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slideshare and my presentation

Last Thursday I gave a presentation during the Aerospace & Defence Librarians Group seminar organised by Ben Chan at the Cilip HQ

The title of the day was the Library Information Survival Guide and there were some interesting sessions.

I was starting to panic the day before as half of my PowerPoint slides seem to have got damaged between home and work. So as well as using multiple memory sticks I also posted a copy of the presentation onto slideshare. This free service is like YouTube for presentations and includes my least favourite word of the Web 2.0 era ‘favorited’. The currently most favorited presentation on the site has had over 800,000 views which is impressive by any standards.

However what I liked about the service is that you can not only download presentations from the site as well as view them in medium size on the web, you can also run them in full screen mode. So all you need is a decent internet connection to provide a backup to the presenters worst nightmare of their memory stick failing.

Here is the link to my presentation about the Business & IP Centre.

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Anita Roddick an inspiration to so many

I was shocked and saddened to hear of the death of Anita Roddick while I was away in Vietnam. I was lucky enough to meet her several times during visits to the Business & IP Centre for her free Ask the Expert sessions with entrepreneurs.

The first time I met her I was surprised by how small she was. Given her reputation I was expecting someone much taller. However her energy and enthusiasm more than made up for her physical stature. She was such a positive person and made such a positive impact on business and the wider world.

Under her influence the Body Shop was one of the first companies to prohibit the use of ingredients tested on animals and one of the first to promote fair trade with third world countries. She was also involved in activism and campaigning for environmental and social issues including involvement with Greenpeace and The Big Issue. In 1990 she founded Children On The Edge, a charitable organization which helps disadvantaged children in Eastern Europe and Asia.

Anita Roddick

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Making a noise on the Net

Today I saw (heard would be a more appropriate description) a free program that can turn a PC into a talking computer.

Thunder software is produced by Screenreader.net a CIC (Community Interest Company)  run by Roger Wilson-Hinds and Tim Carrington. It has already been downloaded by 16,000 blind and partially sighted web surfers and is only just a year old.

It was fascinating to watch and listen as Roger navigated the web using the reader to guide him. It made me appreciate just some of the challenges blind web surfers face. Especially when one considers how much information is now only available through the web.

Roger also has a blog The Blind Blogger where he sounds off about internet issues for the blind and partially sighted.

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3,000 into 100 will go (won’t it?)

The UK government has a very ambitious target of reducing the number of business support schemes in England from around 3,000, to no more than 100 by 2010.

Admittedly the current set-up is overly complicated, and in my experience people starting up in business are often confused about where to go for help and support.

The aim is for Business Link to become the primary route and the Government is seeking views on how they can be developed to play this role. The closing date for suggestions is 14 September, and the worryingly long email address to send them to is SimplifyingBusinessSupport@dti.gov.uk

http://www.dti.gov.uk/consultations/page40113.html 

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Kiva.org – small investments that make a big difference

Here is another great example of how the Internet can really make a positive difference in people’s lives by connecting those who need small investments with those who can afford to invest.

“Kiva.org lets you connect with and loan money to unique small businesses in the developing world. By choosing a business on Kiva.org, you can “sponsor a business” and help the world’s working poor make great strides towards economic independence. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive email journal updates from the business you’ve sponsored. As loans are repaid, you get your loan money back.”

What is great about the site is that you can choose from hundreds of entrepreneurs and projects and then follow their success (or failure) on-line.

According to Andrew who is one of the lenders:
I loan because: We so make so much money in the western world compared to people in developing countries. I’ve met families in Indonesia, Samoa, Cambodia and elsewhere whose monthly budget is about what I make in an hour. Thank you, Kiva, for making it so easy for those of us with some extra money and an understanding of the huge role that small loans can play in the lives of people around the world to help out a little.

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The future is bright, the future is a Big Lemon

One of the best things about my job is watching entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurs (the fastest growing sector), as their business develop and grow.

One example is Tom Druitt, who by sheer coincidence hails from the village I grew up in – Forest Row. He had the remarkably brave idea of starting a social enterprise bus company. It is actually a Community Interest Company called the The Big Lemon CIC, which Tom set up in January to deliver good quality, affordable, ‘green’ transport in and around Brighton.

After many months of planning, licence applications, networking and fundraising he is now close to starting their first bus service on 1 September between Brighton’s two universities and the main railway station. You can read more about this exciting new venture on their Friends of The Big Lemon Facebook page.

Big Yello

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Sir Stelios flies in

Unfortunately I missed the first part of of Stelios’ session on Wednesday evening, but the question and answer session was interesting and fun.

He came across as very straightforward and honest, to the extent that he freely admitted that Richard Branson was his inspiration. One interesting point he made was the importance of starting with an airline at the beginning of building the Easy brand. If people are prepared to trust you with their lives, they may well be prepared to trust you for other products. However he said that moving from a Pizza franchise business to an airline would not have been an effective strategy. He was also a fan of business coaches, and admitted having successfully used one for many years. As he explained, once you are the CEO everyone below you has an agenda (often hidden), whereas an independent person can truly be on your side.

Quite a few of members of the audience had ideas for ‘Easy’ business, but Karen Darby the founder of Simply Switch had by far the funniest. She suggested a fresh fruit juice business called ‘Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy’ and had the audience in stitches.

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Enterprise Week 2006

Monday 13 November

The start of a very busy week with the launch of Enterprise Week at Victoria Park Plaza hotel.

Something of an overkill session where we had to listen to over three hours of talks from:

Stephanie Flanders, Economics Editor at BBC Newsnight

Philip Beadle, Teacher of the Year, Channel 4’s The Unteachables

Shaa Wasmund, presenter of Channel 4’s The Day I Got The Sack

Lord Karan Bilimoria, Chief Executive, Cobra Beer

David Frost, Director General of the British Chambers of Commerce

Kyle Whitehill, Director of Enterprise at Vodafone UK

Professor Richard Scase, author of Global Remix

Gemma Tummelty, President of the National Union of Students

Jeremy Crook, Director of Black Training and Enterprise Group

Stewart Wallis, Executive Director of the New Economics Foundation

James Murray-Wells, founder of Glasses Direct and 2005 Enterprising Young Brits award winner

Professor Zolta Acs – Why entrepreneurship works in the USA.

Rt Hon Margaret Hodge MBE MP, Minister of State for Industry and the Regions.

By then end of it my brain was thoroughly overloaded. I remember two keys points from morning.

1. Ed Balls informing the audience with a totally straight face that Rhubarb is the key industry of his Wakefield constituency. Surely two key characteristics of a politician are a sense of humour and a sense of the ridiculous.

2. Professor Richard Scase explaining the three components of business. 1. Design & creativity. 2. Production & manufacturing. 3. Marketing & distribution. Although we have lost no. 2 to China and India, we can still lead the world in 1 and 3.

During the session chaired by Lynne Brindley, Doug Richard of Dragons’ Den fame explained that a new business takes over you life so that your significant other becomes your insignificant other. Mandy Haberman the inventor of the Anywayup Cup http://www.mandyhaberman.com/ explained how important it is to have a simple but effective way of explaining your business idea or invention. She recalled a meeting with a business man who was not interested in her invention until she literally threw her cup onto his desk to show how effective her product was.

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City Business Library – Under One Roof with guest speaker Jo Fairley of Green & Black’s chocolate.

Wednesday 1 November 2007

Jo_FairleyWhat an inspiration Jo Fairley is. Not only did her partner found the Whole Earth but when he refused to sell chocolate because “it contains added sugar”, she set up Green & Black’s the worlds first organic chocolate.

Here is a snippet of their ground-breaking story:

It all started back in 1991 when Craig Sams, founder of Whole Earth – the pioneering organic food company – was sent a sample of dark 70% chocolate made from organic cocoa beans. His wife, environment columnist for The Times and confirmed chocoholic, Josephine Fairley, found the half eaten bar on Craig’s desk and sampled some for herself. The intense flavour was unique and unlike anything she had tasted before. Jo was convinced other chocolate lovers would appreciate it in the same way she had and they set about making the world’s first organic chocolate. The final product was a high-quality, bitter-sweet dark chocolate bar, packed with 70% cocoa solids – enough to make chocolate fans sit up and take notice..

FairTrade_logoAs the brand began to gain a loyal following, Maya Gold was added to the range in 1994 – the product of a holiday Jo & Craig made to where they discovered cocoa farmers were being penalised, as some larger confectionery companies tried to drive cocoa prices down. They agreed to pay the farmers a fair price for their crops and created the flavour of Maya Gold to capture the taste of the rainforests where the cocoa is grown. This way of doing business didn’t seem different to them – it was what came naturally but it subsequently earned them the UK’s first Fairtrade mark.