My favourite advert at the moment

The new Nokia advert for maps on your mobile. You can take a look at it here.



It starts with one person drawing on a large sheet of paper, then expands out as more and more people add to it. I think it appeals to me as someone who has always enjoyed drawing. What I like about it is the way the close up shots captures the intensity of the people drawing - it reminds me of a care free time when drawing was something you did for fun. When you get caught up in the day-to-day tasks of running a business it's easy to forget the reason why you started doing it in the first place.



And my least favourite? Confused.com. Don't get me started!

Brand for breakfast

This morning I gave a short presentation on 'Branding and it's value to your business' at a breakfast meeting in Exeter. It was only 20 minutes. I think opportunities like that are great - partly because I really enjoy talking to people about what we do - but also because they really focus your mind. It can be quite a challenge to take a potentially complex subject and distill it into 20 minutes, in a way that is engaging and relevant. Anyone can ramble on (and I really can given the slightest encouragement!), but keeping it short and sweet is a real test. I had some good feed back from the audience, so I think I was at least partially successful!

If you want to see how we help our clients use their brands more effectively, take a look at our website.

The group was the Exeter club of the Business League, a networking group which meets every Friday morning. We've been members for a couple of years and have found it very useful for growing our business. The Business League has clubs across the South West, so if you'd like to pay one a visit take a look at their website.

What colour's your car?

I read an interesting article this week about the new Volvo S80. As a rule I'm not really interested in reading about cars - but this one's recyclable - which makes it much more interesting! Apparently there's an EC report which states that by 2015 all cars should be 85% recyclable and reusable. But Volvo are one step ahead (probably six or seven to be honest), and reached those standards in 2002. Their factories in Sweden and Belgium get their energy from hydropower and they use recycled iron, steel and aluminium in construction wherever possible.

I find stories like this really inspiring. To learn about businesses that aren't looking for excuses but are actually looking for opportunities. They're not perfect, but is doing something better than nothing? We don't all have the resources that Volvo do, but the same opportunities are there for every business - to take the initiative and lead the field. In a competitive business climate surely that's the best place to be?

Meet William

We really should introduce you to William. He's our son and he's 11 months old. As you can imagine, he has quite a big impact on things at the moment.

So who are you and what do you do?

Alder and Alder is run by two directors: me and my wife, Charlie. We're based in Exeter, in Devon, and we started the company in 2005. We offer a wide range of services, but what we do can be summed up in a single sentence. We help businesses communicate more effectively. Sometimes that might involve giving them some illustrations, other times they might need design for a logo or a website. It varies, and that's what makes our jobs interesting. If you want to see examples of what we do take a look at our website.



For us it's all about making a difference, not just to our clients, but to our community and our environment too. So at Alder and Alder we help our clients to communicate in a more sustainable way - looking at the environmental impact of their marketing and communication material and finding alternatives. To support this we launched Today and Tomorrow™, an initiative to give businesses support and advice on more sustainable solutions. At the heart of this is the (award winning) website, www.todayandtomorrowonline.co.uk. Award winning? Oh yes. In June 2008 Today and Tomorrow™ won the award for Environmental Responsibility at the FSB Devon Business Awards, which was fantastic.

Email jonathan@alderandalder.co.uk if you'd like to know more about what we do, it would be great to hear from you.

Why?

Why start a blog? It's a good question - and I've got a good answer. We like talking to people. Talking to people is a great way to build relationships, and our business is built on relationships. So we thought this would be a great opportunity to tell people about things we're involved in: projects we're working on, things we've seen, things we've read, things that made us laugh, things that made us angry. Hopefully it will help people to get to know us a bit better - and who knows where that might lead...