Firstly another opportunity - if you know anything about carbon trading send me an email HERE as we maybe able to leverage an opening for your extraordinary talents.

Secondly an invitation - we are looking for 5 volunteers to join us for a Free of Charge seminar on our new product LinkedBeyond™. This is one element of our career management programmes available through our other business Career Navigation www.careernavigation.com - it is an internet laboratory that teaches you how to drill into the internet for any kind of research projects, way beyond using conventional search engine tools. It is a life skill you can use for targeting prospects or learning inside information on companies or sectors. It is not teaching you how to hack illegally I should hasten to add! First come first served so email Martin Borland HERE to nab your place on this fascinating seminar which is a half day event in London - exact date TBC but within a month of now.

It's a funny old world - March has been a really good month for us with UK assignments, after a somewhat quieter February. This business has been driven more by our team's tireless prospecting combined with our good reputation and track record, than our relentless direct marketing campaigns.

In the 1930's depression, great ideas sprang out of the need to innovate. Investment in the road system of the USA spurred the automotive industry forward; Du Pont invented synthetic rubber and then nylon; EMI started mass producing records. These were just some of the products that came to define the next 40 years. In the downturn of the 1970's Bill Gates started Microsoft and in many respects, went on the lead the most revolutionary industry of the late 20th century. In recent bulletins I have spoken about the need for us all to repackage ourselves and to make ourselves fit for purpose in a world of changing, new, opportunities. They say the stock market is driven by greed and fear. Maybe we are driven by ambition and hope, only restrained by fear of failure.

Our lives are peppered with expressions we say to ourselves such as 'what if?', 'if only' and 'I wish'. Particularly if times are tough.

As successful Interim Executives you have already posed those questions once when you made the career leap from permanent roles, to the peripatetic life style of irregular and unpredictable employment as an Interim Executive. Whether it was forced circumstances or a voluntary leap of faith, you were bold and made the move.

Over the years research amongst the Interim Executive community shows that few of you would elect to return to the corporate life. As one of our profession's founding fathers in the UK, my old chum and mentor Carl Hague, used to say "Once you have been out on safari, why would you want to go back in the zoo?"

Nevertheless, during the last executive recruitment downturn in 2001, I well remember the pain some of you went through. Great folk I had worked with on several occasions suddenly 'waiting in the wings' for an assignment for months, whilst in other cases people told me they were about to sell their partner's car to keep afloat.

Well if retreating to the permanent payroll does not hold much attraction, or seems an improbable possibility in this market, then brainstorming some of those 'what if?' and 'I wish' type ideas can open up new opportunities. Years ago I heard Bill Gates talk at the Institute of Directors annual conference at the Albert Hall on his vision for the future of computing. The audience were somewhat sceptical about 'on-line auctions' and a host of other blue sky thinking. Most of what we heard that day is now with us.

And all because he asked a question and dared to try.

People with vision create new opportunities, new markets and in the case of Gates virtually a whole new world. It has also inspired others to look for the answers to these perennial questions.

Pattie Maes and her colleagues did just that and what they have created in prototype will, I suspect, be the way we 'compute' and interact with the world in the future. This new technology could make the way we use data now, as outdated as the telex machine (remember them?) seems when compared to sending an email.

And all because they asked a question and dared to try.

We were told offering our head hunting services in Hong Kong was a waste of time - all the big names have been there for years, and the redundancies are rising by the day, especially in the financial services sector. Operating out of London with no permanent office or people in Hong Kong, what hope for us? On just our second visit we have 4 financial sector executive search jobs in hand.

We were told that it would be impossible to do business with Thai owned businesses in Bangkok since they don't understand Interim Management, take many visits to build up trust and wouldn't use foreigners. On just our second visit - and first meetings with the two companies in question - we have 2 Interim Management assignments in hand.

We were told the same limitations would be in place trying to work with Hong Kong Chinese owned businesses - our new client there might beg to differ. And by the way, he is in the building materials sector which anyone 'in their right mind' might care to avoid at this time. Except he is enjoying 20% growth, by offering the right products at the right price in this new world.

Newspaper stories of cars abandoned at Dubai airport could lead you to think that was a part of the world to avoid as well - except we have just picked up work there too, to coincide with the opening of our two offices in Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

And all because we asked a question and dared to try.

Another of Carl Hague's sayings was "You make your own luck in life". Ten years on I am still motivated by his exhortation. I hope you will be too.

Yours sincerely,

David Jensen
Chief Executive