Try as I might, I can't find a still of the T-mobile commercial, so you'll just have to watch it here at the dedicated You-Tube section they've set up for their "Life's for Sharing." campaign.

Is it fun, or is it just hype? I don't care.... I just wish I'd been there.   

'Tork & Grunt's Guide to Effective Negotiations' gets a glowing review in the January issue of Management Today. The current issue of the UK's leading management magazine reviews three new books on negotiations and praises our cavemen's tale as 'Best of its kind.' At last, someone has read the book and really got the message, unlike the lukewarm response of the UK book-selling fraternity whose inability to grasp the concept has meant virtually no in-store display and promotion. To quote the heart-warming reviewer: 'If the idea of taking advice from cartoon men wearing animal skins seems unusual, be reassured that it works - and very well too.'
My proactive response to the retail trade since before Christmas has been to make sure that whenever I see a W H Smith or Waterstone's shop I pop in and rearrange the business shelves so that my books are both face-out to the customers.

I'm probably just too impatient, and should take heart from the fact that the MT review has rocketed my book into the Amazon UK top ten on negotiation. Meanwhile 'Tork & Grunt's Guide to Great Presentations' just makes it into the top 50 in its category leaving me fuming at the some of the titles that rank higher. It's not a matter of jealousy, it's the knowledge that I did read these other titles in the course of my research and I know that they - for the most part - churn out old theories that have long since been superseded.

However, I can't say this without praising two of the top ten which both enjoy well-deserved success. These are Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds and Slideology by Nancy Duarte. They are both mainly focused on the style and appearance of your presentation, and you won't find anything out there to compare with these excellent books. My own genre is to aim for a broader appeal, and hopefully Management Today will - in time - review Tork & Grunt's Guide to Great Presentations and get more copies out there and talked about.

It's Friday and it's the day after Christmas and the day before the weekend. Most shops are open with all the nervous mood of a fire-sale after the credit-crunch hit pre-Christmas spending, stemming cash-flow and squeezing profits. My local department store launched its winter sale in several departments back on December 15th and the big retailers launched their January Sales on the internet yesterday - on Christmas Day.

If you're not out buying stuff then there's another weekend coming up, so there'll be entertaining and parties a-plenty. Many businesses across Britain will stay closed right through next week, cushioning the further hang-overs of New Year, and building up to traffic chaos on the following weekend as thousands return home to go back to work on Monday 5th. Or not. How many jobs will there be to return to? How many companies will be counting the cost and taking the difficult decisions?

Is there anyone out there who can make sense of this crazy world we're living in? Businesses are collapsing because nobody's spending and nobody's spending because businesses are collapsing. The banks are paying next to nothing to borrow money centrally and between each other, but they're not lending so nobody can buy or sell their home. Is it capitalism that's failing society, or society that's failing capitalism? How can we live the utopian egalitarian dream when a greedy few can seriously damage all the economies of the world in a matter of weeks?

Then there's global warming and the irony of well-meaning pleas not to leave the TV or computer in standby mode, not to fill the car right up with petrol because that reduces fuel efficiency, and not to boil a full kettle if you only need a cupful. All very worthy, I'm sure, but did anyone dare to suggest that Christmas decorations might be a profligate extravagance? One person did, but it does sound something of a kill-joy voice in the wilderness.

So where next? My pre-resolution prediction is that the only choice we have if we are to maintain our sanity and move forward is by adopting the powerful mixture of creativity blended with optimism. The next decade is going to be very different from the Noughties. We'll be less focused on quantity and more concerned about quality in many aspects of our lives, and in all areas of consumption. There will be a hunger for values, because so many have been lost since the global egotism that was born in the 80's. The alternative is the descent into a totally self-centred material jingoism that defies any concept of humanist values.

09 must be radical. Or else...