I had a think recently about all of the stresses I had placed on my wife in the heyday of my startups. We once took a “vacation” in Spain with Tania’s parents but we were in the midst of an M&A transaction, so the photo on the right is how my wife and her family remember me on that trip.

You know the feeling as a customer when you really, really want to buy something and the person or company that should really, really (in theory) want to sell it to you, seems to make every effort to stop you from buying it. Think of buying just the most simple of things (a jacket, a perfume, a book). Customer service is appalling, product information is non existent, pricing is confusing, there is no stock (or reliable information of when there will be stock)… and you haven’t even seen the real product yet.

How do we approach and create an holistic and systemic design of a business? Here is a story from the book that explores a different way of creating greater value – not only in the the product but in fact through the entire organisation, being more lightweight, sustainable, and innovative.

Three years ago this month I co-founded the marketing firm Seven Hills. I’ve learned a few things. Be completely unreasonable, be ridiculously ambitious, and think big in absolutely everything that you do.

In the last six months financial markets have been in "risk on" mode. Some commentators have dubbed it a "dash for trash". Despite an uncertain economic backdrop risky financial assets have prospered at the expense of safe ones.

In my previous blog I invited you to think about the phenomenal value that an hour of your time can have. At your best, in the right arena, the value of your time can be incredible.

There aren’t many rays of hope to puncture the bleakness this New Year brings. The prospect of austerity grinding on, business confidence at rock bottom and grim, short days punctuated by snow blizzards add to the Dickensian feel to Bloomsbury as I look out of my window onto the UCL campus this January.

In my new book, The Music of Business, acclaimed by Harvey Goldsmith, I'm discussing new business models with Professor Tim Kastelle, Lecturer in Innovation Management for The University of Queensland Business School. Tim spotted a piece of innovation in The Kaiser Chiefs' new album which focuses on the idea of mass personalisation. Before we start, let's see the Chiefs in action:

Ask any successful entrepreneur how they made it to the top and most of them will give you a version of the following: “I surrounded myself with great people and I couldn’t have achieved such success without their hard work and dedication.” This isn’t just paying lip service or saying the right things, it’s the honest truth.

It's hot and the big beasts of the corporate jungle are getting desperate for easy prey. Gathering around the entrepreneurial watering holes, they are hungrily eyeing up one species in particular, the gazelles.