Another year rides off into the sunset, and a new one dawns. But before it does, here are the highlights of my blogging year:

• January: Big Business makes big mistakes, including dead bodies in planes and the toy that turned into a date-rape drug.
• February: It’s advertising, Jim - but not as we know it looked at product placement in film and TV.
• March: 10 ways to increase your productivity, from mind-mapping to Mavis Beacon.
• April: 5 ways to beat blank-page syndrome, to help you fill all that white space quickly.
• May: The uncomfortable truth about comfort zones might make you feel a bit…well, uncomfortable. But that’s the point.
• June: Are you underselling yourself? explored the fine art of getting the price right.
• July: What makes you different? talked about ways of standing out from the crowd.
• August: Think smart and beat the downturn was ahead of its time, and is even more relevant today than it was in the summer.
• September: The trouble with technology highlighted a problem: the technology.
• October: Country branding: lessons we can learn looked at why we think what we think about countries, and why Germany is way cool.
• November: The pitfalls of specials offers found that sometimes, they’re not that special.
• December: How to increase your chances of making the sale took us to the wonderful world of first-class travel (sort of).

And that’s it. See you in 2009.

In summer 2007, I decided I was stressed (long story, email me for all the juicy details). So I took myself off to a meditation course.

The course leader was a sweet old lady in her 70s. Grey hair piled into an unruly bun, skewered by a dark brown chopstick. A lived-in face and a sweet, sing-song voice.

To break the ice, she asked everybody where they were from. It all went smoothly until she reached a man in a rumpled tracksuit.

“And where are you from?” she said solicitously.

“Where,” he repeated in a dull monotone.

“Yes, where are you from?” she said again, the embodiment of indulgence and patience.

“Where,” he repeated, without the rising intonation of a question.

“That’s right - where are you from?” with not a hint of exasperation. (She was a walking advert for the benefits of meditation.)

“Where,” he said again. “W-a-r-e. It’s a place in Hertfordshire.”

We all smiled and heaved a collective sigh of relief. From there, the only direction was upwards.

***

Confusion is everywhere, in the written and the spoken word. And here are the second five in my Top 10 easily confused words.

1. affect / effect
   This one is guaranteed to set your head spinning, so take a deep breath before carrying on.

   Affect is usually a verb (dredge your memory banks - a verb is a doing word). So you might write the credit crunch has badly affected the housing market.

   Effect, on the other hand is usually (note the usually) a noun (a thing, in common parlance). I had three whiskies last night, and I’m still feeling the effects (a purely hypothetical example, you understand).

   Now here’s the chaser: effect can also be used as a verb. Nicolas Sarkozy promised to effect change in France.

2. imply / infer
   To imply is to suggest something: my boss implied that my work wasn’t up to scratch. In other words, he made it clear, without actually saying it straight out.

   It’s very often confused with infer. So here’s an easy way to remember which is which: imply is to do with sending, infer to do with receiving.

   So if, on the other hand, my boss made a remark about my work that was ambiguous, or open to interpretation, I might infer that my work wasn’t up to scratch.

   Luckily for me, I’m my own boss - so the implying and inferring is kept under one roof.

3. fortuitous / fortunate
   If you know the difference between these two words, then you’re very fortunate indeed - most people don’t.

   Fortuitous means by chance. It’s random, and not necessarily positive: the principal made the fortuitous discovery of my stash of cigarettes [bad].

   Fortunate means lucky. So I could say fortunately, the principal didn’t discover my stash of cigarettes [good].

4. they’re / there / their
   “If you are in your 40s and British,” The Economist wrote a couple of weeks back, “it is quite possible that your spelling is an embarrassment. You may never have been taught the distinction between “there”, “their” and “they’re”, or perhaps even your times tables.”

   It’s not just forty-something Brits, though. These three little words cause confusion among people of all ages and in all locations.

   They’re is a contraction of they are. There is the opposite of here. And their means of them.

   Put them all together and you have they’re going to put their bags over there.

5. led / lead / lead
   A few months back, a client corrected some copy I’d sent them. It had included the phrase this led to big increases in productivity. Her amended version read this lead to big increases in productivity.

   So who was right? Here’s a clue: not her.

   It’s an easy mistake to make. The past tense of lead is led. Unfortunately, it rhymes with lead (as in pipes, pencils and balloons). So there’s an understandable hesitation.

Unconfused? Good. Now perhaps you’d like to do something ahout your stress levels. I know a very good course.

Just email me and I’ll tell you Ware where.

Several years ago, a friend of mine worked for a recruitment consultancy. Let’s call them Acme Inc.

Their contracting arm (which supplied staff to companies on a contract basis) was called Acme Inc. Independant Services.

Did you feel a twitch of discomfort as you read that? Good. So did my friend - and one day, over an end-of-the-week glass of Chardonnay, he mentioned it to his boss.

Independant, he explained, doesn’t exist. Dependant does (the woman had three dependants). Dependent does (the three children were dependent on her). Independent does (he stood as an independent candidate).

But independant doesn’t.

His boss, playing for time, drained his glass. Then, he smiled his twinkly smile, and slurred, “it’s a deliberate mistake. It shows that we really are different.”

My friend returned his smile, considered his career, and kept his mouth shut.

Write to the point

Good grammar is important to good writing. Would you consider showing a client around messy offices? How about answering the phone informally? Or having a logo that’s skew?

Of course you wouldn’t.

But somehow, dodgy grammar flies under the radar. At least, most of the time. For somebody out there will notice - and they’ll draw conclusions pretty fast.

So here are the first five of my Top 10 easily confused words.

1. who’s/whose
   Who’s is a contraction of who is. So you can say who’s at the door? But you can’t say the man who’s car I ran into. It’s an understandable mistake (Peter’s car, Jane’s car, who’s car). Instead, you should say the man whose car I ran into.
2. i.e / e.g.
   If you’re a Latin scholar, you’ll never confuse these. But most people nowadays don’t know their amo from their amas. i.e. stands for ‘id est’, which means ‘that is’. In other words, you’re explaining what you’ve just referred to (the Chancellor of the Exchequer i.e. the Minister of Finance). e.g. on the other hand, stands for ‘exempli gratia’, and means ‘for the sake of example’. It’s used when you’re giving one example among many. So you could write one of the permanent members of the UN Security Council e.g. France.
3. disinterested / uninterested
   It’s common nowadays to see disinterested used as the opposite of interested, as in my brother is disinterested in politics. It should be my brother is uninterested in politics. Disinterested means impartial or neutral, so you could say to resolve the dispute, we need a disinterested party to hold mediation talks.
4. principal / principle
   Just the other day, I read on a web site our guiding principals are honesty, integrity and efficiency. And that’s wrong. For a principal is more likely to guide a school, if anything. Or you could talk about a principal ballerina. If you’re talking about values, it’s principle every time.
5. it’s / its
   This is a very common mistake - and an understandable one. If you can say Peter’s hat and my uncle’s house, you’d expect to say the house lost it’s roof in the storm. But you don’t. Instead, you say its roof. It’s is a contraction of it is. So you could say it’s a lovely house (but not if it lost its roof in a storm).

If your head’s already hurting, then perhaps it’s time to lay lie down.

Part 2 next week.

Ever flown first class to Hong Kong?

No, neither have I. Or at least, not really. Well, sort of. Kind of. What I mean is that I feel as if I have.

Let me explain.

I’ve just been for a ride (turning left at the door, not right) on a Cathay Pacific 747.  I settled into my cubicle with a long drink and an endless selection of videos. A flight attendant appeared as if by magic to satisfy my every whim. And the hours just slipped by as I enjoyed the sort of trip others only dream about.

And yet, I never left my desk.

For this ‘try before you fly’ experience is entirely virtual. It’s a revolutionary concept that takes you there - without taking you there.

You can choose to see it from a first-person view, or watch somebody else experience it. You can be a man or a woman (man, before you ask). And you can read, email, catch a movie and watch the world go by without ever leaving the comfort of your own home.

The next best thing

If a picture is worth a thousand words, an experience is worth much more. That’s why nothing can come close to test-driving a car - not the brochure, the salesman’s spiel, the Youtube video or the word of a friend.

The open road beneath you, the wind in your hair and the smell of new leather does it every time.

It’s something the software industry has known for years. In the early days, we called them ‘crippled versions’ (not very clever, nor very politically correct). They worked, but some of the features were ‘disabled’ (another unfortunate term).

But then, the software companies realised that limiting the functionality also limited the experience.

So they then came up with ‘time-bombed’ versions: everything worked, but after a set period, the program did a Mission Impossible - unless, that was, you upgraded to the full version.

Show, don’t tell

Experience beats description every time.

Just look at Bovis and McCarthy & Stone, property developers in the UK. They’ve realised that buying a house is a big move for most people - but particularly for older people, who realise that they probably won’t move again. With so much at stake, they want to get it right.

And what better way to do it than ‘playing house’ for a couple of days?

You can move in and get a feel for the place. Settle down with a cup of tea and watch some TV. Try out the beds. Meet the neighbours. Go for a walk. Anything you like, in fact.

And all without buying. A couple of days later, you know whether it’s the place for you.

Pure genius.

You don’t always have to opt for such a radical solution. There are lots of different tactics you can use to create a ‘try before you buy’ experience by the back door (or at the very least, a side-door):

• Give something away: maybe it’s a low-value product that gives the customer an idea of the quality and finish. Maybe it’s a service (e.g. a day’s consulting) that shows them how you operate.
• Offer a money-back guarantee: they’re not exactly trying before they buy, but they know that if it doesn’t work, or they’re not happy, they can get their money back.
• Include testimonials: often, the fact that somebody else has tried means that they’ll buy.

But ultimately, nothing beats trying the real thing. So don’t be afraid - let them touch it, taste it, feel it, smell it, drive it.

Then they’ll buy it.

Find out more:

• All aboard, with Cathay Pacific’s ‘try before you fly’ experience.
• Make yourself at home with Bovis and McCarthy & Stone.

Need a break?

Of course you do. So put your feet up, forget about your worries, and take a minute to relax.

Or more exactly, 27 minutes and 58 seconds.

That’s how long it’ll take you to watch Tim Brown’s presentation at the Serious Play conference held in Pasadena, California, last May.

Brown is CEO of Ideo, a global design consultancy. In his talk, The powerful link between creativity and play, he makes a compelling case for why all work and no play makes Johnny a dull boy.

Or dull designer, marketer, entrepreneur or just about anything else.

In an entertaining performance (watch out for the bit where he comes under attack from ‘finger blasters’) he asks why we fear the judgement of our peers when children don’t. What happens to us when we open our minds to the many possibilities through ‘exploratory play’.

And how mescaline - the ultimate hippie drug of the psychedelic 60s - actually increased problem-solving abilities and creativity.

From ‘learning by doing’ to ‘thinking with your hands’, he explores some fascinating ideas that may fundamentally change the way you think about work - and play.

Enjoy.

Find out more

• Let yourself go at the Serious Play conference.
• Ideas to change the way you think at ideo.com.
• See life differently: get the low-down on mescaline at Wikipedia.