Superglue saves baby boy

Toddler Dafi Edwards owes his life to some skilled surgery and a blob of superglue!

Using a revolutionary technique just hours after he was born, doctors used Histoacryl (a medical equivalent of the humble superglue that we sell!) to plug a leak in his brain that would otherwise have killed him in a few days....

Postcards were the 'original' Twitter

According to a report by Sky News, twittering is not a new up-to-the-minute technological advance, but a natural extension of an old product - the postcard.

In the days before micro-blogging, text messages and social networking sites, the Edwardians were using the humble postcard to abbreviate their thoughts and opinions to one another.
Introduced in its present form in 1902, the picture postcard, containing an image on one side and room for writing on the other, became an instant hit, according to a study by Lancaster & Manchester Metropolitan universities.

Almost six billion postcards - an average of 200 per person - were sent in Britain between 1901 and 1910, reveals study authors Drs Julia Gillen and Nigel Hall.
The cost per postcard was a ha'penny, instead of the usual penny for a letter and, with up to 10 postal deliveries a day in the big cities, users could write and answer notes quickly and cheaply.

Like Twitter, which restricts users to 140 characters per "tweet", postcard writers only have a limited amount of space to pen a message. So I guess not a lot has changed really! Except the postal service has got slower and more expensive!!!

not just delivered, but delivered with love

We believe that getting the goods delivered on time just isn't enough.

Many organisations promise a next day guaranteed service but how many really keep that promise and include not just getting it there, but getting it there with the right attitude?

We know that the vast majority of our clients (who are serviced by our very own UOE drivers in the their shiny black vans) have been given a first-class service but we have found the courier options we have sometimes employed for some regions to be...lets just say, less than helpful on every occasion.

I guess it comes down to the individual driver and the pressures put upon them by traffic, targets and tickets but why does it seem that so many couriers seem to hate their job or feel delivering the goods to the client is just too much to ask? We do find the odd driver who goes the extra mile (excuse the pun) but more often they just don't seem to be bothered.

About a year ago we began a review of our next day courier service and our search has ended with the selection of a new carrier - UPS. As couriers go, these guys are as passionate about doing it right as we are. Their brand and client retention is build on REAL service not just delivery statistics. Their focus on control of everything UPS ensures the client experience is a positive one. This focus and professionalism opens a host of opportunities for us to be greener, more efficient and most importantly give our clients - wherever they are - the same quality service we expect from one of our own drivers.

We go live with UPS during the second half of September 2009....we cant wait and would love your feedback on the service once it goes live.

Dont be a Spanner!

Rarely do a cause and a supporter go so neatly together as Screwfix and it's support of Everyman's campaign to raise awareness of testicular cancer.

With a very high proportion of male, 20-50 year old buyers - it is perfectly placed to communicate with the demographic most at risk. But the coup is in the marketing...selling t-shirts to raise money is nothing new....but putting the tag "Don't be a Spanner, Check your nuts" is just ace. It is witty, funny and irreverent and the type of statement you can wear and get away with!

Screwfix's goal is to raise £100,000 this summer for the Everyman charity - we wish them every bit of luck...well, we'd be nuts not too wouldn't we?

Wasps of the Parking World

Last Thursday I opted to pay by text message for parking in Islington. A simple process (once registered) that I think has really made parking a whole heap easier in London (no more scrabbling for coins etc!) but thanks to the over-zealous nature of a Civil Enforcement Officer (or Traffic Warden as everyone else would call them) on behalf of Islington Council, I was given a ticket despite having paid!

Why? Because the CEO (to abbreviate their glorified title) decided to wait less than 60 seconds from when I parked! It takes their own systems 2 minutes to confirm the payment so...how does this behaviour help anyone? All it does if frustrate honest, tax-paying drivers to despise once again the wasps of the parking world and condemn a Council for creating paperwork for their appeals department (cost to the tax payer), waste my time (cost to my business), print a needless ticket and associated paperwork (cost to the environment).

If drivers could hand out tickets to the councils for wasting their time when they've done nothing wrong, then Islington Council would be getting one from us today. Come to think of it, what a great idea that would be....!

Hijacking the Union Jack!

Yet again a multi-national (and ironically one of the less eco-friendly of energy companies) have hijacked 3 great things - the concept of a greener Britain, the brand identity of a properly green business and the most nationalistic of all things, our union jack!

Whilst I wholeheartedly support the concept of a greener Britain and all things that that may encourage that possibility, the reality is that EDF is neither green nor British. EDF is French -Electrcite de France -so why are they pretending to be British? Why are they not flying a french flag and making it green? And most importantly why have they hijacked the brand equity of a PROPER green energy company (Ecotricity) for their own benefit...why because try as EDF might, they are not and never will be green at the core!

Ecotricity has used the Green Union Jack for more than 2 years as a clear symbol of being a TRUELY British and TRUELY Green organisation - a fact that will hopefully not be lost on the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). The ASA confirmed it had received more than 80 complaints accusing EDF of confusing people by using Ecotricity's imagery and a further 23 complaints accusing it of being "unpatriotic" in its presentation of a painted Union flag.

A spokeswoman for the watchdog confirmed that an investigation was underway into the use of material similar to that used by Ecotricity, although complaints that the use of a green Union flag is insulting to the UK have been rejected. Do you think such a comment would be made by a French government agency or an American one for that matter - why do we not protect our flag for use by our countries great companies?

EDF attempted to downplay both the threat of legal action and the complaints to the ASA but they are just one of many who are stealing the Great from Britain. We wish Ecotricity success in defending their brand identity against the greenwashing multinational that is EDF.....after all if EDF can get away who will do it next?

The Greed of AEG Live - Michael Jackson Ticket Refund Fiasco

The unrivaled greed of AEG was revealed today as they have proposed that ticket holders for the (sadly) cancelled Michael Jackson Tour at the 02 next month should have a choice of a refund (less transaction fee charges) or could swap their payment for the 'actual' ticket!

Give me a break! Many people have booked flights, hotels and made a host of other arrangements, other companies have lost thousands or millions in revenue and the good-for-nothing scrooges at AEG are trying to con people for their full ticket price for piece of paper they've already printed.

I would have thought the very least they could have done was give people the ticket as a memento to show some regard for their loss!

Interestingly, and perhaps more creatively, would it not make more sense to say to ticket holders we'll give you 50% of your ticket price back and invite you to a celebration of Michael's life - with the dancers, the music - the whole gig and have Michael on the video wall behind it - that way everyone still gets a chance to enjoy the music, atmosphere and 'be there', the other companies involved don't waste their money, sales of memorabilia will be off the scale and everyone comes out with a little of something to remember a legend by?

Beats paying full price for a scrap of paper? What do you think?

Going down the Tubes

It's a tough world right now. Companies are fighting for survival, staff are eager to keep their jobs and England has a World Cup Qualifier at Wembley...but none of these issues (big or small) seem to stand in the path of the arrogant leader of the RMT Union - Bob Crowe - in letting his members strike and stop a the entire tube network across London (most of whom haven't even voted for strike action according to the BBC).

The strike will cost businesses at least £100m, let alone the environmental impact of extra vehicles hitting the roads - striking for pay should not be allowed. The RMT are demanding a 5% pay-rise and a promise of no redundancies. Mr Crowe - grow up - this is 2009 - the year of no pay-rise and if anyone should be made redundant it should be you.

Stop screwing with the lifeblood of the country and get back to work.

A ream of paper for a pint of beer?

In response to the credit crunch, one London pub - The Marksman, in Shoreditch - is offering a barter scheme for beer.

Now its regulars can trade CDs or reams of paper for a refreshing pint rather than hard cash...so next time you want to buy a round you'll want to order KF01087 (5 reams of paper)!

Gives you wings!

Never underestimate the power of folded paper...this year Red Bull's Paper Wings Championship was held in Salzburg, Austria...

Armed with just a single sheet of A4, British entrants, Nick Goodwin, George Miller and Matteo Sibilia reached the finals of the Red Bull Paper Wings Championships. In qualifying competitions across the globe more than 37, 000 students from 85 countries folded their bits of paper into the best planes possible.


"I was on my way to hand in an essay when I got stopped in the student's union, offered a drink and asked to throw a paper plane for a chance to win a trip to Austria," said George Miller, a student at Exeter University. Two months later, he was flown to Austria along with 205 other Paper Pilots from around the globe to battle it out in the plane flying final.

The venue was as extraordinary as the event itself - Red Bull's private aircraft space Hangar-7.
The building was opened in 2003 after four years painstaking work piecing together 1,753 individually crafted bits of glass.

The paper plane captains showcased their skills in three different disciplines.
First up was Aerobatics, the category marked on aviation tricks and overall creativity.
Pilots dived, danced and even stripped as they launched their paper creations into the air.
"I am so excited to have won. I've spent eight years training for this moment," said category winner Takeshige Kishiua from Japan. Kishua, a dedicated member of the Japanese Origami Paper Planes Association, clearly took things a little more seriously than Team GB.

Nick Goodwin, the British long-distance candidate said he "only entered for a laugh".
But he added that he "had the most incredible weekend, meeting and swapping plane folding tips with amazing people from all around the world" - all without having to lay a finger on his student loan.

Pure Genius

Any of you familiar with the Apple i-tunes program will know what a great source of music and video it is, but recently they have added what they have called the 'Genius Sidebar' - and let me tell you it does exactly what it says on the tin!

The Genius Sidebar appears down the right hand side of your i-tunes window and constantly offers suggestions of other tunes or video you would like based upon your i-tunes music library on your PC...it is unbelievably accurate and without doubt is the cause for me personally spending more on their website in one hit than i ever have before! It is amazing, you buy one, then it recommends you another 'classic' tune you'd forgotten that have your hands waiving in the air (or if you're more restrained perhaps your feet tapping)...it is without doubt one of the best examples of cross-sell marketing i have ever seen.

This gentle, soft-sell nudge, totally focused with a free trial (the usual 30-second clip) is enough to almost guide your mouse to the "buy" button....why don't more websites think and develop rich, accurate client content in such an easy to buy way....i didnt even have to scroll down it was right there at the side of where i was!

Yet again, Apple not only raises the bar for thinking and execution of an idea, but it has achieved that which is so hard online - it has put back the fun of buying into the online experience - the effect (for me at least) is as good if not better than walking through a music shop and flicking through the shelves. One last thing to do then Apple....just reduce the cost of the songs please!!! At £0.79 it doesn't sound like much but your new tool means I can't help myself!!!!!!

Tasmania's wombat poo paper - the ultimate in recycled paper?!

Well we all knew about Elephant droppings making great art papers...but here's another source of supply....The BBC reported this week that wombat droppings are helping an industrial city in Australia fight the effects of the global financial crisis.

Burnie, in the north-west of the state of Tasmania, has been hit by repeated rounds of job cuts.
But despite the gloom, one local industry is thriving by producing handmade paper out of a material no-one else wants - wombat poo.
The novelty paper is a hit with tourists keen to buy a distinctly Australian souvenir from the area.
The wombat, a furry marsupial, lives in the wild only in Australia. Its characteristic waddle and playful appearance, makes it one of the country's most endearing native creatures.
'Nice organic smell'
In recent years, a company in the port city has been experimenting with paper made from kangaroo droppings - but its popularity has been eclipsed by wombat-inspired products.
Creative Paper manager Darren Simpson says the manufacturing process can be rather unpleasant.

"When we are boiling it, it does smell horrific as you can imagine, but once it has been sterilised and rinsed properly there's no scent left to it. If anything it just gives you a nice organic smell," he said. He added that it was the tourists themselves who came up with the wombat idea. "As people were coming through and we were showing them the samples of our paper, they would throw questions at you like 'can you make it from sheep poo or can you make it from koalas?'. And the one that kept popping up more than any other was the wombat."

All the paper is made from the dung of a single animal called Nugget that lives in a wildlife park near Cradle Mountain, one of Tasmania's most popular tourist destinations.
Every day Nugget's droppings are collected by his keeper and sent off to the factory.

Wombats are herbivores and diets loaded with plant fibre make their faeces ideal for making some of Australia's most unusual paper....recycled paper? This gives it whole new meaning!

Make your Mark - with a Tenner

This year’s Make Your Mark with a Tenner, the national challenge to see what thousands of young people can achieve with just ten pounds in one month, has come to an end. The results are, we think, a breath of fresh air amidst the doom and gloom of the financial crisis;
· The largest profit was £736 and the average profit was £42, compared with a return of just 2p from a savings account!

· Make Your Mark with a Tenner competition winners have been congratulated personally by entrepreneur and ‘Dragon’ Peter Jones, one of the funders of the scheme.

If this is the first time you’ve heard of ‘TENNER‘, here’s what it’s all about;
Thousands of young people from across the UK (20,000 registered and 16,000 took part) were challenged to make a profit AND a difference with their £10 by working alone or in groups. The results far outstrip the return they’d have got from the bank or by dabbling on the stock market. Given just one month to make as much money and social impact as they could, the idea was funded by NESTA, Peter Jones and by Michael and Xochi Birch (who founded and sold Bebo).


Here at UOE we salute the team behind Make Your Mark (and a special well done to our friend Oli Barrett). This project gives us all hope that the future leaders of industry, banking and (perhaps) politics will actually understand the importance of entrepreneurial spirit and determination to succeed and make the world a better place for everyone!

The best individual return on a single tenner was a staggering £736. Henry Pearce from St Thomas’s Church in Kent donned a 1920s bathing suit in a ‘historic costume show’ and used his entrepreneurial savvy to get people to pay for this novel experience. After returning his £10 loan, he has decided his profits will go to a Kenyan school, Molo 220, and the competition also helped the Church form strong links with a local special school.

The best group return was £493 (on £20) by two students from Cullompton Community College, Devon. They compiled a recipe book with recipes collected from local business people, then sold the books for £1 each or £1.50 for a signed copy.

Other enterprising and hugely profitable ideas included a Bollywood Dance performance, a silent disco and a healthy tuck shop. Community cohesion was a major theme amongst the entries. A team from St Kentigerns Academy in Scotland created a concert to get young people in their area off the streets, while an outstanding individual effort from Ashley Maugan – a young Irish traveller living on a caravan site near Hackney – saw her spend her £10 on bulk buying products to set up a shop for children in her community, who were previously relying on their parents for lifts to the local supermarket.

Across the top 100 entries, the average profit was an impressive £42 on £10 in just one month. That beats the stock market over the same period hands down!

Here's to Make your Mark 2010!

Do you need to offer Customer Service - or is it cheaper not to?

Many of you (thankfully) may not have heard of the 'wannabe' home of low-cost flights called Jet2 and if you haven't as yet had the opportunity to sample the 'delights' of their offering, my personal opinion would be simply this - don't. I've travelled with them twice (both times experiencing some of the worst travel stories of my life!) so i know my experience is not a one-off...and therefore cannot be forgiven as such.

We all understand that low-cost means just that, and yes we understand that we wont perhaps get all the frills (if you can call a free sandwich and a drink such a thing) but there are some basics that should happen and must never be cut - these are basics of customer service, respect and availability of personnel willing to deal with valid customer complaints. On a recent journey with Jet2, these basics were not only overlooked but indeed seemed to have been accepted as "not included!" Even their tag line is a joke - "friendly low fares" - could someone please explain to their marketing guys and girls that it's not the price that needs to be friendly - its the staff and the ethos of the business. Having a low fare is just a price thing, not a service thing....but perhaps this is the point?!

In this recession-strapped world, where companies seek to reduce costs, customer service can seem like one thing that you don't need to worry too much about....WRONG, WRONG and once more WRONG!

The list is endless with companies who seems to have done the maths that says it costs £x to have a fully trained (and accessible) customer service team and if you (foolishly) assume that most of the people who are not happy wont come back anyway, it's cheaper not to deal with the problem, rather than train staff to do so....sounds back to front...but think about it? If your business is "high-churn" (the term these types of companies use for meaning people leave us all the time), then losing a few percentage points more doesn't really make any difference - if you're cheap enough some other (sucker) will fill their space.

Such a policy (written or otherwise) seems to be most common in markets where it is harder to switch (think broadband providers for example) and so the calculation for customer service has become much like the bean-counters of old at the car manufacturers who worked out it was cheaper to send out a car even if it had a dangerous fault and pay for the people who got hurt (rather than fix the fault which would have cost more!)

But I would suggest in these cash-strapped days where the customer is not just king, but banker too, looking after the ones you have, resolving accurately and promptly issues when mistakes occur and going out and winning new ones it all important. Research shows that a client that has a problem with service and has their problem promptly and professionally resolved will often become not just a repeat user, but regularly an evangelist of the product, brand or service! But try getting a bean-counter to build that into a spreadsheet - as any accountant will tell you - it is very hard to value goodwill - but in this market it can be the difference between success and failure - if you can't rely on your existing clients to keep shopping - what hope do you have?

For me, my Jet2 experience means - firstly i will never fly with them again, secondly i am taking every possible opportunity to share with as many people as i can my feelings about them, thirdly, I would have happily paid a few pennies more to ensure a better level of service (because the stress and time delay meant more to me than the pennies!)...so there you go Jet2 - you lost a customer, he's become an evangelist for all things NOT Jet2 and would have paid extra to be happy to boot - still think your customer service calculation adds up?

Best Price or Best VALUE?

The debate of best value is by no means unique to the office supplies industry...take airlines for example.

RyanAir has built a business on the basis of "low fares" not best value or customer service. But often its sometimes extreme focus on "discretionary revenue" has come back to bite. Recently the undiplomatic Michael O'Leary declared on BBC TV that the airline was considering charging £1 to use the on-board toilet. This sparked headlines and got RyanAir more free press than anything that the concept of having no check-in desks would have got (which was the reason he was actually being interviewed!)

People who fly RyanAir often plan and bring their own food, drinks etc on-board...bringing your own toilet might be a little too much....but you have to give it to them for spinning a rather dull story into something of note.

But the whole concept comes back to value and the client's perception of it. For some, it is all about the price of the ticket - hence the fact that RyanAir flies 729 routes with 181 aircraft - but for others Leary's manner, Ryan Air's corporate attitude and contempt with which he seems to view the flying public may be more than they can bear and so other, added-value airlines win through. The interesting question is at what point do the price proposition get found out and buyers begin to tot up the incidental costs of paying to put a bag in the hold, paying by debit card, paying for food paying for the toilet....what will be next - perhaps the spoof safety card above suggests some ideas!?

But seriously take this real-world example:

Stanstead to Barcelona with 1 bag in the hold, priority boarding, meal on-board, paying by debit card travelling out 18th March 2009/return 21st March 2009 - total cost?

RyanAir- £87.68 - (RyanAir advertises ticket at £0.01 and £0.00 before taxes!)

British Airways - £91.00

Additionally, the BA flights arrives at Barcelona's main airport - much closer to Barcelona than the RyanAir flight (which would no doubt save you the £3.32 in travel cost!)

So who is cheap and who is not? OK I know you can deselect the priority boarding and bring your own food - but in a like-for-like experience (or as close as you can) BA would seem the better deal overall....did you expect that?

Stationery presents much the same challenges as that of the airline industry....some clients are all about the price of the paperclip, paper, toner etc....for others the ability to speak to a knowledgeable member of our team, know that we are environmentally focused, flexible billing, have a late cut off of 18:00hrs for next day, have a great price on everything they buy not just the "loss leaders" promoted by the supplier and not be tricked by hidden charges (like "protection plus" - Viking Direct's equivalent of the debit card charge from RyanAir) have a value.

But some poor souls will always be seduced by the perceived low price with which such companies play their game. We believe in transparency, openness and no hidden tricks - and in turn we believe that when you really play on a level playing field that much like BA, UOE offers its clients BEST VALUE overall.

Storm in a coffee cup?

So Peter Mandleson has taken offence to Starbucks' CEO Howard Schultz stating the fact that the UK economy is pretty ropey! Well I know politicians don't like to hear the truth, but WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE - we are in the biggest trouble imaginable and pretenting it isnt happening, isnt going to fix it!

Back in December we reported in our blog about Richard Branson's opinions on UK PLC and let's be frank, he didnt exactly mince his words either!

Why do politicians want us all to pretend all is rosy in the garden. It isnt. It wont be for many a year and if Mr Mandleson spent less time swearing at drinks parties and more time actually working to find a solution, we might all be in a better place right now.

Oh, and whilst on the subject of helping the UK economy, why do the US, France and many other countries around the world fight to ensure government contracts are won by UK companies and yet in the UK the winners (and I speak for the office supplies industry in this too) are often foreign businesses who have shares listed on Foreign stock markets. Want to help change things Mandy? You can start by helping UK owned businesses take their fair-chunk of the government spending pot. That way the money stays in the UK and supports british workers and their families too. Isolationist? Perhaps slightly, but when it's cold outside, it's time to shut the door.

Personalisation and Flexibility - the key to great service

Delivering consistent, high-levels of service is great, but in a world where service is a pre-requisite how do you attain the golden prize of customer delight? The answer lies in personalisation and flexibility.

On the UOE Group on LinkedIn we posed this very question and Phil Jones, Sales & Marketing Director of Brother UK (who writes a great blog - check out http://thecorporatebubble.blogspot.com/) gave us this first-rate example of what we mean:

Customers today set their expectation of service not on your competitors but on the wider sphere of service they receive in their lives. We must all look outside the industry to see what's being achieved in service levels by others and look to replicate/introduce into this industry. I've just discovered valet parking at Manchester airport.

I just call them, tell them when I want to drop my car off, someone is there to meet me, they take my car away and bring it back when I fly home. It's the ultimate in convenience, they even switch my heated seat on for me on cold days, are ultimately personal in their approach and here's the rub, it's cheaper over 2 days to have valet parking, than park in the short stay at the airport.

The service is impeccable, smart drivers, polite and in a world when time matters, it saves me time. Lessons to learn. Busy people, need high convenience at short notice. An existing business model can be disrupted (convention of static parking to flexible parking). I'm not a number, they know me and have taken great effort to remember me (personalisation).

Double Dutch? Don't stop having fun at work!

Our good friend Anju Rupal of Sense2love.com told us about a great website - that captures the humour and sense of fun of a top Dutch department store called HEMA.

Their first store opened on November 4, 1926, in Amsterdam. Now there are 150 stores all over the Netherlands. Take a look at HEMA's product page... it's in Dutch but just wait a couple of seconds and watch what happens. Don't click on any of the items in the picture, just wait and see... This company has a sense of humor and a great computer programmer, ya?

Proof indeed that you CAN keep things fun however big your business gets - why wouldn't you want to have fun? That would feel like hard...er...work, wouldn't it?!

UOE 2008 Christmas Party video is released!

So the official video from our 2008 Moulin Rouge Christmas Party has been released....what a party it was! We joined up with a few other like-minded companies at London's Hippodrome to party away with 1300 of our favourite clients.

click this link for the video
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=56200457575

With 8 live acts, free drinks and fancy dress - it was always going to be fun....but didnt realise how much!

If you were there, see if you can spot yourself on the video or in the photos taken by our two professional photographers Dasha Photography and Gareth Hendley

Thanks to all who were able to attend, and if you didnt, shame on you(!) and we hope to see you next time!!

Sully the Hero Pilot - every company needs people like that!

Chesley 'Sully' Sullenberger, US Airways pilot has been a pilot for decades, but this week, in 5 minutes he went from being "just another pilot" to a hero worthy of a call from the President of the United States....rightly so...but....

Here is a guy (and his co-pilot too) who through training, skill, a cool-head and professionalism, backed up by a plane that stood up to the only thing it is built for (safe travel whatever the circumstances) achieved the glorious triumph of 100% survival of passengers and crew landing on water. Yes, Sully is a hero, yes I'd be happy to fly with him next time I board a plane but here's the thing...he's flown thousands of hours (pretty much without incident) and yet faced with the one time he need to do his job perfectly - he did it. And then, to top that off - he didn't want praise, has shunned the limelight and is keen to "get back to work". A lesson to us all.

Every business NEEDS and every successful business HAS a "Sully". They may not get a call from the President, it may not be filmed by passers-by or make international headlines - but individuals who are expert in their jobs, know their systems and most importantly know what to do when things DON'T go to plan.

So here's to the experts - you are our safety net between success and failure every day. You are the everyday heroes and to you, and Sully, we salute and thank you!