When handling the camera, Nick proved that 8 pints of lager and 3 bottles of red wine do cancel out 20-plus years of art direction know-how.

This week the IDM and DMA West held a joint seminar in Bristol on creativity in digital marketing. Matt Ramsay and Oli Christie from Inbox Digital and Fraser Howard from EHS Brann Cirencester presented several powerful case studies which covered email marketing, viral games and flash ads. Key learnings were: apply the same principles as you would with offline media (such as focusing on a single-minded proposition); ensure you reflect the attributes of the brand; think of the environment the creative will be seen in; do everything to encourage interaction by the consumer and develop multiple options for providing further information; use data capture to profile customer and then tailor follow-on communications accordingly, for example develop different email newsletters according to demographic type.

We received this note and pic from Chloe having sponsored her in a fundraising walk to raise money for a cancer care centre in Nottingham.

This book by Gene Bedell is called the '3 Steps toYes'. Aimed at managers and staff it's all about how to practice the art of persuasion without resorting to high-pressure sales or feeling that you're compromising your principles.

One of the things he talks about is developing a personal positioning for the specific person in mind that you are looking to persuade. Some call this the elevator pitch and the idea is to sum in a few words the answer to their question: 'what can this person do for me?' The key to this is to be crystal clear in the language you use, don't say things that everybody could say, don't boast and most importantly, put yourself across in terms of the other person's personal or business needs. In other words, be relevant.