On a stunningly warm day last week, we thought we were well overdue some much-deserved "R&R" and so decamped the office to our nearby cliff-face.

Joined by a couple of "Friends of BL" we abseiled, clambered and fell our way around the beautiful Dorset coast.

Hats off have to go to our .NET guru, Max, who put us all to shame with his mountain goat skills.

If anyone is interested, whole untidy mess is up at http://www.flickr.com/photos/29514779@N08/

Whilst Internet World may not have been worth the effort in terms of what was on show, at least we gained a frisbee as a free gift!

What better way to end the week and also to enjoy our fantastic location!

As planned, three of us did make the lovely journey up the M3 to Earl's Court a couple of weeks back to visit Internet World but, looking back, we're not sure whether it was worth the effort!

Initial impressions were that it was seriously lacking in innovation and more importantly, anyone willing to suggest anything vaguely innovative.

Instead the feel was one of a mighty big moshpit of silky suited salesman, and scantily clad saleswomen! (See Alan Munro's Blog on BrandRepublic to see it wasn't just us surprised at the dresscode -  http://www.brandrepublic.com/blogs/showpost/0fc5d864-359c-4fb2-8172-f41783ebd048/)

It became a standing joke amongst us to feign interest in a product or service with the eager salesman (who clearly expected a likewise "green" client) and then challenge them with a simple, though technical, query. The facial expression went from eager selling to frantic waffle, followed by a suggestion that maybe we emailed the technical department when we got home! 

Max did attend a couple of the CMS seminars but wasn't blown away, instead came away feeling that the "big-boys" in the industry are way over-complicating the issue of Content Management and yet getting away with it because it potentially offers a solution to every possible requirement a client could ever want - regardless of their particular need.

It is apparent that the main providers of enterprise level CMS's are capturing the larger corporate market through heavyweight solutions that blind the client with an offering which appears to be a "complete package", rather than delivering custom systems that meet a need and force suspected unwanted functionality into what is all intents and purposes, an off-the-shelf system. 

The basic modus opperandi of a CMS is an enabling tool for website content management. The bottom line brief is to give the client the ability to keep their fantastically designed and lovingly crafted website up to date without shiny-suited trainers giving days of flipchart orientated training. The less is more idiom is of prime relevance here - keep it clean, keep it easy and make it work.

Of course i'm always going to extol the virtues of our own in house bespoke CMS, bLive but it's been the motto behind that development. It may be in it's nth incarnation and constantly evolving, but it's been designed to be designed, i.e. we want our clients to tell us what they need and bLive will do it.

We won't sell it as a package with a glossy manual, we'll carry on what we do best... delivering a solution to a problem, with the customary flair and technilogical wizardry!

All in all IW2008 wasn't the hit we were expecting or hoping for. Minimal other "real" agencies, nothing we hadn't seen before and not a lot to worry about!

A couple of us (more if we can afford them the luxury of not having to do any real work), are popping up to Earl's Court tomorrow to visit this year's Internet World show.

We seriously considered having a stand this year but instead we're using this as a scoping exercise to see what's what and what our competitors are up to.

As well as all of the free pens(!) we're especially excited at seeing what Web3.0 is going to bring and ways in which CMS's, Social Networking and Back-Office systems are being integrated.

We'll report in full when we're back and the freebee bags are unpacked!

Following our winning of the Eton College contract, we managed to get some press coverage in our industry journal, New Media Age which is always a result!

We got listed as one of the featured news items on their website - we've just got to wait until Thursday to see if we made it into print as well.

We actually had one of the journalists from the magazine give us a bell to congratulate us on the win and find out a little more about the account.

VIEW THE ARTICLE HERE

We're not all work and no play, we do have some chances to enjoy the special location that our offices enjoy - that includes our local hostelries, and, just to show that it really is a little bit different down here in Dorset, check out the colour of our local cider!

Promise that we haven't let our designers play with the image in PhotoShop (apart from to make Ed a little better looking...!)

Well it's been a pretty manic start to our new financial year.

After much deliberation within the office (everyone wanted to get their finger in the pie) we finally decided upon our new corporate identity, and then after much more deliberation, decided upon our new website.

It's a funny thing within our industry in that it's often the agency whose website is in need of an overhaul! We know it's not something that is just us -  some of our "big-boy" friends are the worst culprits, in that they develop cutting edge sites and systems for their clients, but neglect (or rather don't have the time), to keep their own site up to date.

Anyway we're very happy with our new logo and site. It's been a long time since we went through this sort of exercise for ourselves and it was actually quite a fulfilling and redeeming experience. We had found that we'd become too safe and secure in our identity and needed something to freshen us up. 

With new staff, new logo, new website it really was spring cleaning in the extreme!