The best gadgets don't need batteries

Gadgets, gadgets, gadgets. Everyone wants to know about the latest cool product that they can give to their clients. What does it do? How does it work? How will it enrich my otherwise mundane existence?

We marvel at the latest toys to find their way over from the Far East. USB sticks with fingerprint identification, travel mugs that stir the drinks for us, even T Shirts with a full colour print that react to sunlight. This stuff is cool. This stuff is now. This stuff is........completely unnecessary.

Seriously. A mug that stirs your drink for you? Any archaeologist working on any dig site will invariably find some sort of spoon - they've been around for thousands of years. OK, I know, sometimes you can't find a spoon, but surely that's going to be at roughly the same time you also forget to bring your self stirring mug.

A fingerprint to open my USB stick? Come on. If my stick gets nicked then it was my own stupid fault for leaving it in a vulnerable position, and if any of the files are truly sensitive, I'll whack a password on them. And since when did anyone with half a brain not back up their most sensitive data anyway?

As for the T Shirt....well actually, they are rather cool, so feel free to order a sample.

People come over to our stand at trade shows because they think we are the corporate equivalent of The Gadget Shop. We're not. Sure we've got some cool toys, but my biggest selling item last year was a lanyard. Yep. A lanyard. A shoelace that you wear around your neck. That's all it does and I sold over a million of them.

Last week I met with a company who were looking for something cool and exciting. We went through what it is they did and how they communicated with their customers and it turned out that the very best thing that they could use was actually a notebook. Not a cool laptop - I'm talking about a real book with paper in it - real cutting edge stuff. Printed in an effective way, this notebook would become a standard tool amongst all of their clients and potential new customers. A clock that runs on fairy dust just won't do that.

Any gadget lover will confess to the fact that he or she (oh come on, it's he) has at least one or two items in a cupboard which have them wonder why the hell they ever thought that it would be a good idea. Old games consoles, Breville sandwich toasters, universal remote controls the size of Bristol (bought in order to give us more space), all of them now gathering dust but holding too much sentimental value to find their way into the nearest skip.

So if you think that giving a gadget is the right way to go, think again. I'm not saying that it isn't right - some gadgets really will boost sales for you, but why not take a moment to think about what your customers actually need as opposed to what they might really like for five minutes.

Right, I'm off to watch a Blu Ray movie on my 50" LCD TV whilst I sit in my luxury massage chair drinking a beer from the built in fridge in the arm rest. OK, you got me, it's a good book and a Pot Noodle - but at least I'll stir it myself.