Jars of Sheer Luxury …

No sooner, it seems, are the Christmas leftovers swept from the table than our minds turn once again to food.

For this time of year is marmalade time.

When it’s time to preserve those beautifully gnarled and bitter little brutes from Seville into the most delicious accompaniment to the breakfast table.

The Spanish who grow the oranges and the British who devised the recipe have between them surely managed to make one of the best preserves in the world.

I’ve been making marmalade for a long time and without realising it, bad habits have crept in, and standards have slipped.

So, it was time to go back to the beginning, brush up on the basics and get reacquainted with what it takes to make really great marmalade.

It was no surprise to find that my technique had slipped, corners cut, and important elements either discarded or forgotten.

But with a few tweaks, I was back on track with the perfect set and a year’s worth of beautiful breakfast bliss to look forward to.

And isn’t this like so much of our business processes?

Once successful marketing collateral that has been tweaked and mucked about over time suddenly doesn’t seem so great anymore.

So, we dump it and start the hunt for the next silver bullet.

When in truth, sometimes all we need to do is to go back to first principles and we could have a purring Rolls Royce of a tool in our marketing arsenal.

Food for thought, if you’ll excuse the dreadful pun.

Until next time.

Alec