Avoid the ‘What am I supposed to do with this?’ face

Let’s start with some numbers.

If the statistics are to be believed, then the average Brit will spend around three hours online shopping while at work in the run-up to Christmas. That is nearly 100 million hours combined. Now let’s add online shopping outside of work. Plus hours spent pounding up and down the high street. And don’t forget specific shopping days: Black Friday is this year predicted to be the first ever £1bn shopping day in the UK. Meanwhile, Cyber Monday is on its tail and expected to equal or surpass last year’s £650m.

So we’re talking about hundreds of millions of hours and hundreds of millions of pounds. And with all that time and money being spent on a single activity, it begs a very specific question:

Why do you still end up unwrapping a pair of reindeer-patterned socks? Or justifying to yourself why giving a gift voucher is acceptable.

The point is, whether it’s socks, vouchers, or a dodgy jumper, if on Christmas morning you open a gift from a well-meaning relative and think, ‘What am I supposed to do with this?’ then you understand how your friendly IT department feels on January 4th when they are flooded with hundreds of different devices received over Christmas and tasked with connecting them securely to the network, configuring access privileges device-by-device.

Why not make it easy for them – and you – this year, and in doing so boost your own productivity and mobility – maybe even your health. Whether you’re buying for yourself or for a loved one, make sure the ‘What am I supposed to do with this?’ moment becomes a thing of Christmas past.

Bring on ‘There’s nothing I can’t do with this.’

Christmas entertainment, New Year productivity

Christmas afternoon. You’re hiding from your relatives. You’re in the spare bedroom with the door closed, a vintage episode of Only Fools and Horses loaded up on your just-opened tablet. You are going to have peace for half an hour. But the kids burst in. They want to play a game. No problem. You load up Candy Crush onto the tablet and start a little competition. Now let’s fast forward a couple of weeks: You are visiting a customer in the New Year and you need to show them a live update on Excel that your colleague just finished back in the office. Same tablet, now running Office 365. You make a few notes directly on the screen with the pen based on your customer’s feedback. Job done.

Back on the train the tablet becomes a laptop and you finish a report and get it sent off. In all these scenarios the Surface Pro 4 you unwrapped on Christmas morning is making everything that little bit easier. And with Windows 10 it slips as effortlessly into your company’s network as it does in your bag.

A healthy start to 2016

We’re back to Christmas morning. Your significant other just unwraps one of the following items: an exercise bike, a home treadmill, a gym membership. And he or she is looking at you with a glare that says, ‘So you’re calling me fat?’

It wasn’t your intention. You were thinking a healthy start to the new year and all that. But think again. What if exercise was actually fun? What if you could measure how well you were doing, set goals, and use a device as an all-round approach to healthier life.

So forget his-and-hers towels. Try his-and-hers Bands – and that way you’ll give and receive something you like. Pretty much the only way to make new years’ resolutions fun, a Band can monitor heart rate, activity and rest periods – even your sleep. So whether you’re running, biking or in the gym, the Band is there with you capturing all that data then presenting it in an easy-to-use manner. Working in sync with your phone, it also lets you access email, texts, GPS and everything else to keep you connected.

From the school run to a cross country run, it’s capturing everything about the life you’re leading and helping you make it that little bit healthier.

And a happy new year…

So no more sitting at your desk during the pre-Christmas shopping season, sandwich in one hand while single-finger typing your address into a check-out page with that cold sweat of wondering whether you’re making the right choice. Buy the right thing – and just to be safe, buy one for yourself too. So on Christmas morning, everyone in your family can be sure to unwrap something they’ll love both on the day, and in the weeks to follow.

Remember: A device isn’t just for Christmas.