No I am not talking about advertising or SPAM, which may be a surprise to most with the heading. It is 2007 and with it comes a collection of messages from friends and family. It is a time for celebration and to look ahead and get excited for what might be in the next year, but let us start with a commitment to get more personal for those seeking a New Years resolution!

With mobile phones and gaming consoles such as the Xbox 360, it is far too simple just to select a bunch of people on your list and send them all an identical message saying something along the lines of ‘Happy New Year’. Gone is the need to think about what you are going to say and instead you get as much excitement as the inside of most printed Christmas Cards. The worst culprits though are those who make it so obvious stating in their message ‘Happy New Year to all of you’.

Even with all the kindest intention behind a mass message, with other people doing it as well you just end up with a flood of almost identical communications to the point where the delete option becomes your new friend.

Without sounding like a Scrooge here, I am not saying that anyone who sends these messages is somehow not caring or is looking for a cheap spirited route to spread the word, but instead that technology is taking away the personalisation you get from sending a message individually to a person as it simply is too easy to select a mass of people in a contact list and in 2 minutes the job is done.

On QVC, there are many craft items appearing where you can design your own cards and at first I thought who in their right mind would have the time to make them all, but now I get it completely! We have through crafts gained that personal touch again where so much love and attention has gone into every fold, every detail and every scribble of writing, but don’t worry we don’t all need to start getting all arty and creative to save our souls…

If you want to send a message to everyone at a special time of the year such as Christmas or the New Year with added sparkle, let us all (including me) make an effort to put a little message of personalisation into the presentation, which will warm even the coldest of hearts.