I think it's fair to say we are living in more challenging times than we were five years ago. The biggest world recession in our life time. Decreased global demand and the relentless media working 24/7 to scare the hell out of everyone everywhere. But as my cliched one-liner says, that’s the time us tough guys get going. If there’s reduced demand it's got to be about us thinking, working, and living smarter than our competition. If there’s less money going round I/you/we need to make certain we still get our fair share. And in a crazy sort of way this makes me feel that, despite the doom and gloom, what we do everyday is really controlling our destiny. In other words to get a different outcome we have to do something (or maybe everything) differently. In the last four years we (Queensberry) have been turning cartwheels in innovation, efficiency, creativity. There’s not a corner of our business, from customer service to our production and IT systems, that hasn’t been looked at, talked about, argued over, and transformed, and our business is much better off for it. We know there’s no time for navel gazing in this economic climate. In the months after the 2008 crash we rebranded. We also launched Musée. Since then we've got into digital offset printing with Queensberry Press and into the Cloud with Workspace. When they saw Musée somebody said, “Hasn’t anybody told Queensberry there’s a recession on?” It might surprise that person to know, we had one client order a 3-volume set for one wedding. I accept this isn’t your everyday sale but it is validation for our belief that tough times require creative thinking, that not everybody is short of money, and that we need to stand for the best, not the lowest common denominator. Besides, a sale like that pushes your average up quite a lot! If you're feeling like the “stunned possum” in the headlights, and you want to get some innovation going in your studio, please get in touch. We’re happy to talk. Business innovation is what we are really good at. We all live and work in this global photographic community and I'd love you to share your ideas about how we build a community that supports each other. Best, Heather PS The only people who benefit out the media scaring the hell out of us is the media. Let's turn them off and get to work.