Vanessa Vallely of We Are The City, blogs on Networking by Design

So if I told you you could obtain the skills that would enable you to develop better career opportunities, generate new business, develop a network of alliances, build partnerships and contacts, make departments talk to each other and be more effective, would you believe me ? If I said that you were able to tap into crossing-selling opportunities, gain market information, set up a business and make a success out of it, alongside improving your own self-marketing skills would you think I was mad? If I told you that all of this was at your fingertips, and all you needed to do was find a little bit of confidence and a small amount of time, would you think I was mad. The skill I am referring too is the ability to network – once you discover the benefits, you will soon find it is one of the most important tools in your business armory.

Networking is often something individuals find especially hard to do and worse still, people don’t realize the benefits it reaps. I hear all to often, so what’s the point, it's all about chewing the fat and having drinks with people you don’t really know – much better to get out there, be excellent at your job, invent a new product, work ridiculous hours and deliver stuff, right ? – well, let me challenge that.

Unfortunately, building a successful career or business is as much about who you know (and who knows you) as it is about doing a good job or selling a good product. If some of you are horrified by the thought of Networking, let’s park the actual word for a bit, and think of it more the “art of career/business development” or “developing key relationships”.

The “art” itself is nothing more than making the effort to go to event that’s right for you or your business and connecting with new people. It is also a fantastic way of keeping your future customers/colleagues or peers informed of what you do, what you are good at and above all how you can help them. It is the cheapest form of PR and bear in mind, no one will ever sell you or your business like you do.

A question I get asked frequently is is it OK to go to events and just hand out business cards to all and sundry. In the right context, handing out your business card is absolutely the right thing to do. What you need to consider is when NOT to do it. In short never hand out your card if you haven’t established a positive/good connection between you and the other people in the group (or the person you are speaking to). Otherwise you might be seen as superficial, pushy, sales-like etc. What you MUST avoid is leaving the wrong impression with people. If you haven’t connected with them we can almost guarantee where your card and brand and reputation will end up… in the bin.

People often ask if there is a case for business networking? My answer is if you want to open career doors, gain opportunities to develop personal skills, extend your personal resources, gain industry knowledge, monitor competitor activity, influence key people, bring in new business, find business partners or new employees, demonstrate abilities, test out ideas and skills, exchange best practice and above all raise your profile, then the answer is Yes. Alternatively, you could always just stay indoors and perhaps miss the opportunity to meet the exact person who will move you, your career or your business forward. As my grandmother always told me, boats come in for the lucky few, for the rest of us, we have to swim out to them !

Vanessa Vallely is a recognized expert in person-to-person business networking, online branding and a sought after motivational speaker. She is regarded as one of the most well networked women in and out of the City and is passionate about sharing her know-how and experiences with others.

There are hundreds of networking events across the London and the UK, we feature a number of these on www.wearethecity.com. If you wish to contact Vanessa, please email Enquries@wearethecity.com or visit www.vanessavallely.com

Ash J. Lipkin, Editor-in-Chief of The Arbuturian; on the Information Age

I have a terrible memory. We’re talking both short term and long term memory recall. I once forgot where I’d put my glasses and spent ten minutes searching for them, only to glance in the mirror to see that I was wearing them. In the days before BlackBerrys and iPhones and email calendars, I would use post-it notes as memory aids (“You are wearing your glasses”), and I must apologise now because I am probably solely responsible for the devastation of large areas of rainforest due to my incessant note writing (I’m aware that a lot of paper in this country nowadays is FSC regulated and doesn’t come from rainforests, but humour me).

Yet even this didn’t solve the problem, as I would have several notes stuck strategically around my desk, sometimes a few notes layered on top of each other or arranged into the shape of a smiley face or a small elephant, depending on how creative I was feeling at the time, and occasionally a note would come unstuck and slip down behind the desk, only for me to find it a few weeks later and realise that I had forgotten to wish a friend happy birthday, or to collect some dry cleaning, or to board a plane.

Seeing as it’s the 21^st century and all that jazz, and I like to think of myself as a thoroughly contemporary chap with all the latest modcons such as electric lighting and a high-voltage kettle and whatnot, the post-it note has now been replaced with my BlackBerry calendar. This is an extension of my brain, and it contains not only all of my meetings and social arrangements, but also smaller mundane reminders such as when to buy some more milk, or to make a reservation at a restaurant, or to board a plane.

I soon realised that if I ever lost my BlackBerry, my entire life would come to a standstill, so I decided to sync the BlackBerry with my email calendar to prevent this; and also to avoid the reoccurrence of a situation whereby I’d arranged to interview a rather notable celebrity but I had only made a note of this in my email calendar, and yes, you guessed it, I wasn’t at my desk that day and because the note wasn’t in my Blackberry too, I stood him up. I have since been blacklisted from most A-list interview opportunities, though I can’t say that my life is any worse because of it.

But now we have a new problem, or rather, a new irritation: the bombardment of information. I will be sitting peacefully at my desk, sipping a cup of coffee and staring at the wall, wondering if I should do some work or perhaps pop out to Selfridges for a spot of important retail therapy, when all of a sudden my BlackBerry will start beeping away, reminding me to board a plane in ten minutes, and no sooner have I silenced the blasted thing will my email calendar start shouting the same information at me. I think you’ll agree this is hardly conducive for peaceful contemplation on a busy working day!

Granted, I now miss fewer plane flights, but my stress levels are probably much higher than they were in the tranquil days of rainforest devastation. So where am I going with all of this? I’ve forgotten…Oh yes, my BlackBerry tells me that I was supposed to be writing about information overload in the technology age. Or technology overload in the information age…

So, it seems that with all these varied forms of communication – email, text, social media, paper aeroplanes with notes written on them (ah yes, another way that I’ve helped to decimate the green areas of the globe) - we are constantly assailed with a myriad of information, and our feeble brains are struggling to store it all. So we rely on those very same technological advancements as extensions of our brains, as ‘digital memory’, if you like, to help manage our increasingly busy and complex lives which are becoming so reliant on gadgets and ‘connectivity’. Technology, and the internet in particular, allows us to access a wealth of information and learning opportunities, as well as increasing the size of our social networks, our business reach and the ways in which we can customise and extend our lives, our homes, our bodies and our minds. It’s all rather dizzying.

But what would happen if we unplugged it all? What would happen if I suddenly flipped a switch and all of your iPhones and iPads and computers suddenly vanished in a puff of smoke? Besides the fact that the insurance industry would collapse, and you’d all be pretty upset with me, and I suppose the stock markets would cease to exist and the electricity grid would go kaput and global communication would be put back into the Dark Ages…actually nothing would happen. We’d all still be here, with food and shelter and water, and if you’ve watched enough episodes of Ray Mears or Bear Grylls, you might have an idea how to build yourself a fire too. The world would be silent, and we’d simply exist, in harmony with nature and the rainforests that are disappearing like those post-it notes down the back of my desk. We’d huddle around the cosy fires in our back gardens, marvelling at the pitch black London sky, able to look up and see the stars for once, and we’d turn to each other, to our friends and loved ones, and we’d say, “Ah, now I get it…this is what life is really about.”

Now, where did I put my glasses…?

Ash J. Lipkin is Editor-in-Chief of The Arbuturian, a magazine for the foodie, the stylish, the explorer, the artistic, the culturist, and the idler: www.arbuturian.com

Elinor Olisa of www.degreeart.com on Hockney's current show The Bigger Picture

The excitement surrounding Hockney's 'Bigger Picture' solo show extravaganza is reaching fever pitch as art critics from around the world release their reviews following their sneak peek at this undoubtedly landmark exhibition.

It is highly amusing to me, as a curator of an online gallery, that I will be more likely to view this must see exhibition on a computer screen than on the walls of the Royal Academy as its almost impossible to get through on the ticket hotlines.

I bet Hockney would approve of people looking at his work online as he often refers to his fascination with technology. Like so many of us today, Hockney used his iPad to plan and prepare for his big presentation.

Hockney sketched 'The Arrival of Spring, East Yorkshire' on his Apple tablet. This combined with his employment of cameras, mounted on Jeeps Google Earth style, to capture the Yorkshire landscape’s changing seasons, has cemented him as a pioneer of our digital era. (You can view the result of his ground breaking 'multipartite' film created for the BBC's Country File program, here).

The paintings I have glimpsed online and in print achieve an admirable feat for UK tourism giving you a yearning to visit Yorkshire. Hockney’s frequent referral to his admiration of Post-Impressionist painter Van Gogh, explains much of his life’s ambition to encapsulate a snapshot of time - be it LA or Bridlington - on his canvases by layering more than just imagery onto the surfaces resulting in truly tangible viewing experience for the viewer.

I have been trying to put my finger on what it is that makes Hockney, a man in his 70s, so attractive to so many and such an inspiration to the emerging artists I work with. I wonder if it is his ability to get us to pay greater attention to the world around us using traditional techniques effortlessly and unquestioningly combined with the latest technology - a feat that should leave many a tech entrepreneur quaking in their boots. After seeing his work you are left compelled to examine and appreciate your own 3D landscapes through Hockney tinted glasses.

The fundamental consequence of this exhibition for me personally is a combination of the fact he makes it OK for artists to use technology to enhance their practice and the eternal legitimacy it has provided for the enjoyment and benefits achievable from viewing fine art online. This has been achieved by the exhibition of his on-pad sketched on multiple iPad screens.

I believe that this exhibition will be the artist's most successful ever not only because of the huge appetite our nation has developed for blockbuster exhibitions or because he is a proper artist painting proper landscapes en plein air (outside) but because he captures and preserves moments of our times successfully merging techniques of old with those of right now.

I am ending this review with sneaky hand of crossed fingers behind my back praying that I manage to reserve my tickets (perhaps I'll abandon the phone and try booking online this time) and also thinking - gosh - a good old fashioned artist using an iPad - Brilliant!

Some examples of Hockney-inspired Degree artist’s work:

From Eggerdon Hill

By Lachlan Goudie

Bart's Treehouse
by Rob Reed

The Great Escape
by Hannah Lewis Davies

www.degreeart.com is an innovative company selling, renting and commissioning the finest art work created by the students and recent graduates emerging from the most prestigious art establishments.

Guest blogger: Felice Hardy of welove2ski ... on snow

Travel writing is my business but skiing was where it all began. I first put on a pair skis in Switzerland at the age of four and gradually became so hooked that I later found I had to make my living out of it.

The first time I fell in love was in Obergurgl in Austria. I was seven years old and his name was Walter. He was my ski instructor and seemed ancient at 25. My heart broke when I had to fly home without him. Next year I was back again, but by then Walter had moved on to Squaw Valley in California. Another instructor, Pepi, swiftly replaced him in my affections.

And my heart is still in skiing today. I have been to hundreds of resorts – from well-known destinations in Austria and France to lesser-known villages in Japan and Chile. I have skied fresh deep powder in winter and on sunny glaciers in summer, and I am never bored.

It’s the reason why I enjoy my job as co-editor of the ski information website welove2ski.com. Every day is different and every skiing year varies enormously. No more so than this season, which started in late November without a flake of the white stuff. “Snow drought!” The newspapers yelled. But they were wrong.

Within a week the skies dumped bucketfuls of snow on the worryingly brown Alps. By Christmas more snow had fallen in France’s Three Valleys than during the whole of last season.

At other resorts across the Alps similar records were broken – and still the snow continues to fall. High resorts such as St Anton, Zermatt and Val d’Isère have been cut off from civilization for days at a time; even if there wasn’t a drop more snow all season they’d still have enough to last until April.

It’s the best start to a European winter in a generation – maybe two generation –  and a huge boost to the British ski industry in these hard times. For a decade, global warming experts have spouted gloom and doom. But the storms in early January have made a travesty of it.

It can all be viewed on my website, which has some of the most accurate snow and weather maps on the internet. They're produced exclusively for us by the Swiss forecasting service meteoblue, and are based on cutting-edge NASA technology. It's complex stuff that allows us to make precise predictions, and we run two forecasts daily.

But welove2ski isn’t just about weather forecasts. ‘No bull no bias’ is our motto. It’s a specialist website loaded with independent information compiled by acknowledged experts for all things in skiing and snowboarding. There are detailed reports on over 100 ski resorts, equipment and fashion, fitness, ski news and competitions. All of it is a vital tool to help people enjoy what is surely shaping up to be the best Alpine ski season ever.

Felice Hardy is editor of www.welove2ski.com, an independent guide to skiing and ski holidays.

Guest Blogger: Susie Pearl, writer, coach and mentor, talks about the promises of a new year

Well, hello there 2012. Are we going to be friends?

I’m not really a big fan of Christmas. It’s lovely to soak up a sense of ‘good cheer’ but in general it often ends up feeling more stressful and hectic rather than full of peace and glad tidings.

CHANGE AND TRANSITION

For me, it’s the bringing in of the New Year that lights up my imagination. I love the change and a sense of transition into the new. 2012 is tipped as a powerful year of planetary shifts and has been predicted by the mystics to be the year when change kicks in and major transitions take place. Let’s see what unfolds...

This brand new year feels full of promise. A sense of optimism sweeps like a new broom. It’s a new blank canvas where all mistakes and regrets of the year gone by can be swept away under the carpet with a good kick and we can press the ‘reset’ button to start afresh and begin over again, with new rules and new balls in the life game.

Whether that’s true or just imagined, it doesn’t really matter. What I do believe is that this year will be a time of major transition for the planet. There will be some very big changes where we’ll all have to look at things differently. The way we live, how we consume, the way we think and the way we handle the planet’s resources. We are going to have to face some big questions and come up with some answers fast, in order to cope with some of the effects we are seeing in our bio-sphere, culture, banking, economic systems and food chains.

Some friends and I were talking on New Years Eve about what we would do if knew that we were only going to be around for a short time. A lively debate followed with some common themes. All involved us slowing down, taking time out, doing more simple activities, living more from the heart and being more attentive to those we love.

DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY

Here’s a list of the top 10 things that people said that they would do differently if they lived life over again:

1. Spend more time with friends and family, and spend a lot less time worrying about things we had little control over.

2. To realise that happiness is within us and is a choice. We can choose to be happy whatever is going on around us. To feel happy ever day and to make a point of living life this way.

3. To take time out regularly to really talk, listen, engage and laugh out loud.

4. Realise that the world doesn’t stop if we stop working. To work less and live more.

5. Take time out to tell others how much we love them. To express our gratitude for the good things and boost our appreciation of the simple natural things in life that make life so good. To slow down and appreciate it all.

6. To smile more, laugh at ourselves and drop the inner critic.

7. Get healthier and look after our bodies – doing some physical activity every day with enjoyment and to eat fresh uplifting food.

8. Take a walk in nature each day and breathe in the air. To notice the incredible beauty of nature. Reduce the days spent indoors staring at computer screens.

9. Be kinder to ourselves, forgive others' mistakes, and make an effort to build stronger communities with kindness being a central part of the infrastructure.

10. To live a bigger life where we step out of the safety and the sameness of our daily lives and head for some big new adventures and take a few risks to experience more in this vast world.

Maybe this is the year for just one simple resolution: to cut out the boring bits, get happier and cram in a lot more fun. That’s my plan for the year. How about you?

Happy 2012

Susie Pearl is a writer, coach and mentor to successful entrepreneurs, musicians, actors, artists and creative people around the world. She ran her own international celebrity brand PR agency and a personal enhancement training business with Paul McKenna and NLP founder, Dr Richard Bandler. She now runs seminars, courses and personal training in her unique reality creation system.

Instructions for Happiness and Success by Susie PearL (Quadrille, £12.99) is published on 5th January 2012.

For more information, visit www.happinessandsuccess.org

Guest Blogger: Sarah Beeny, founder of Tepilo.com asks if now is the right time to be putting your home on the market?

Traditionally there are busier and quieter times of the year for house selling. These are based on what much of the population is doing. December is quieter as everyone builds up to Christmas but the market tends to pick up in the New Year - equally August tends to be quiet. However in these more uncertain times, I personally recommend that you don't wait, as despite what you endlessly read, the truth is nobody has any idea what is actually going to happen in the market. If now is a good time in your life to sell, sell now, as you never know, the market may have moved down if you wait.

There are many random statistics about how many seconds it takes us to make up our minds about a person or place, but the underlying truth is that buyers decide whether they like a property very quickly indeed. So, without doubt, the first impressions of a house are very important. I believe that the way a house looks from the front is one of the most valuable selling tools around. What you don't want to do is to put off buyers before they actually reach the front door.

Fifty years ago, city society was very different from today; people took pride in washing their steps, polishing their brass letterboxes, even scrubbing their bit of pavement. Nowadays, though, it tends to only be the inside of our homes that we lavish ‘tlc' on, abandoning the space beyond the front door as if it didn't exist. Even if it's not littered with bits of car engine, crisp packets or drink cans, it generally doesn't match up to the sparkling interiors within.

It need not take a great deal of money to make the front look cared for. Just picking the litter up is a start. Follow that with a lick of paint and bit of weeding and planting. If you have a communal front door, whether you're trying to sell or not, my theory is that it is often easier to scrub the common parts yourself than to argue with whoever's turn it is.

Of course, you can give a house a complete façade lift, changing the front door and windows, replacing dilapidated drainpipes and gutters, or even adding cladding. It's pricey, but it can often add substantial value to a plain or uninteresting property in a sought-after location. But whatever you do, remember the outside of a property remains a reflection of the inside. If you're selling, make sure it looks smart. The front of a house is a statement to the world about how you live.

Here are my top things to do to your home before putting it on the market

CRUCIAL STEPS TO MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR PROPERTY

* Clean the windows - inside and out.

* Clean the whole house - if you smoke, stop smoking inside and clean all ashtrays - if you have pets, wash their beds. Pet and cigarette odour are the two smells that come up most often in ‘put off' smells list.

* Look at your kitchen and bathroom from an outsider's point of view - if they are really manky, do something about it - often it only requires bleaching the grout and cutting out and re siliconing - get in behind the basin and loo and get scrubbing there, too.

* Deal with outside - start on the street - what do you see - potential viewers will stand and pause just there too and it's their first impression.

* Don't argue with neighbours about who is going to do what - check if they don't mind and get on and clean it up yourself.

* De-clutter - as if you haven't heard it before, but use this as the perfect moment to move the piles of stuff you don't use to a charity shop - if you do a good clear out in one go, you will be better about getting what you don't need to a suitable recycling unit or charity shop where someone might actually use your silly unwanted nonsense. You are then able to clear surfaces - this will give a much greater sense of space and almost more importantly, less of the feeling that the house is rather hard work to live in.

* Outside space - however small, in fact even more importantly if it's small - outside space is a real luxury and one that should be cherished, especially in an urban setting.

* Give it a clean - get a few cheapie pot plants and look out for an inexpensive table and chairs to show you can use the space.

* Small rooms - like small gardens it's rather more important to dress small rooms well, otherwise people may not be able to really envisage how the room could work.

* Try to avoid putting things just inside the door of a room - you ideally want to be able to get inside a room before you trip over something.

Tepilo.com enables buyers to sell or let their home with no charges or commission.

Guest Blogger: Alison Cork, home expert, writer and broadcaster, on her Christmas at home.

Categorically, Christmas has to be my favourite time of year. On the one hand , I genuinely do find it a time for reflection and almost meditation. But on another level, it’s all about noise and happy activity.

I’m a sucker for ritual, and regardless of faith, I think Christmas presents a fabulous opportunity to be with family, take time out, and indulge in some time honoured traditions.

When it comes to decorations, I always choose a theme – this year, in the sitting room at least, it’s Decadence! I am going for the rich pinks, purples and turquoises of the orient, and as far as the tree is concerned, the more decoration the better. Minimalism is OUT.

I am particularly fond of peacocks, and have seen some stunning and really inexpensive peacock inspired decorations at Wilkinson, Matalan, House of Fraser, Angel At My Table and others. One thing I saw at Fortnum and Mason was a bejewelled peacock tree topper – cheap it was not, but I am lusting after it something rotten. Retailers really seem to have pushed the boat out this year –take a look at Tesco and Sainsburys too.

In the dining room I’m going for a White Ice theme, and will be hanging a myriad of white baubles from the central chandelier. Over the mirrors I’m going for the silver eucalyptus wreaths from B&Q! A completely white and silver table with my silvered fruit centre piece and walnut place name holders will finish it off nicely.

At which point my mind turns to food. I think this year it’s going to be very trad, with a turkey and trimmings. Boxing Day will be beef and Christmas Eve some sort of salmon and prawn dish. I have a fantastic recipe for trifle, and on the drinks front, its Gluwein (mulled wine) and Lidl champagne for me – it beat all the other supermarkets on taste (according to Which magazine) and costs half the price. For festive cakes and chocolates, you can’t beat the selection at Aldi and Lidl.

In terms of traditions, we have a bit of a hotchpotch. My mother is German, so we always have a special dinner on Christmas Eve, and indeed, as a child that was when we opened our presents. We also celebrate Hannukah, which begins on the 21st December this year. Then there are presents on Christmas Day. So basically, we start on Dec 21st and keep going until New Year – it’s never quiet in our house!

Finally, my preparations would not be complete without involving Henry, our six foot bronze stag who lives in the front garden. Henry gets his own tree and looks for all the world as if he is just stepping out of the Scottish woodland. Passers by love it and so do we. Christmas really is my favourite time of year.

Find some more great Christmas tips and tricks from Alison on AlisonCork.com. Find home and garden bargains at HomesandBargains.co.uk and recommended and vetted tradespeople at ProblemSolved.co.uk