We have cooperated on several projects over the years which have relied on his talent for incisive communication in written and verbal forms. His comfort with technology, an easy going demeanor, and a liberal dose of interpersonal skills has always ensured he was a key contributor to the projects' success.

IC, European Telework Week

Case studies

Evershed Robotics was launched at the beginning of the industrial robotics boom in the early 1980s and the first exhibition was held at the National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham, and my brief was to ensure that Evershed, on behalf of Toshiba, stood out against other companies. The feeling, which later proved correct, was that there would be many companies with humans dressed as robots doing stiff dances, and machines playing chess against each other, etc.

Because of the link with Toyota he homed in on Japanese tradition of service, reliability and quality and we had a small part of the stand set aside as a small garden in which a “geisha� in traditional costume every two hours performed the Japanese Tea Ceremony. The original approach combined with the photogenic nature of the event received phenomenal coverage with it being featured on News and Ten and on page two of The Times and similar coverage elsewhere.

Maxellis one of the leading manufacturers of electronic media such as audio and video tapes, CD and DVD disks. He was account director charged with launching three new audio tapes which aimed at three specific audiences – ‘teenagers, motorists and the advanced enthusiast. At the time the launch of cassettes was a boring affair with a press release and accompanying photographs showing cassettes in shrink wrapping, without shrink wrapping in cases, out of cases

He decided that we should adopt a “lifestyle� approach and commissioned photographs of the basic tape featuring a saxophonist busker in a the tube with the tape propped up against a “boogie box;� for the motorist we had a blond model in full biking leathers with a Honda Goldwing motorcycle; for the enthusiast shot we did some creative photography involving a male model with pony tail silhouetted against a Venetian blind with a goldfish bowl containing layered hot and cold water with a dye that created a swirling effect,

At the trade launch the photographs caused a phenomenal stir and we had to order four times as many transparencies for colour reproduction than for a previous launch Iwhich he was not involved in.

More importantly, the Japanese MD of Maxell UK liked the shots so much he ordered their advertising agency to use them for future campaigns. The agency resigned the account and he had to manage a £200,000 advertising spend.

The Global Office Networkwas an association of multinational serviced business offices which was formed to share best practice and business referral facility. As he had worked with The Virtual Office and started working on emerging Internet technologies into their portfolio, he was asked to work with GON to establish an Internet-based business tool to help them communicate. For this he had to find a common platform that people from Asian, American and European cultural backgrounds and differing time zones could be comfortable with.

At their annual conference in Madrid he unveiled one of the first electronic forum software packages that enabled members to share online their thoughts, plan campaigns, share files, etc. and even communicate in real time. 

Because of this he was asked to be a contributing author to a new book on the topic called Webweaving – Intranets, Extranets and Strategic Alliances which profiled some of the pioneering work being carried out in this field.