The week I will always remember...

Released 14/11/2008

...and some other stuff too

Ok, ok, ok. I did what every initially cheery and enthiastic blogster does: I neglected my blog. But the excitement that's been going on in the last few weeks has meant that I've been too full of glee and wrapped up in my copy of Obama's Dreams from my Father to think. I won't go into it too much, as you've all been watching the news, but I can't tell you how exciting it is for me as an American living in the UK to see him take the Whitehouse. It means, as one American put it so well, I don't have to pretend to be Canadian anymore (not that I would ever do that! Sorry, Andrea - our designer from Toronto). Or as the Metro put it so nicely, my nation across the pond can go back to being ‘a little bit cool again'. Awesome.

When I heard the news, I was in a large, functional German hotel room in Papenberg on a trip to the UPM Nordland paper mill, where a few of us journos were treated to the lovely sites and smells (not so lovely) of papermaking. I can't deny that I was jumping up and down on my bed a little bit at five in the morning when McCain gave his concession speech.

But enough of this partisanism and more about paper.

The best bit of the trip was probably the talk from UPM's John Sanderson, the director of environmental affairs UK, who is a cool dude that turns his nose up at suits and sports a good spattering of earrings. He helped us all get our heads around all this recycling, carbon neutral, FSC business, so that we can help you guys understand what to tell your customer when they're looking for the most responsible paper purchase. I'll go into that in the magazines to come, so watch that space.

This past Monday I went along to one of the Konica Minolta headquarters and showrooms in Milton Keynes, where I was treated to a tour around by Susan Grosch, the channel development manager, so I could finally see what all those Bizhubs actually look like and what their numbering system actually means. Take the C253 for instance: the ‘C' means colour; the ‘25' means how many colour pages it can print per minute; and the ‘3' means it's the third of its kind in a series. Am I a bit dorky to find that fact interesting? I like when there's method in amongst the madness.

Then yesterday I went to VOW's Evolve roadshow and had a very interesting chat with Ian Sinclair and Karen Gateson, which will feature in the December issue. Everyone was all positivity, and there was a very useful (if under attended) seminar on ‘Selling to the Corporate Customer' from John Taroni-Luxton, formerly of Lyreco, explaining to dealers that they can actually boast better buying power and pricing structures than the contract stationers if they just know what they're saying to customers. He used the age-old David and Goliath metaphor, which made the two dealers in the room seem ready to go out and fight afterwards.

Phew. So there I am up to today. Promise I won't be a stranger.

xoxo

Julia

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