While we might be bidding a sad and untimely farewell to one of our peers this week, with Paul the Psychic Octopus shuffling (or perhaps floating) off of his mortal coil, we can't find it in ourselves to be too down.

Because against the backdrop of Paul taking his incredible clairvoyant skills to the great Octopus's Garden in the Sky, we've been busy turning nine years young. That's right, it's Octopus' ninth birthday this week and, as we always do at this time of the year, we took the opportunity to let our hair down, have a few "relaxing liquid beverages" and generally dress up like a bunch of weirdos at our Halloween themed birthday party.

There was a pretty special range of costumes on show this year, though highlights have to include a self-referential Wonder Woman, an intensely bloody zombie and our esteemed MD showing resource and guile by bringing last year's Harry Potter cape into play in this season's Dracula ensemble.  Best of all, the party was hosted in our fantastically rejuvenated "West Wing", now converted into a huge creative area for our teams to thrash out their best ideas. Huge props to our ops team for pulling off an incredible Changing Rooms style makeover. It looks ace.

Strange dress choices aside, it's been a heck of a year for Octopus. It's been a great 12 months for growth, we've got some fantastic new people and clients on board, we've been shortlisted for more awards than ever, and we've added more and more services to our portfolio. Huge thanks to everyone who has helped us get to where we are now!

2011's shaping up nicely too, and there'll be more on that soon. In the meantime, why not check out our Flickr feed for a few gruesome insights into last night?

Chris

While a career in PR isn't likely to leave you with as many good tales to tell the grandchildren as a job in something like international espionage might, it does have its fair share of moments where you can sit back and think "that was pretty cool". Of course, public relations does tend to involve a lot less being shot at as well (particularly bad review meetings aside), and you don't have to ask the grandkids to sign the Official Secrets Act either, both of which are integral parts of the Octopus benefits package.

A few of the Octopus gang were privy to one of those "Ain't It Cool" moments just recently, as we brought together the judging panel for Cisco's Customer Kings campaign - a partnership with Real Business magazine to find the UK's best customer focused small firms, and one that Octopus and Cisco picked up a PR Week award for in 2009, thankyouverymuch.

Joining Cisco's head of SME and Commercial , David Critchley, the judging panel included MoneySupermarket genius and small business supremo Simon Nixon (now running the fabulous travel guide SimonSeeks), The Daily Mirror's resident careers, finance and small business expert Tricia Phillips, and Real Business' Charles "I've written about more brilliant SMEs than you've had dinners, hot or otherwise" Orton-Jones.

With our four judges assembled, it was a bit like having a small business version of the A-Team in the room; the SMB-Team, if you like. And a good thing it was too, because we needed every iota of their entrepreneurial and small business expertise to pick the winners from the many, many fantastic entries to the competition. Yes, this day was cool for two reasons - not just for being slightly star-struck at our judging panel, but also for being able to see the raw brilliance and passion on display from our entrants.

Quite literally just like the judging day...

From those that have come up with a smart, unique idea and just run with it to those who have spent years crafting their business into a well drilled, slick and yet - dare we say it - lovable company, Customer Kings is a wonderful reaffirmation of the breadth of talent and drive that exists amongst the UK's small businesses. When times are tough, these businesses continue to put the customer first, and that's what has made each and every single one of our winners not only a Customer King, but also a roaring success of a small business in their own right.

Stay tuned for the announcement of the winners when the March 8^th edition of Real Business hits the streets. We love it when a plan comes together.