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p style=”text-align: justify”>So we have waved goodbye to the the decade without a name and find ourselves taking the first steps into another block of ten years we haven’t come to a consensus about what to call (the teenies, the tens, the teens?)

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p style=”text-align: justify”>The passing of a year and even more so a decade invariably leads us to muse on the time that has passed, reflect on unrealised hopes and aspirations, and motivates us to resolve to better our existences.

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p style=”text-align: justify”>It doesn’t take much brainpower to recall what I did in the noughties which was little more than 14 hour stints on computers interspersed with business meetings.

As I stood on London’s Embankment to see a resplendent firework display herald in a new decade, just as I had done ten years earlier on the 1st of January 2000, I resolved to be the driver in my life and not the passenger.


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p style=”text-align: justify”>The clock of life is ticking and my unrealised dreams are many. My New Year resolutions are mainly aimed at being more focused. I have vowed, for instance, to not waste much of 2010, as I have done previous years, travelling from one corner of London to the other to help Del Boy entrepreneurs who would always be “too busy” to assist me or my colleagues in return (though funnily enough they always seem to find time to hang out in pubs for hours on end).

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p style=”text-align: justify”>I’ve discovered 90% of the meetings I’m called into end up producing zero ROI; they will consist, for example, of a bunch of relative newbies – whose ‘successes’ on the internet consist of building a voucher code site with an Alexa ranking of 16.3 zillion – discussing launching a “unique” web tool/network/search engine which will never get off the ground because the blokes end up blowing whatever venture capital they may have had within six months on fat cat salaries for themselves, swish offices and, of course, the must-have Official Launch Party of Tin Tin Media.

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p style=”text-align: justify”>So how would I rate my personal performance in the noughties? I can’t say anything more than a zero out of ten; if I’m feeling a bit gentler on myself, perhaps a zero point one. Anybody who knows me knows I am my fiercest critic, but even putting that aside, I am aware I have not taken the revenue-generating opportunities the web has presented, or when I did decide to stride down particular alley ways they usually ended up being dead-ends. I could easily blame the scores of people who sold me bagfuls of nonsense, but the fault lies exclusively with myself because of my gullibility in believing them.

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p style=”text-align: justify”>Anyhow, the one thing the school of hard-knocks has done is taught me to be a lot savvier, and from 2007 to 2009 Azam Marketing began to realise the potential it should have done a decade earlier from 1997 to 1999. Our agency doubled in size in 2009 and, after a year of hard work on new initiatives, I am extremely excited about the plans coming to fruition in 2010 and, in the third decade our business has existed in, Godwillingly enabling us to realise our true potential.

Related:   Queen Elizabeth II: A Message of Condolence

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p style=”text-align: justify”>On behalf of myself and all my colleagues at Azam I wish each and every one of you a happy, healthy and prosperous 2010!

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p style=”text-align: justify”>What are your resolutions for the new year and decade? Leave a comment below.



Related blog post: 2008 New Year Message.