🎄 Festive fact #1: In Japan, Christmas is viewed more like a romantic holiday, where couples eat the traditional Christmas Day meal we all know and love, Kentucky Fried Chicken. For the Japanese, New Year is the time families get together for drinks and games instead.

Resources for 2024: The big players

The workhorse tools to really push along productivity.

For the note-takers: Otter.ai
This is a tool Tim keeps in his back pocket for every meeting, as it allows us to automatically record the voice of every attendee, and then convert the recording into a transcript to save and read back. This one’s particularly useful for cutting out the need to listen back to a recording to find a specific part.

For those measuring impact: Our Ultimate Impact Reporting checklist
We like to talk about this one a lot, but if you’re going to be measuring the impact of your business in 2024, our Ultimate Impact Reporting checklist is a really good place to start. This completely free document acts like a sustainability audit, and will help you get to grips with the practice of impact reporting.

For the ChatGPT fans: Claude.ai
AI is something we’ve all used at least a few times this year. Some of the team have actually moved away from ChatGPT now, and started using Claude instead (which is also free). In our own experience, Claude tends to give back more creative answers which is great for content strategy work.

For the project managers: ClickUp
Having software that can handle all your team’s ongoing projects is vital for any business that does client work. Avery & Brown’s seal of approval goes to ClickUp for this one, as it’s something every member of the team uses in one way or another. If we didn’t have it, we’d be in a whole world of trouble.

For the chatterboxes: Slack
Slack is our communication platform of choice, and we can do everything on it from send messages, to joining calls, to even sharing files. There’s a few different choices out there, but Slack does everything we need it to and provides a central comms area for the team, so we'll probably be using it for a while. Thank the lord we don’t have to use Skype anymore.

🎄 Festive fact #2: In 1656, soldiers in the City of London were given orders by Oliver Cromwell to patrol the streets and confiscate any food being prepared for Christmas celebrations because he saw it as a wasteful festival that threatened Christian beliefs.

‘Excuse me mate, do you have a licence for those spuds?’

Resources for 2024: Getting creative

What you need to create, innovate, or procrastinate.

For the font fanatics: Fonts in Use
So many fonts, so little time. If only there was an archive that could showcase 25,000+ fonts being used in real projects. Fonts in Use is a great website for sparking some design inspiration, or for finding a new font to use when your favourites start to get a bit overused.

For the surfers: Reddit
Reddit is a tool used by many worldwide and remains the perfect social media platform for the people who hate social media. Reddit’s a great place to find answers to a question, search for new tools, or maybe even pick up a new hobby. We had a Reddit lunch & learn in the office last month, and now Tim’s always falling down the rabbit hole in the DIY section.

For your brand: Our Brand Strategy Essentials course
If you're serious about putting positive impact at the centre of your business, our new course all about brand strategy is going to be a great investment for you. We can’t give away all the details here, so check out the link to learn more!

For when you don’t have a pic: Unsplash, Pexels, and Pixabay
These three sites are the gold standard when it comes to finding copyright-free photos, video, or even backing tracks. We use content from these sites on a weekly basis and are a vital bit of kit.

For the analog shooters: ntscQT
2023 has seen a resurgence of analog video on YouTube and TikTok with some creators wanting a vintage or ‘homely’ feel to their video. ntscQT is a neat little tool for Windows that can replicate the vintage video effect very accurately so you don’t have to go into the loft to find your old camcorder instead.

🎄 Festive fact #3: Icelandic Christmas lore is nightmare-fuel. If you don’t give or receive any clothing gifts on Christmas, a giant creature called 'the ‘Yule Cat’ will hunt you down and kill you.

Resources for 2024: Embracing nature

To better experience, learn about, and connect with the natural world.

For the animal lovers: The Woodland Trust
This site is a great place to learn all about the wonderful wildlife of the UK in an easy-to-digest format, making it a great learning resource for all ages. You can learn everything from details on all our bat species to what mushrooms you can use in cooking.

For the offsetters: Ecologi
We all know by now that focusing solely on offsetting isn’t the answer, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a step in the right direction. Ecologi is an all-in-one climate platform that allows you to calculate and reduce your emissions, while also funding reforestation and carbon reduction projects around the world. We even have our own Ecologi forest with over 14,000 trees planted.

For the curious: AskNature
If you’ve ever wondered just how much nature can really do, AskNature is a site that showcases hundreds of examples of how nature solves problems by itself through its functions, as well as how it inspires technology through biomimicry.

For those looking for peace: Earth.fm
Tinnitus? Working next to a noisy road? Kids won’t shut up? Sounds like you need the soothing sounds of Mother Nature to keep you focused. Earth.fm is like Spotify for natural soundscapes. We’re listening to the sounds of a pinsapo forest as we write this.