Introduction to me

Hi to you all, or indeed anyone who might be interested in my ramblings. I work for D4Online as Marketing & PR Director and will shortly be launching D4PR as well as other exciting projects in online media tools, social networking, applications and promotional exploits.

I love my job. Some may find that annoying, others I hope will find it refreshing and perhaps even charming. The company I work for is not large, but is rapidly expanding. They have a solid, extremely creative graphic design background and have not lost a client in 10 years. The team I work with consist of not just highly talented individuals but people who are genuinely lovely and passionate about what they do.

My background is a veritable spicy melee of a diverse career in marketing and PR, spanning 10+ years, with a few random sabbaticals that have enhanced my life experience and ability to do my job.

My reasons for setting up this blog are simple and honest:

• To see if it sends any traffic to our websites www.d4online.com and soon to come www.d4pr.com
• To offer my opinions on varying matters
• To hopefully provide a little humour to people's days and maybe earn a little empathy on some thought provoking topics as well as some fairly innocuous ones

N.B. And this is very important. These are just my opinions, they are not fact, they do not reflect that of the company I work for or anyone within it. I am not saying that I am right or wrong. It is just that sometimes (I find particularly when I have a hangover) I have a lot going on in my head and for the safety of the general public, feel it would be better to get it out rather than allow it to build up causing an earlier demise than I would like or, worse still, a spontaneous combustion taking out other people with me.

So as this is my official introduction to this world, I will give you two Clare's Opinions.

Clare's Opinions No.1

I hate cheese and onion crisps......passionately. They smell, they make your breath smell. My dislike for them has been accelerated by people putting them on the table at parties. You are thinking plain, or at worst salt & vinegar, which lets face it we all need to be in the mood for, and get.....eeuuggghhh.....cheese and onion. Then, oh no, the mad dash for chewing gum, a mint, that thing covered in fluff at the bottom of your handbag...anything...toothpaste in someone else's bathroom because your previously sweet smelling mouth vapours have been tainted.
Just plain wrong.

Clare's Opinions No.2

Is anyone else fed up with the media's coverage of the economic climate? As the head economist at HSBC recently said, it's just mood music. Most people get their information from the media because they have little time or interest in having a crash course in maths. A little dangerous if you consider millions of people's favourite newspaper in the UK is the Sun, which let's face it can hardly be referred to as educational.

Don't get me wrong I admire The Sun, especially in my job. One of the most genius newspapers of all times. There are Cambridge and Oxford graduates paid to come up with those headlines and good on them, what a fun job that would be.

But isn't it slightly irresponsible for certain papers to publish certain things, knowing the masses rely on them as their only source of information for some topics.

For starters - the credit crunch and the state of the economy are two entirely different things. The economy is by it's very nature cyclic, or in even simpler terms what goes up must come down and when you hit the bottom, the only way you have to work is back up again.

As a country we have just enjoyed 12 years of sustained growth and profitability, the best this country has ever seen (if I was being controversial, I could say it took Labour that long to screw it up, but I'm not so I won't).

There are many, many other countries whose defecit, if they are even being publicly honest about it, is far, far greater than ours....cough.....Italy....cough.

Yes people are going to lose jobs, yes it may get worse, yes the housing market may go down further, and people will go into negative equity (so don't move house if you don't have to then), and for those truly, truly effected by it, I am honestly sorry.

However there will be good things to come out of it.

The benefits system will have to be overhauled as it continues to take the strain. Tax or NI money might actually go to people who really, really need it. Wouldn't that be fab? To watch something or read an example and think, I am glad my hard earned cash went to that family/individual.

Bad companies will be weeded out and those strong ones, with great management and financial acumen will prosper and grow.

There will be an exciting breed of new entrants creating new industry and new jobs.

Banking will be revolutionised, no more irresponsible lending or profit for the elite only (although there will always be leaders, we naturally have stronger, more driven and ambitious people in society, alpha males etc and we generally prefer to be led, it's far too much responsibility otherwise).

The masses already have more control and influence over institutions, brands, media, advertising, lobbying and most importantly 'they' are starting to listen to our opinions. As more and more online tools, social networking and open source developments are produced, the giants are shrinking and the little people are growing, in voice and number.

Many say the halcyon days are gone, but I think they will be back, shared by a greater number and most deservedly so.