determined not to fall into the trap of insisting that everything is the best money can buy, in spite of this being my first born, and of course not wanting to do everything on the cheap. The current Mrs. Ryan and I settled on Mothercare.

Mother care is a specialist UK retailer for all things baby and crossing all price points from what my Mum would 'call cheap and nasty' up to what my Dad would simply call 'you're joking!

For a start, I have to say the shop does exactly what it says on the tin, it really does have everything you need, and I think having spent an hour there, we now have everything we need, but also quite a few a lot we don’t need. But with all such brand experiences, it isn’t the store, stock, price or product that will stay with us, but the charming lady that stopped what she was doing to help us drain our credit card. Let’s call her Val.

With the charm of a young granny and the experience of a celebrity TV nanny, Val steered us around the store setting out only simple decisions for us to make at each stop, each one we felt was considered and informed. But none of this, remarkable, most good retailers can provide such service, in fact I was having the same discussion with a colleague about John Lewis and procuring a vacuum cleaner.

No, what made this experience stand out is the way we were snared. Our charming Mothercare protagonist, Val, who only entered our theatre of consumption because was asked a simple question about delivery, reeled us.

“How long do you have to go?” she asked innocently.

“About three and half months.” Was Mr’s Ryan’s honest answer.

Big intake of air sucked across the lips of a lady in her late 50’s with those tell tale lines that give away she once smoked, “Not much time then, we’d better get on.”

And so we proceed to live the Mothercare marketing team’s dream of clients that see them as a one stop shop. It’s only once we had paid and she booked out delivery Val’s cunning and guile become apparent,

“Well that should all be delivered in 4 days dears.” She said innocently

“Oh great” I said, knowing full well I had just doubled the hammering our flexible friend had already received thanks to Christmas and that a contender for Kent’s most glamorous gran’s had just done me up like a kipper.

Resolution Two.

I share resolution number 2 with a number of colleagues and long suffering fellow commuters, read more fiction.

I am a ferocious consumer of white papers, especially on emerging areas such as business change, marketing, branding d social media. Some of these, while engaging, could clearly be put into the fiction category.

A lawyer colleague sent me a slide deck a consultant had put together for their team on social media. Full of generalisations and characters it essentially summed social media up as mean and risky, completely ignoring the commercial and social benefits of the channel. I accept the author had shaped the document for his audience; it was hardly balanced or especially insightful.

So to balance my frustration with some of the drivel peddled by those claiming to be thought leaders and solution providers, I’m going to spend the last few moments of being awake each day reading the same page 4 times just before gravity wins the fight with eyelids to stay open.

Wobbly legs

Reflecting on all the subjects I wanted to address in the New Year, I felt compelled to share a story from this year. Please indulge me on a quick look back at how most of our working years end, with a Christmas office party.

Just as I was leaving my company’s version of this festive routine I witnessed my favourite December late night London sight. This example happened to be carried out by a senior colleague. He was battling the gravitational pull of a Moorgate payment brought on by a dysfunctional inner ear and wobbly legs.