suganspice’s Neighborhood

You know for retail in Hong Kong, Xmas is huge and we spent a lot of time and energy planning for its arrival and departure.  In the past month, I watched almost daily this Treemap visually identifying category composition, which products move and how they perform.  In this particular interpretation which I hided confidential information, you can imagine the grids are product categories, the size of the rectangles are sales, height of them are quantity sold, while colors are margin.  Don't you think it is highly effective to spot out anomalies or patterns?  The best thing about Treemapping is that I can see individual product performance in relation to the whole picture of the department.

Stationery Treemap Xmas 2009

I've been using Treemapping for years and eventually settled on a German made Treemap software by Macrofocus.  They have constant updates to enhance features and import excel files almost instantly.  It has been a great tool for me for the past few years and I feel thankful for such great software development.

If you don't know what Treemap is, check out my previous post "A Visual Person's Links", Treemapping wikipedia or find out some of the treemap images from Google to get a glimpse or to start with.

We used to sell larger versions of these beautiful paper storage boxes from PLUS, the series is called Living Post which is very good for organizing your home and work desktop.  This year they released a smaller version which is also cheaper at about HK$98 per piece.  Instantly they became our top sellers in Xmas.

PLUS Living Post Storage Boxes

Most people have their stationery stuffed in a drawer without classification and eventually a lot of them are not used on regular basis, they are just lying there to be thrown away one day.  The problem is, like most of your other stuffs, that without organization, things are not being used to their potential and this is such a waste.

So instead of putting stuffs in drawers, Living Post offers to have your gears accessible on your desktop.  Yes you have to create a space for such storage boxes but the payback is guaranteed.  You make things beautiful so that they become useful.

PLUS Living Post Storage Boxes

I now use a square orange box to store clips, craft related stuffs such as MT masking tapes, leather tools.  The large drawer is just the right size for postcard or 4x6 photos, a calculator, Field Notes and Moleskine pocket size notebook fit perfectly well inside.  My other narrow black box is used for photo related stuffs such as shutter release, 35mm film canisters, tapes, etc.  It also serve as a place to put miscellaneous or temporary stuffs.

PLUS Living Post Storage Boxes

The Living Post drawers are tiny but enough.  If you are not a stationery freak, chances are you will find it useful in your own ways.  Say for storing daily cosmetic stuffs, for a dedicated place to store all your keys and cables, etc.

PLUS Living Post Storage Boxes

I wish they have a version with wood pattern which fits perfectly with my desktop theme at home.

christmas hangings, originally uploaded by virginhoney.

Beautiful antique Christmas glass balls by Virginhoney.

Well, it's Christmas at last, and from the sound of you all on Twitter your cards are sent, and your presents wrapped. It's been great hearing all your cries of delight recently, as your poor postmen and women have struggled with packages through the snowy weather! Hope those of you who have time off over the festive season get everything you wish for, and those who are working have more fun than you might be expecting. We've published the dates we're working over the holidays, so if you find yourself in the office, you might well have company here in the UK, or over with the MOO Crew in the US. We've had a great few weeks spotting unique gifts and ideas created with MOO, here's a few of our favourites: A tetrabox advent calendar, by Bcome Also by Bcome, this lovely looking memory game, complete with a great pattern on the back: This super-cute Mosaic Frame, created by thisiswoly. Filled with 20 Minicards, it features the beautiful baby Sarah. These wonderful looking alphabet game cards, by taraghb, which look like they were as fun to make as they will be to use! And last but not least, look at this! another entry into our MiniCard Gift Box competition! Created by emusing-emma, it's really bought an extra flutter of Christmas cheer into MOO Towers. We love his little sledge! Fancy joining in the fun? Closing date for entries to our competition is midnight PST 28th December 2009. Why not grab some festive paper, and see what you can do! More competition details can be found right here. And now all that remains for me to say is a Very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from everyone at MOO!

Went to check out Ben's home wall last week. He's still got a few mods to make but it currently has a pretty sick roof section. Slightly risky with a lack of mattresses/pads and spinning holds, but good fun nonetheless. Managed to get some footage of Graeme and Ben working on some of the problems (some of which were created by moi).

In all the hussle and bustle of crazy last minute Christmas shopping. This made me stop to take a picture.

IMG00038-20091223-1341

My nutcracker collection was featured on the Etsy Storque!, originally uploaded by jelene.

I was contacted last week about my nutcracker collection and was asked to write a short article about them. Check it out on the Etsy Storque!