...but I won’t do that

Take part in a webinar. Once was enough. As far as I can tell, these are all badly disguised high tech sales pitches for expensive propositions that are euphemistically described as ‘solutions’ and are as futile as the most futile thing you can imagine.

Read another article about big data. For almost as long as I have been in the industry, a voluble tribe of consultants have smugly assured us that this will revolutionise our business. Yet where’s the evidence? It reminds me of the old joke that “Brazil is the country of the future – and always will be.”

Improve my LinkedIn entry. A former colleague assured me that after they posted a whizz-bang, state of the art entry, they were deluged with interest from companies they’d never heard of. So I spent one entire Sunday, ignoring the cries of discontent from Mrs Mole and the little Moles, polishing my entry. After three months, the only obvious result is that I’ve had requests to connect from people I see no point in linking up with.

Kick off a company get together with M People singing ‘Search For The Hero Inside Yourself’, Bonnie Tyler’s ‘Holding Out For A Hero’ or Tina Turner’s ‘Simply The Best’. You may laugh but, even after David Brent showed us how wrong this was in The Office, it’s amazing how often this still happens. If Mole Enterprises really is better than all the rest, why do we need Tina to remind us of the fact? Buy an Apple Watch. I love the company – I’m a serial user of iPhones and iPods – but I just don’t see the point. Sorry.

Hire a consultant. I tried it once when the company faced a particularly serious challenge. It cost me a lot of money and I ended up reflecting on the old question: how many consultants does it take to change a light bulb? Answer: I wouldn’t know because they never get past the feasibility study.

Comments please to industrymole@imagereportsmag.co.uk