Work trip to Philadelphia, USA - 28th to 31st January 2008

Another work trip to Philadelphia, a relatively short one this time, and just work on the agenda - no extra fun like gigs or sports matches. I tried to minimise jetlag by staying on European time, so the trip was pretty much all work, eat and sleep. Whilst I was away, I missed the Arsenal vs Newcastle league game, during which it seems that Mathieu Flamini had his best game yet, in an outstanding season for him.

When I was out on the loose in Philadelphia, I saw a number of the murals that are all over the city. You sometimes see these in US cities, on spare walls, but there seem to be many more in Philadelphia, and in far more prominent places. I learned that this is part of a specific programme to give graffiti artists somewhere to paint, and to decorate the city - and that Philadelphia is a world leading city in doing this. The murals certainly help to liven up otherwise unremarkable parts of the city - the one in this photo is no more than 50 yards from the square at the very centre of town, and brightens up an otherwise dull back wall of a building, backing onto a car park.

Of course, whilst in the US, I went to plenty of restaurants, and ate plenty of huge portions of food. Restaurant management is a huge industry in the US, in which you can do Masters Degrees. The way in which they keep the tables turning over as quickly as possible, to maximise returns, is quite enlightening. When you are finished eating, you always get the bill brought straight to you and left on your table, with the waitress saying "whenever you're ready, here's the check - no rush at all".

Which of course results in you getting out of the door far quicker than if they hadn't left the bill with you, but makes you feel like you aren't being rushed. Very clever, and places in Europe are far less sophisticated, and just haven't cottoned on to this kind of thing yet. Restaurant franchising is also big business - when eating in many restaurants, you will see signs advertising "Franchising Opportunities" - so as well as trying to sell you the food on the menu, you can buy a whole restaurant of your own!

Another money making masterclass from the USA is the ability to make a big industy out of something seemingly irrelevant or useless. Because the whole country is one massive market, with one language, supplying even something stupid like the plastic tops of fast food soft drinks, is a huge industry. In a Pharmacy (which sells everything - even cigarattes), I saw the freezer door pictured here. The freezer sells ice - another really big industry in the US, and the sign of course scares people into buying more than they think they might need. Selling bags of ice cubes is a multi million dollar business here - you could argue that even buying one 2kg bag of ice is more than "enough", but you will still be gently "reminded" to buy more.

No real surprises on this trip, as I'm now getting over there a fair bit, but I still find that I have interesting observations and experiences on every trip. The fact that the US is such a huge market - nearly 300 million people, all speaking the same language (officially at least), means that, if you can find a niche, multiplying it by 300 million customers can make you an awful lot of money. Land of opportunity indeed.