My tip for this month is a little different (and maybe unexpected): “If you’ve got it, flaunt it!”. Now while some of you no doubt come up with vulgar ideas on what I might mean by that I suppose I should at least tenuously link this to IT support in some way. (Might decrease my heavy work load after all!)

Please listen out for colleagues nearby struggling with IT problems. If you’ve got an idea of how you might be able to help, then shout out before they hit the PG speed dial. (Ultimately it will save them time as well rather than having to waiting to get hold of me.)

Right. So back to what I actually intended by my tip for this month. I’m sure you’ll be familiar with the concept of working to your strengths but more than that I’m talking about using your creative abilities. I wait in eager anticipation for the Encore Stars in their Eyes this weekend to see some of our staff’s musical and theatrical talents. After all there’s something about publically demonstrating an ability that you are genuinely good at.

Which leads me on to my possibly controversial point. I have nothing against graffiti… What I really hate is bad graffiti – a scrawled “tag” (or “nickname” to those of us a little distant from street culture) on a wall near a train station. But good graffiti – showing effort, complexity and a little imagination – at the right place and time I can admire that.

The difficulty in this advice is knowing the difference between good graffiti and bad graffiti, a talented singer and an awful singer. So as an important follow on from “if you’ve got it, flaunt it” I would also add: make sure you keep honest people around you who will tell you when you have not got it!

Every time I watch X Factor, I look at some of the early auditionees and ask myself, “Why did their friends tell them they could sing?!”. So before you follow my advice make sure you’ve got some genuine friends around you who aren’t afraid to tell you when you’re about to do something stupid.

So what practically does this mean? I think I’m going to leave this to your imaginations, other than to say I would love to see more people on the streets of Nottingham singing beautifully along to their iPods and maybe even throwing in the occasional dance move too.

Happy flaunting!