In through the outfield

12 April 2011

Growing Knowledge – The Information and James Gleick

We have had a lot of interest since we opened Growing Knowledge in October – Growing Knowledge the Evolution of Research – the garden is open.

And tomorrow we are lucky to have James Gleick speaking at the library. He is the author of The Information, a new book which shows how information has ‘become the modern era’s defining quality – the blood, the fuel, the vital principle of our world’.

The story of information begins in a time profoundly unlike our own, when every thought and utterance vanished as soon as it was born. From the invention of scripts and alphabets to the long misunderstood “talking drums” of Africa, James Gleick tells the story of information technologies that, he claims, changed the very nature of human consciousness.

He will explore where the age of information is taking us, swept along by a deluge of signs and signals, news and images, blogs and tweets.

John Naughton also interviewed him in the Observer last weekend.

26 March 2011

Inspiring Entrepreneurs: Mothers of Invention

Last week was a busy one for me with three events worth noting. The most memorable, for two reasons, was our Inspiring Entrepreneurs: Mothers of Invention evening.

One, because – sadly this is likely to be last of our Inspiring Entrepreneurs events for the foreseeable future, due to our funding running out. Secondly, because I got to show Natasha Kaplinsky around the Business & IP Centre. She got quite excited about our Success Stories, in particular the David versus Goliath saga of Mandy Haberman’s Any Way Up Cup.

Natasha had kindly agree to chair our session of four inspirational and pioneering female entrepreneurs.

Although businesses run by women contribute £130 billion a year to the UK economy, still only 15% are led by women. I am proud to say that 50% of the people we help in the Business & IP Centre are women, so we are doing our bit to help redress this inequality.

Sian Sutherland the co-founder of Mama Mio skincare was our first speaker. Since starting five years ago Mama Mio is now distributed in 2500 stores and five spas in eight countries.

Their mission is very simple and straightforward – to be the most recommended skincare brand in the world.

Sian described the three key ingredients to competing – Business, Brand and Product.

To her brand is the most important ingredient for long term business success. And that chimes with several of my recent blog posts on the subject of branding.

She explained how you need to gain brand loyalty using emotion, rather than price.

Sian’s vital ingredients for success:

learn from the mistakes of others
use the ‘why bother test’
don’t follow trends or fads
understand who your customer is
know how to talk to your customers
have a unique and own-able brand tone of voice
deliver on every level to your customers
make you customers feel special
have a plan
if it was easy, everyone would do it
love what you do, and do what you love

Sara Murray is serial entrepreneur having founded the price comparison website, confused.com and more recently developed buddi, a miniaturised tracking device for vulnerable people..

She told us that success does not come overnight. It takes on average eight years for a business to become successful.

Buddi is Sara’s third business, and the initial idea was to give the product away and charge a rental. However this approach was rejected by her investors, so she went back with a revised plan which was accepted. So the lesson there, is be adaptable.

She said that luck favours the persistent, failure is good, and that you shouldn’t wait for the big idea to come along – just get on with it and see what happens.

Every product however good will eventually becomes obsolete, so you need to develop a range of products in order to have a successful business.

For funding, forget about the banks, use Angel investors, friends and family.

Vanessa Heywood created Tiny Mites Music in 2004 to provide music and drama classes for pre-school children. By 2010, Tiny Mites Music was being performed in over 80 day-care nurseries and at holiday parks across the UK.

In November 2010, Vanessa was the recipient of the Stelios Award for Disabled Entrepreneurs.

She told her heart-rending story of having to bring up two small children on her own while trying to cope with MS.

Shazia Awan is the founder and Director of Peachy Pink. a ladies shaping and anti-cellulite underwear brand launched in 2009. In late 2010, Shazia introduced Max Core, shaping and posture-control garments for men.

Every bank she went to for funding said the business would fail, so Peachy Pink started with life based on her savings and credit card.

The great thing about starting your own business is that no one can tell you how to market your products.

Peach Pink was launched with fifty women walking down Oxford Street just wearing their underwear. This generated a great deal of press coverage for free.

Now Shazia has launched a search for the peachiest bottom in the UK

Last year she launched Max Core for men, a posture control clothing, purely from demand from customers. Her initial product line sold out within a week.

She feels that unique selling points are key for new products, for use in marketing and promotional activities.

Success comes from a great product, innovation and PR.

14 March 2011

Join our Facebook tagathon and win a Squid London umbrella

This week we are celebrating some of the wonderful products made by our success stories, who we have helped in the Business & IP Centre. Each day there will be a chance to enter our competition to win one of their innovative products on our Facebook fan page.

We have made it easy to enter. Just keep an eye on the Facebook fan page, and at some point during the day we will post a photo of the ‘Business & IP Centre product of the day.’

When the photo of the item appears, tag it with your name, and at the end of the day we will randomly select a lucky winner who will be sent that item in the post.

We are kicking off with one of my favourites, an umbrella from Squid London which changes colour in the rain.

Are you fed up by the rainy days?

Imagine you are walking down the street, it starts to rain and your ordinary black umbrella interacts and changes colour in the rain, creating a walking piece of art – called a ‘wearable piece of art’ by Time Out New York. The inspiration came from Jackson Pollock who dripped and splashed paint onto white canvases creating a spectacle of colours.

Emma-Jayne Parkes and Viviane Jaeger are the co-founders of SquidLondon, an innovative product design brand based in London. The Squidders won several awards including the Deutsch Bank runners up, the Creative Enterprise Winner and People’s Choice NACUE and the Smarta 2010 award.

Currently SquidLondon stocks its Squidarellas in 8 major cities including London, New York Paris and Tokyo and work with significant artshops including Tate Museums, MoMA New York, the Saatchi Gallery and ArtBasel. The Squidarella has generated some excitement and publicity at BBC Radio, BBC Television and was voted in to the top 5 products in Instyle US.

The Squidders brighten up the wet and gloomy days. A simple idea, a fun gift – who does not have an umbrella? Come squidding along!

9 March 2011

Business & IP Centre is five years old today

While I am on the subject of birthdays (Escape the City is one year old), I would like to note that the Business & IP Centre is five years old today.

My colleague Isabel Oswell, who heads up our marketing activities, has come up with some helpful numbers to give an indication of what we have achieved in the last five years.

I should acknowledge the match-funding by the London Development Agency (LDA), which has enabled us to achieve so much.

I am proud to have been involved with something that has helped so many, and want to thank everyone who has helped to contribute to our success.

To date we have helped 200,000 entrepreneurs and small businesses, and given direct advice and guidance to over 30,000 people.

Fifty percent of these have been pre-start up, and 50 per cent have been post-start up and owners of growth businesses.

They come from a diverse range of backgrounds, with fifty percent women, and 37 percent from black and Asian minority ethnic groups, and 4% with disabilities.

Over a quarter of the Centre’s visitors are from the creative industries.

An independent evaluation by Adroit Economics, revealed that, between 2007 and 2009, the we helped to create 829 new businesses for London, and a further 786 new jobs for Londoners. The combined turnover for these businesses was £32 million and 89 percent of their founders say this success could not have been achieved without the Library’s help.

For every £1 that the LDA invested over the period, the businesses saw a £22 increase in turnover. Further, these businesses, supported by the Centre, have contributed £5.5 million to the public purse.

In addition, owing to its reputation and brand, the Library has also managed to leverage its funding through sponsorship, discounts, pro bono work, positive press coverage and other in-kind benefits at an estimated value of over £10 million.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFbRJZLsEVs&feature=player_embedded#at=20]

4 March 2011

IP for Innovation and Growth at the RSA London

Last night was my first event at the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce or RSA for short.

Recently they invited me to become a Fellow of the organisation which is actually a charity which dates back to 1754. So I thought I would pop along after work to one of their events. The topic was right up my street, as it was concerned with reviewing the Independent Review of IP and Growth, which is being led by Professor Ian Hargreaves.

Matthew Taylor, the chief executive of the RSA had assembled a panel of experts to consider the not insignificant challenge of how the UK can develop a technology neutral IP Framework which will drive innovation and growth by serving consumer-led markets, technology companies, and research and education, as well as the creative industries.

The RSA is particularly interested in this topic as in 2005 it published the Adelphi Charter, which called for a new deal on IP for the digital age.

Given the immensely complex nature of copyright (which was the dominant theme of the evening) and the strongly held opposing views of the audience, I was impressed by how Mathew Taylor managed to keep the event in good humour and to time.

Here are my notes from the evening:

Ian Hargreaves, professor of digital economy, the Cardiff School of Journalism

The Adelphi Charter calls for a balance between commercial interests and public rights. This should be preserved.
The digital market-place is a troubled place, and a single government review will not be able to calm the waters.
The Government’s aim is to boost the digital economy, but economics should not be the only consideration.

John Howkins, chairman, BOP Consulting and past director of the Adelphi Charter on Creativity, Innovation and Intellectual Property

Historically, the study of copyright has been seen in terms of legal rights rather than commercial ones.
6 months is too short a time to undertake an effective enquiry.
The emphasis on economic matters is in danger of pushing out social and cultural interest.
We require a strong body which can take a view on IP issues.
Governments should stop using ‘bungee jump’ approaches to IP policy. Copyright is just too important to be managed in this way.
The IPO needs to do more research into IP on a sustained basis.
We are in danger of being overtaken by WIPO.
We used to be a pioneer, but no longer seem interested in taking an international lead.
We are moving to a post platform world in terms of broadcasting. Digital media transcends platforms.

Dame Lynne Brindley DBE, chief executive, The British Library

Text and data mining – an important contribution to scientific research, but currently excluded by IP law.
Media neutral research exceptions – we need to ensure existing exceptions for analogue content are extended to digital. Many other countries already allow it.
Extend fair-dealing exceptions for print, to audio and film – the UK is behind other countries on this.
Mass digitisation – The British Library is not able to make copies of technically in copyright material. But in practice most is out of commercial interest, and often orphan works, where the owners can not be traced.
A study in the library shows as that for each ten year increment back in time the rate of orphan works increases towards 70%.
French and German governments are ahead of the UK on tackling orphan works.
The proposed orphan works bill should be re-introduced

Sarah Hunter, head of UK public policy, Google

Google thinks copyright law in the UK needs fixing – not just for Google but in the public interest.
Fair use law in the USA is relatively transparent, whereas in the UK the situation is much less clear.
Google would not have been launched in the UK, because of the copyright complexity we have.

Simon Juden, head of public policy, Pearson Plc

How to solve copyright problems?
We could introduce fair-use laws from Europe or the US.
Suggests a registry for copyright works for both books and music. This idea could be extended to all creative content.
Use metadata to mark up digital content with its copyright information. The metadata would travel with the content. So users would not need to negotiate licences with the owners.
If we could get this right, market opportunities would open up.
Technological solutions are the best approach to technical challenges rather than constantly updating the law.

Alison Wenham, chairman and chief executive, Association of Independent Music

Doesn’t believe IP is the problem. Lack of funding for high-risk ventures in the UK is where the problem lies.
IP has never been valued in the UK by the investment world.
An imbalance in safe harbours and fair-use in the last 10 years, between the US and the rest of the world.
We need a marriage of great content and great innovation.
Music industry has been unfairly criticised for lack of innovation.
Solution to music pirating: Take down illegal sites, stop pirate sites appearing on search results, stop advertising on illegal sites.

Q&A

The British Library should take responsibility for copyright in the UK, as it has experts who understand the issues.
We need to experiment with the issues to see which work best – e.g. Ideas Markets
Yahoo handed back their music licences because it was not commercially successful.
Disparaging the nature of free content on the internet is unhelpful.
We need numbers to show the impact of IP on the economy.
How do you value IP content?
What is the economic and social impact of creative content.

IP for Innovation and Growth at the RSA London 2 March 2011Last night was my first event at the Royal Society for the Arts, Manufactures and Commerce ??? or RSA for short. Link???

Recently they invited me to become a Fellow of the organisation which is actually a charity which dates back to ???. Link??? So I thought I would pop along after work to one of their events. As it turned out the topic was right up my street, as it was concerned with reviewing the Independent Review of IP and Growth, which is being led by Professor Ian Hargreaves.

The RSA is particularly interested in this topic as in 2005 it published the Adelphi Charter, which called for a new deal on IP for the digital age. Link???

Here are my notes from the evening:

Ian Hargreaves, professor of digital economy, the Cardiff School of Journalism
    The Adelphi Charter calls for a balance between commercial interests and public rights. This should be preserved.
    The digital market-place is a troubled place, and a single government review will not be able to calm the waters.
    The Government’s aim is to boost the digital economy, but economics should not be the only consideration.

John Howkins, chairman, BOP Consulting and past director of the Adelphi Charter on Creativity, Innovation and Intellectual Property
    Historically, the study of copyright has been seen in terms of legal rights rather than commercial ones.
    6 months is too short a time to undertake an effective enquiry.
    The emphasis on economic matters is in danger of pushing out social and cultural interest.
    We require a strong body which can take a view on IP issues.
    Governments should stop using ‘bungee jump’ approaches to IP policy. Copyright is just too important to be managed in this way.
    The IPO needs to do more research into IP on a sustained basis.
    We are in danger of being overtaken by WIPO.
    We used to be a pioneer, but no longer seem interested in taking an international lead.
    We are moving to a post platform world in terms of broadcasting. Digital media transcends platforms.

Dame Lynne Brindley DBE, chief executive, The British Library
    Text and data mining – an important contribution to scientific research, but currently excluded by IP law.
    Media neutral research exceptions – we need to ensure existing exceptions for analogue content are extended to digital. Many other countries already allow it.
    Extend fair-dealing exceptions for print, to audio and film – the UK is behind other countries on this.
    Mass digitisation – The British Library is not able to make copies of technically in copyright material. But in practice most is out of commercial interest, and often orphan works, where the owners can not be traced.
    A study in the library shows as that for each ten year increment back in time the rate of orphan works increases towards 70%.
    French and German governments are ahead of the UK on tackling orphan works.
    The proposed orphan works bill should be re-introduced

Sarah Hunter, head of UK public policy, Google
    Google thinks copyright law in the UK needs fixing – not just for Google but in the public interest.
    Fair use law in the USA is relatively transparent, whereas in the UK the situation is much less clear.
    Google would not have been launched in the UK, because of the copyright complexity we have.

Simon Juden, head of public policy, Pearson Plc
    How to solve copyright problems?
    We could introduce fair-use laws from Europe or the US.
    Suggests a registry for copyright works for both books and music. This idea could be extended to all creative content.
    Use metadata to mark up digital content with its copyright information. The metadata would travel with the content. So users would not need to negotiate licences with the owners.
    If we could get this right, market opportunities would open up.
    Technological solutions are the best approach to technical challenges rather than constantly updating the law.

Alison Wenham, chairman and chief executive, Association of Independent Music
    Doesn’t believe IP is the problem. Lack of funding for high-risk ventures in the UK is where the problem lies.
    IP has never been valued in the UK by the investment world.
    An imbalance in safe harbours and fair-use in the last 10 years, between the US and the rest of the world.
    We need a marriage of great content and great innovation.
    Music industry has been unfairly criticised for lack of innovation.
    Solution to music pirating: Take down illegal sites, stop pirate sites appearing on search results, stop advertising on illegal sites.

Q&A
    The British Library should take responsibility for copyright in the UK, as it has experts who understand the issues.
    We need to experiment with the issues to see which work best – e.g. Ideas Markets
    Yahoo handed back their music licences because it was not commercially successful.
    Disparaging the nature of free content on the internet is unhelpful.
    We need numbers to show the impact of IP on the economy.
    How do you value IP content?
    What is the economic and social impact of creative content.

IP for Innovation and Growth at the RSA London 2 March 2011

Last night was my first event at the Royal Society for the Arts, Manufactures and Commerce ??? or RSA for short. Link???

The RSA is particularly interested in this topic as in 2005 it published the Adelphi Charter, which called for a new deal on IP for the digital age. Link???

Here are my notes from the evening:

10 February 2011

The Power of Social Media – an Inspiring Entrepreneurs evening

As part of the Inspiring Entrepreneurs series and in conjunction with Social Media Week, the British Library hosted The Power of Social Media last night, to show how small businesses can enhance social media to engage with their customers and reach new markets.

I am grateful to my colleague Michael Pattinson for writing this report on the evening:

The event was sold out and also streamed live at Southampton University and New York Public Library. As befitting an event about social media, there was also a live blog at www.businesszone.co.uk as well as a live Twitter feed.

The guest speakers included Fraser Docherty, founder of Superjam, Ian Hogarth, CEO and co-founder of Songkick.com, Rory Cellan-Jones, the BBC technology correspondent and Justine Roberts, co-founder of Mumsnet.

The event was hosted by Matthew Rock of Real Business magazine. He began by telling the audience how useful social media has been for his own business, Caspian Publishing.

First up was Fraser Docherty of Superjam. Fraser proved to be a very engaging and funny speaker. He told us how he started making jam, based on his grandmother’s recipes when he was fourteen, selling it door to door and at farmers markets before securing a deal with Waitrose. Social media and blogging provided him with a cheap and easy way to publicise his brand and communicate with his customers.

According to Fraser, one of his proudest achievements has been setting up a charity which runs tea parties for the elderly. So far, there have been tea parties so far but he believes social media can help him create thousands of similar events around the country.

The next speaker was Ian Hogarth who set up the website Songkick.com, which allows members of the public to match their music interests to the site and then receive alerts when their favourite bands are playing. The site uses a “robot” which scours the Internet for concert and gig information.

Ian made the point that everything on the web is media and everything good on the web is social. He said: “Good ideas spread faster than ever before – that’s an amazing thing for entrepreneurs, how the barriers of entry are changing.”

Ian talked of the importance of motivating and exciting your audience by emphasising the value of your product or service. He also talked about how the internet had blurred the lines between product and marketing and how his product manager is effectively his marketing manager thanks to social media.

Ian had recently returned from a trip to LA and recommended that any start-ups using social media needed to spend some time in Silicon Valley because their ideas about social media were so advanced.

Next up was the BBC’s technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones. Rory has witnessed first hand how social media, especially Twitter, has revolutionised news reporting. He used an example of the earthquake in Qinghai province in China last year which was reported on Twitter before it appeared on any other news media.

Rory had some amusing anecdotes of the pitfalls of using social media – his advice: don’t say anything on Twitter you wouldn’t say in normal conversation! However, he brushed aside criticisms that social media is killing the art of conversation and social interaction saying that these same criticisms were made about the telephone and email.

The last speaker was Justine Roberts from Mumsnet, the massively popular website for mums (and the occasional dad) with a phenomenal 1.2 million visitors each month.

She emphasised how social media was so effective in providing a discussion forum which can be so much more effective in selling a product than traditional advertising. She also talked of the potential dangers of going viral with silly publicity stunts which have a habit of backfiring but her main message was listen and engage, don’t stifle debate. She also said that you should relinquish control and let yourself go!

A Q&A session followed and some interesting issues were raised by members of the audience such as online privacy and how do you protect your intellectual property. The speakers all agreed that you can’t expect privacy as social media is a public space. As far as Intellectual Property is concerned, you can’t stop people from copying your ideas, you just have to provide the best forum and the most recognisable brand. As Justine Roberts said: “this is the internet, you can’t put up walls. We don’t stop our users recommending competitor websites.”

Other issues raised by questions included how social media can be used to help B2B companies and where social media is going in the future. Rory Cellan-Jones felt that despite the dominance of Facebook, there was still room for vertical specialist social networks and that social media was blurring the lines between B2C and B2B.

You can read the live blog replay at http://www.businesszone.co.uk/topic/marketing-pr/live-blog-power-social-media/32776

The event was also filmed and highlights will be appearing on the BIPCTV YouTube channel shortly.

31 January 2011

What is the Business & IP Centre doing with social media?

We are just one day away from our Web in Feb month of Social Media activities, where you can;

* Navigate the world of social media and make it work for you
* Get your site noticed by Google
* Write a blog, record a podcast, set up a website
* Avoid the legal pitfalls of doing business online
* Translate the jargon and gain the confidence to use the web effectively.

Frances Taylor who manages our Social Media activities here in the Business & IP Centre has kindly agreed to be interviewed about what we have been up to.

What is the Business & IP Centre doing with social media?
We have a presence on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Flickr and Twitter as well as more niche social network sites like UnLtdWorld (for social enterprises) and Smarta (for entrepreneurs).

Over the last few years we have also had fun experimenting with video, podcasts, webcasts and wikis, to find new ways of helping our customers find business information and advice. This week we’re looking into Quora, a new Q&A social network.

We have a full list of the sites we have a presence on.

How do you decide which social media channels to use?
Our target audience for the Business & IP Centre includes entrepreneurs and small businesses; we researched which social media channels they use and focused on these. Entrepreneurs are increasingly using social media to network, promote their products and engage with their customers. To gain the most impact, we also focused on the bigger, more popular social networking sites, due to their potential reach.

To be honest, it has also been a case of experimenting and seeing what works. All the social media sites have proved useful to us in different ways:

– Facebook has helped us to spread the word about our events programme and provides a group space for entrepreneurs to network. One of our proudest social media moments was when we advertised an event via Facebook and it filled within three hours.

– LinkedIn is a place for quality business discussions and networking with other professionals.

– YouTube has helped us to raise awareness of our ‘Inspiring Entrepreneurs’ events and take advantage of all the Library’s high-profile speakers, from Stelios to Lord Sugar.

– Twitter has become one of the most important sites to the Centre. As well as helping us to spread the word about our services, it helps us to stay in touch with our partners, case studies and customers and find out about all the latest issues. It’s the place to go for small business news.

How do you measure the effectiveness of your social media activity?
Social media is notoriously difficult to evaluate, however these are the things we aim to measure:

–    Number of followers/ people engaged with our brand
–    Number of quality conversations/ interactions
–    Qualitative examples of how we have engaged with customers via social media
–    Referrals to our website
–    Number of people that use our service as a result of social media sites
–    Time and resource spent to implement.

It’s important to constantly evaluate the effectiveness of your social media activity, particularly since it can be quite time consuming.

Do you have any tips for entrepreneurs looking to use social media for their business?
Definitely. I’d recommend the following:
–    Think carefully about who your target audience is, and then work out what social media sites they use, and what for.
–    You don’t have to be everywhere – it’s better to have a strong presence on one social network than to spread yourself too thinly.
–    A lot of social media sites revolve around sharing content and information. Think about what content and expertise you have that you can share with others, from tips to video content and ‘behind the scenes’ photos.
–    Social media is all about interacting with others. Make sure that you spend time listening and engaging with everyone online, rather than just promoting yourself.
–    You can stay informed of the latest trends in social media and digital marketing through sites like Mashable and econsultancy.

26 January 2011

The growing grey market in the UK

Retired man on bench — Photo Walter Groesel - Stock.XCHNG

Last night I attended a packed Insider Trends’ talk at the Business & IP Centre. Last time the topic was How to become a cutting-edge retailer, but this time Cate Trotter the founder and Head of Trends was talking about the rise and neglecting of the over 50’s market.

As a newly minted 50+ myself (well last September anyway), I was doubly interested in what Kate had to say, and was pleasantly surprised to hear that by 2020 the over 50’s will form the majority of Britain’s population. So that makes me part of the only growth market in the UK.

Once again Kate provided an excellent talk, and left the audience pumped full of relevant statistics and marketing angles.

Here are my notes from the evening:

Untapped markets: The grey pound – Monday 24 January

Profile Marketing Opportunities

–    The population in the UK is getting older, already more +60s than -16s
–    People are living longer
–    Family sizes are shrinking
–    Number of 90 year olds expected to double in 25 years
–    78% of income retained post retirement, but loss in commuting and mortgage costs increase available money
–    +65’s spending £100 billion a year Recession
–    Older customers are better prepared for economic decline than younger
–    Many are working part-time to bring in an income Segmentation
–    Important part of understanding your customers
–    Need to add more age categories. 50-65 and 65+ are not enough
–    Need to be aware of not pigeon-hole by age – much more diverse than the younger categories, due to widely varying life experiences

– So use lifestyle segmentation instead

Live Wires – active and working, many interests, technology aware, spend on holidays
Happy and fulfilled – active, but more traditional, financially well off, lots of holidays, spend on quality traditional brands
Super troopers – often have lost a spouse, don’t like advertising and new technology
Living day to day – spends rather than saves, more interested in material wealth than time, tend to choose premium brands
Unfulfilled dreamers – hard working, dreams of un-achieved ambitions,
Rat race junkies – could retire, but not yet, into technology, more than one marriage

– Need to be aware of sets of baby-boomers coming through

Flower-children are now approaching their mid 60s
So interested in green such as Prius cars and green funerals
Believe that old age starts at 72, not 65
More old travellers going further afield and more adventurous
The SKIers – Spending Kids Inheritance

Adapting your business
–    Attitudes, physical (eyesight) and cognitive (memory) impairments
–    Over 50’s buy 80% of top of the range cars (BBC news report)
–    But many have enough mainstream products (washing machine, microwave, TV). However, they might upgrade at point of retirement with help of lump sum
–    From products to services – or service related products (e.g. sport) less equipment for the home
–    Travel

Generally continues until late 70’s and early 80’s
GrandTravellers – grandparents and their grandchildren on holiday together – something relatively new and growing
Travel gripes – single supplements, insurance costs, active sports insurance

– Clothes

Comfortable and cool clothes lacking in the market place
A younger style, but to fit an older shape
Children’s toys and clothes as presents

– The Home

Home improvement rather than new products
B&Q
Employing independent traders + reputable traders marketed towards an older customer
Ergonomic tools (SandBug from B&Q)
Packaging older people can open – %80 are not – Primelife President
Smaller packs and designs – one person teapots (Debenhams small wok a bestseller)

– Home health care

Philips Defibrillator – talks you through
Retrofit-friendly homes you can grow old in – e.g. doors wide enough for a wheelchair, room for safety handles – Joseph Rowntree Foundation – www.lifetimehomes.co.uk

– Fitness

Pensioners are fastest growing group of gym members
Scope for specialist centres
Zumba – very popular with older dancers

Design

–    Product and service design, also websites and fixtures and fittings
–    A lack of interest in older consumers from mainstream companies
–    Specialist

Simplicity computers – replaces Microsoft Windows with 6 buttons – option to pay by cheque in the post
Tesco online shopping has an access setting
Photostroller – purpose built controller to access Flickr content
PostEgram – a Facebook app for printing out content
Presto – an Internet printer with a remote control system for the sender – customer doesn’t need a computer
Kaiser’s in Austria – e.g. easy to reach stock, reduced glare lighting, slip-proof flooring, pleasant places to sit, reading glasses to borrow, all employers over 50 – sales 50% above forecast
Odeon Senior Screen – with different snacks – coffee and cake instead of fiz and popcorn
Danger of alienating older customers who still feel young – if they can reject it, they often do – don’t want to be associated with ‘that group of people’ – they expect products and service to cost more

– Inclusive

Kindle – allows you change size of text and have text to speech
Nintedo Wii is becoming more popular in care homes – active game playing
ClearRX by Target in the US – simplifies medication for entire families
Ferrari Enzo – with wider doors and lower floor o Harley-Davidson – trikes for the older market – still cool design
Mobilistrictor – a suit to age the wearer by 40 years – useful to test our store design etc
– used by Ford when developing the Focus – e.g. boot has no lip, dash doesn’t reflect light – became Ford’s best selling car
– used by Derby City General Hospital building design
– General Motors used older engineers – key card and push button start

mobilistrictor_Richard_Hammond — Richard Hammond trying out the Mobilistrictor

Legibility of writing
– Larger fonts
– Bolder colours
– Clearer typfaces eg Tireseais typeface
– Use of icons and symbols

Interface design – e.g. Apple iPhone and iPad, Facebook (103 year old woman who uses an iPad to interact)
– Additional advantage of extended appeal to disabled, parents of young children, those heavily laden – e.g. small trolley in supermarket
– Involve audience in your designs

Marketing

–    Only 1 in 5 sticks to brands they now – happy to try new products and service, but as late adopters
–    Only 1 in 3 own a mobile phone
–    Less influenced by mass media as advertising does not reflect their interests, have become cynical, but not being wired, are more open to national and local marketing
–    More time to shop around – and more time to think if they really need it, so more critical, and more time to write reviews. Can become experts in new products
–    More time to tell their friends about products and services – word of mouth becomes even more important
–    Need to use younger (not too young) faces in images – or take out faces – e.g iPad just shows hands, so appeals to all ages
–    Retail and experiential – e.g. Harley Davidson stores – older are less likely to buy online
–    Only 1 in 4 over 65’s have used the internet, but this is growing very fast
–    Over 50’s represent 25% of online population, but those that are spend longer online
–    Silversurfersday – increase confidence
–    Raceonline2012 led by Martha Lane Fox from LastMinute.com – can buy a £99 computer, with a cheap wireless dongle from 3
–    Better designed websites – e.g. Jitterbug from Samsung aimed at older customers, who can call to order as well as online
–    Email marketing more effective with older customers – e.g. eldergym newsletter
–    Free magazines – e.g. Staysure magazine for the over 50’s – based on airline magazine model
–    Segmented approaches – e.g. Ninento DS using Girls Aloud and Julie Walters in different ads for the same product
–    Car adverts tailored to age group. E.g. the young are interested in loans, the older are not
–    Appealing to the adult child
–    Look for older people in marketing agencies, if you can find them.
–    Be aware of emotional issues associated to buying older products such as walking sticks or elasticized trousers

Conclusion
–    They represent the only growing market in the UK
–    They have time and money to spend
–    There is currently very little competition
–    Be aware that they are difficult to profile – very varied with more variety in the future

Approach requires
– empathy
– must not be patronising

21 January 2011

Comedy at The British Library – What’s So Funny Live

It’s Friday and so time to lighten up a bit.

Actually it was on Monday evening that I was lucky enough to attend What’s So Funny Live, an evening of comedy as part of our Evolving English exhibition.

Five comics took over our rather serious Conference Centre with the challenge of making their audience laugh.

Each of them succeeded in their own way, with Ida Barr being particularly – or perhaps peculiarly, unique.

Doc Brown the rapper and performance poet-turned comedian (who prefers not to be known as the baby brother of author Zadie Smith), was the host for the evening, and contributed some excellent laid back humour. In particular his story about listening to his ‘brothers’ outraged tales of police harassment as they go about their illegal activities.

Susan Murray focussed on regional accents with some self deprecating jokes about the unimpressive nature of her West Midlands accent.

Old timer Arthur Smith followed with sketches about how everyone will eventually become a BBC Radio 4 listener – however hard they try to resist (certainly true for me). He also persuaded the audience to sing along to “I am the Mayor of Balham / oh yes I fucking am / I am the Mayor of Balham / I fucking fucking am”. Taking much delight in polluting the otherwise pristine air of the British Library with foul language. However, he finished on a joke that was so clean it would be suitable for children and involved balloons and letting people down.

Next came Ida Barr, the creation of Chris Green. She is an ‘artificial-hip-hopping’ former Music Hall star, doddering around the stage but peppering her talk with the street language of ‘innit’ and ‘aks’. Odd, but also hilarious.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPXNU2LZBHA&feature=player_embedded#!]

Finally came Richard Herring, famous (or perhaps infamous) for his 2009 show Hitler Moustache, in which he attempted to reclaim the toothbrush moustache for comedy… by growing one on his upper lip. He was enormously relaxed and confident with the audience, and has a great deal of excellent material to call on. He successfully unnerved us as well as making us laugh at ourselves and him. He has a great sketch about the potato of the sky…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Iu7dfHhaHA]

14 January 2011

The stupendous language of sport

As part of our Evolving English exhibition, we are running all kinds of related events.

In November I was lucky to be able to watch a recording Just a Minute, the wonderful radio panel game that has been running since 1967. One of my early memories is listening with my granny to Clement Freud and Kenneth Williams.

More recently we hosted an evening devoted to the Language of Sport, which generated some excellent coverage on the BBC – The art of talking a good game. The event was also reviewed on the In bed with Maradona blog.

Not surprisingly much of the talk is about the clichés that surround football commentating, which is related to the live nature of the coverage.

There is a brilliant example from the BBC, of the commentator who ‘went too early’, resulting in over-excited screaming when the ball finally went in the net – The stupendous language of sport.

Then we have Colmanballs, a term coined by Private Eye magazine to describe verbal gaffes perpetrated by (usually British) sports commentators. It is derived from the surname of the now retired BBC broadcaster David Coleman and the suffix -balls, as in “to balls up”.

The Parryphernalia blog has collected a set of amusing misuses of the term literally, which he calls LiterallyBalls.

Here is a short selection:

“After the first goal went in you could literally see the Derby players shrinking.” Alan Shearer commenting on Derby’s latest capitulation.
“Craig Bellamy has literally been on fire” Ally McCoist.
“The Liverpool defence have literally been caught with their trousers down.” Andy Townsend on an Andy Johnson chance against Liverpool.
“Koller was literally, literally, right up his backside there.” Andy Townsend again, commenting on Jan Koller’s positioning in the Turkish penalty box.
“Terry Venables has literally had his legs cut off from underneath him three times while he’s been manager” Barry Venison.

Last, but by no means least, is the commentating legend that was Alan Partridge. Although a fictional sports reporter on The Day Today, his football commentating contains pearls of English that will stay with us. Here is an example that includes, “he must have a foot like a traction engine”, and “that was liquid football” (a comment I have since heard from real-life commentators).

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzSQ3xgoh-w]

Colemanballs is a term coined by Private Eye magazine to describe verbal gaffes perpetrated by (usually British) sports commentators.[1] It is derived from the surname of the now retired BBC broadcaster David Coleman and the suffix -balls, as in “to balls up”,[1][2] and has since spawned derivative terms in unrelated fields such as “Warballs” (spurious references to the September 11, 2001 attacks) and “Dianaballs” (sentimental references to Diana, Princess of Wales). Any other subject can be covered, as long as it is appropriately suffixed by -balls.[1] The all-encompassing term “mediaballs” has since been used by Private Eye as their coverage of gaffes has expanded.[3]