In through the outfield

4 April 201219 February 2013

Totseat – our Scottish Success Story

It was great to hear from Rachel Jones the inventor and founder of Totseat who are based in Edinburgh.

She told me how the first Totseat was created from her wedding dress (with an understanding husband watching while she chopped it up). This followed on from a disastrous meal out with a small child – and various filthy high-chairs being proffered from the downstairs loo.

The purpose was to create a safe haven from any adult chair for a small child – i.e. replacing a traditional high-chair when none was available, or they are too filthy to use. Rachel created a cotton Totseat from the original silk version, and enlisted the help of a friend to make it child safe. Soon lots of her friends wanted one too.

Being somewhat neurotic, Rachel took safety to heart and enlisted help of BSI test house, paediatricians, physiotherapists and the Child Accident Prevention Trust. With the safety attributes firmly embedded, she made 20 prototypes, with slight variables, (all by hand) and lent them to 20 families – along with a disposable camera – requesting as many testing experiences as possible.

Rachel then visited the British Library Business & IP Centre to see what other brands were ‘out there’ on international basis. As well as looking at trademarks, names, patent and design rights.

Several months and 900 testing experiences later Rachel had a ‘final prototype’, and managed to secure an appointment with John Lewis for a ‘reality check’. But it turned out that John Lewis loved it. Her reaction was, ‘yikes’!

She continued to use the Business & IP Centre for Mintel and Keynote research papers on state of ‘the nation’ (Childcare industry, nursery industry, accessories etc). She found this invaluable, as access to these reports are otherwise totally out of financial reach – and this sort of information remains a key part of their business planning and strategy.

Since going into production four years ago UK growth has been strong in high street stores, and now export growth is surging ahead with 40 plus countries. Totseat is now the leading product in its class, with multiple award wins, recognising its design, and safety attributes.

And now Totseat has been joined by Oobicoo, which was short-listed for Best Soft Toy 2012. The adorable, cuddly, soft toy tot Oobicoo is made from gorgeous soft plush and, at 60cm tall, is the perfect size to be an instant baby brother, sister or best friend.

Rachel describes the British Library as a ‘magnificent mind-space’ whether exploring, befriending or nurturing information for both day to day and strategic business.

19 March 2012

Another great Inspiring Entrepreneurs with Mothers of Invention

Another fantastic event this evening with a range of inspiring women entrepreneurs and their stories.

The event was chaired with great warmth, energy and humour by Emma Jones who launched her first business at age 27, and successfully sold it two years later. In 2006 she launched Enterprise Nation as a website to help anyone start and grow a business from home. The company has since expanded to offer online services, publications, events and finance to small businesses across the UK. Emma is also co-founder of StartUp Britain, and currently acting as the campaign’s chief executive.

As co-founder of shopping website notonthehighstreet.com, Sophie Cornish has won many prestigious awards including the ECMOD Direct Commerce Award for the last three consecutive years and the Online Retail Award Prix D’or 2010. They now host over 2,500 businesses on notonthehighstreet selling 40,000 different products.

They came to the British Library Business & IP Centre early on to look at trends in Internet retailing. And worked hard on their business plan to the extent that they new their numbers inside out. Sohpie emphasised that creating a brand is the key challenge for any business.

Her tips were:

Own your mistakes
There is no silver bullet
Hard work is your unique selling point
Cash is king

From helping her parents prepare samosas for the English pub they ran, to setting up her own food business The Authentic Food Company in 1985, Kamal Basran indulged her passion for cooking authentic Indian food and opened a small business supplying local catering establishments with hand-made samosas and other Indian snack food.

Today, the company has over 240 employees and has a turnover of over £31 million. The company are supplying many of the UK’s top hotels, pub chains, restaurants and retail outlets with the range of quality international cuisine.

When Kamal started out in business, she was a full-time teacher, settled in a comfortable lifestyle, married with two children. While out shopping she saw some ready made samosas, but once home discovered they tasted horrible and threw them into the dustbin. This was the trigger for starting her own business. She had no idea how to start, but wonders in retrospect if this is perhaps the best way.

She began making 600 samosas a week, and grew the business to over a million meals a week.

Her tips were:

Number one priority was to organise her children.
Then, learn how to do everything yourself (nothing is too menial).
Finally, don’t listen to other people (especially your parents!)

Her reasons for success were:

Target your market
Grow gradually
People – 25 nationalities
Products – are the best quality
Customers – we love our customers

Rosie Wolfenden and Harriet Vine are the founders of Tatty Devine whose distinctive fashion designs have made them brand leaders. In 2011 they had a boom year, with a £1 million turnover and kick started 2012 with opening a Selfridges pop up shop which launched their new silver label. The two London Tatty Devine boutiques are located in Brick Lane and Covent Garden.

They are independently run and design every piece, 99% of the jewellery is made by hand in their workshops (based in London and Kent). Their custom-made jewellery has been worn by everyone from Claudia Schiffer to Jessie J.

They are very proud of producing their own book on How to Make Jewellery.

In the last two years they have started letting others in to their business, such as developing a new website, to enable them to concentrate on the jewellery.

Christina Richardson is founder of The Nurture Network the UK’s first on-demand marketing department for start-ups and entrepreneurial growth businesses. Christina has spent much of her career managing and growing FMCG brands worth in excess of £100 million.

Now she and her blue-chip trained team, work flexibly across multiple businesses – being their marketing expertise, part time or for specific projects – calling in creative specialists from their network as and when they are needed.

Her tips for new businesses:

You need to give yourself the strongest foundations you can. Be distinctly different by playing a different game.
Define your brand by being clear on your ‘onlyness’. Think about who your brand would be if it were a person.
Test your brand out with real people.
Have a vision, but with numbers. Know the future you want to create.

And for existing businesses:

Marketing is everything that touches your consumer.
Always think consumer first. Choose which group will be your most valuable customers. This will inform your marketing chooses.
Plan with the end in mind and be objectives driven.
Use everything you can do to spread your brand
Bootstrap and collaborate

The evening closed with a lively question and answer session followed by some serious networking until closing time.

21 February 2012

Blogging for fun and profit

Sorry for starting with such a cliché headline, but I am conducting a scientific blogging experiment, more of which later on.

This post (my 509th to be precise) is about why I blog, and why any start-up or small business should seriously consider blogging.

This evening I am giving a talk as part of our Web in Feb series of events. The title is Business Blog – Live, and I am looking forward to some lively debate about the whys and wherefores of blogging for business.

I have already posted up my slides on Slideshare and am happy to share some of my key points below:

Why do I blog?

By accident… the idea was to show a colleague how to blog
Because it works – 25% of traffic to the Business & IP Centre website – 200,000 hits in 4 years – comments and feedback
Because I enjoy it – writing about interest business ideas
It is easy… and free – well not quite, now I am paying $20 a year for an advert free WordPress
It is my memory of events and ideas – I want to be able to look back in a few years time
I believe it helps the reputation of the Centre… and hopefully mine too – only my readers can be the judge of that!

Why you should blog

To build trust – ‘real’ people vs anonymous business – this is an increasing desire from customers
To build an audience – you can start before you business goes live – you might even attract some pre-launch orders
Increase SEO without the risk – Google loves blogs-hates cheaters so keep away from search engine optimisers with ‘magical’ properties
Drive traffic to your website – see Google above
Be seen as an expert in your field – requires insightful, quality content – but hopefully you will have this if you are starting a business
Reach a wider market – word of mouth referrals – one post might go viral

With passion… and patience – wait at least six months for the numbers to come through
For your audience – you do know your potential customers likes and needs… don’t you?
Mainly about things related to your business – don’t stray too far off base
Headings must be ‘Ronsealed’ –
Regularly – a minimum of once a week
Content must be engaging / surprising / controversial / intriguing
Length must be ‘just right’ – somewhere between Stephen Fry’s blessays and Euan Semple’s The Obvious.
Leveraging your other social media channels – Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, +Google
Using your web domain if possible – to maximise traffic to your website
Promote using contacts and ‘Blogroll’
Measure using built in tools or Google Analytics
Handling comments and spam – to moderate or tolerate comment trolls

Ah yes, back to my scientific experiment. I want to prove that even by picking a popular title for this blog post, it will still soar up the Google rankings the minute it is published. Time to find out!

3 February 201219 February 2013

Take part in our ‘Seven Up Census’ and win £100 worth of Amazon vouchers

As we approach our seventh birthday, we are trying to conduct a census of all our customers – past and present.

We need your help if you are one of the 50,000 people who have used our services, we would like to hear from you about the difference we have made to you and your business.

Your participation is crucial in helping to secure future funding and ensuring that we continue to meet your future needs.

I would be grateful if you would spend five to seven minutes to complete this questionnaire.

The information you supply will be kept strictly confidential and will only be used for this purpose.

As an incentive, and to celebrate our seventh birthday, your name will be entered into a prize draw and you could be one of three people to win £100 worth of Amazon vouchers.

Please complete the survey before Wednesday 29 February 2012

27 January 201219 February 2013

Summly founder Nick D’Aloisio @British Library

I couldn’t see how my colleagues could top the speakers at our first Digital Library Conversations @British Library. Internet pioneers Vint Cerf (known as one of the fathers of the internet) and Ted Nelson who founded Project Xanadu, the first hypertext project in 1960. There is a video of the meeting if you are interested.

However, I was wrong. As a result of Stella Wisdom (one of our Digital Curators) reading an article in the Metro newspaper, we were privileged to hear from 16-year-old ‘internet genius’ Nick D’Aloisio, the founder of Summly.

This iPhone app has made international headlines and attracted backing of an investment company controlled by Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing..

Summly is an iPhone app which summarises and simplifies the content of web pages and search results. Currently it can condense reference pages, news articles and reviews but according to Nick, has the potential to go a lot further.

Nick has been profiled in Forbes, Wall Street Journal, Wired and FastCompany for his entrepreneurial success and interest in Artificial Intelligence. Before founding Summly, Nick created Facemood, a service which used sentiment analysis to determine the mood of Facebook users, and SongStumblr, a geosocial music discovery service.

Did I mention he was 16 years old?

According to an interview with the BBC, Summly came from his frustration in researching for his exams.

“I was revising for a history exam and using Google, clicking in and out of search results, and it seemed quite inefficient. If I found myself on a site that was interesting I was reading it and that was wasting time,” he said.

“I thought that what I needed was a way of simplifying and summarising these web searches. Google has Instant Preview but that is just an image of the page. What I wanted was a content preview,” he says.

What impressed me most from our meeting with Nick at the British Library (which you can get a glimpse of here thanks to Reuters), was his intelligence and modesty.

I’m sure he has had plenty of practice, but his ‘elevator pitch’ (which is something of an obsession with me), was superb.

And when I asked him if he was planning to pursue an entrepreneurial path or go on to university, he talked enthusiastically about studying philosophy after his A levels. This is from someone just back from a series of meetings with high powered investors and entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley.

I came away with the impression that he was quite possibly the most confident and mature person in the meeting.

Addition 28 March 2012:

The video of this event has now been posted onto YouTube, and the interview with Nick starts 34 minutes in.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ey6IhzH_8kg]

25 January 201219 February 2013

The Key Trends for 2012 from Cate Trotter – Insider Trends

I have been covering sessions from founder and Head of Trends at Insider Trends Cate Trotter for a while now: Insider Trends – The Future of Online Marketing, The growing grey market in the UK and How to become a cutting-edge retailer.

As previously, Cate showed an impressive grasp of the trends that new and existing businesses need to know about, to keep ahead of the competitive curve.

Tonight’s topic proved even more popular than before, requiring a move to a larger room, and an overflow event last-night.

Here are my notes from the event:

Cate started the evening by identifying three headline trends for 2012 of Doom and Gloom, Ubiquitous Digital and Humanness.

Doom and Gloom (aka – the economic recession is killing business opportunities – or is it?)

If you only read the papers or watched TV you would think the end is nigh.
Unemployment is at a 17 year high in the UK, with over 1 million young people out of work.
The UK economy is predicted to grow by 0.2% in 2012 (i.e. no growth to speak of).
But…
Interest in entrepreneurship is at an all-time high, and barriers to entry are at an all-time low, thanks to technology and the internet, with the likes of Facebook, PayPal and on-demand printing.
Slowly we are shifting to become a nation of entrepreneurs.
There are plenty of opportunities for person-to-person (P2P) businesses thanks to the likes of Kickstarter and SellAnApp. Or how about MinuteBox which allows you sell your expertise by the minute.
Opportunities also exist in the off-line world too, such as ‘cheap and cheerful’ offices for start-ups like The Ugli Campus, or how about opening the first cafe for entrepreneurs.
Too many business websites use ‘me too’ branding with stock photography and unclear messages – Cate gave the example of BubbleWebs as one that ‘shows what it does on the tin’.

Ubiquitous digital (it really is everywhere now)

65% of adult internet users now use a social networking site of some kind.
By the summer of 2012 over 50% of Brits will be using a smartphone.
So:
Cate’s tip no.1 – Mark your location on Google Places to boost traffic to your website.
Cate’s tip no.2 – Make sure you website is mobile friendly using 11 Excellent Solutions for Making Your Website Mobile Friendly.
Need to think beyond using social media just for marketing and PR – add customer support roles (e.g. Hippo Munchies in India using twitter prompts from customers to re-fill their vending machines).
Companies will develop intelligent and selective strategies for social media channels. No more scatter-gun approach to digital marketing.
Digital data will give commercial insights. E.g Klout score to measure your online influence.
A/B test your website your website using Optimizely to maximise visitors.

Humanness (the importance of trust in a digital commercial world)

Ask yourself how is your digital strategy enhancing the lives of your customers?
More targeted communications and email lists – less scatter-gun.
Google is starting to highlight more human related content, so you need to have people talking about your business in social media.
Which means you have to do stuff that people think is worth talking about.
Results in a move away from novelty campaigns to real customer value. E.g. Zappos.com have a 24 hour staffed phone line, and up to a year to return products.

Inspirational brands talk about why they do what they do, not what they do, or how they do it – read Start with why by Simon Sinek or watch him speak at TED.
The need to stay human, once you grow beyond a single person business, think of your brand as a personality or celebrity.

2012 is all about being connected – individuals, networks and businesses
Use customer value to cut through the ubiquitous social media noise. Connections through honest communication is key.

Cate ended her talk by encouraging us to go away and start experimenting with some of the ideas covered. We now had 11 months lead on our competitors.

She really wants to hear from us how we a get on, so please get in touch with her at cate@insider-trends.com

17 January 2012

Spring Market competition for designers and makers

Fran Taylor our Marketing Manager for the Creative Industries has launched an exciting Spring Market competition.

The prize is a stall at our Spring Market to be held on 1 March on the British Library piazza.

The Market is part of our Spring Festival and will show off the work of 12 of the most innovative jewellery, fashion, home-ware and craft designers who have used the British Library.

If you have attended an event, used our Business & IP Centre, seen an exhibition or have a Reader Pass you are eligible to enter.

As well as the market stall, your work will be featured on the British Library website and promoted on our Twitter feed, Facebook and our blogs. As well as a British Library press release sent to major national and local publications.

We are looking for designers and makers who:

Produce fine art and photography, graphic art, jewellery, crafts, home-ware, fashion or other products.
Have been trading for at least six months in the UK.
Have a product range which has potential to make a fantastic visual display on a market stall.
Can sell the majority of products for around £30 or less (so that it is affordable for passing trade). Although it is fine to have a small range of high-end products to show the full range of your work.
Are able to attend the workshop for competition winners on Mon 13 Feb 10am – 12 midday at the British Library.
Have used the British Library e.g. for events, exhibitions, our collections and Business & IP Centre.

Spring Market competition entry details.

13 December 2011

Customised Design event at the British Library

Many thanks to my colleague Fran Taylor for this story:

On 7 December we ran an event in partnership with the University of Hertfordshire on customised design, and how designers can create unique, tailored goods for their customers – either at the luxury or mass-produce ends of the market.

It’s a challenging area for businesses. On the one hand it is a way of finding your USP (unique selling point) and potentially being able to charge more for your products. On the other hand it also makes the manufacturing and ordering process much more complicated.

The first speaker was Shaun Borstrock, who has worked with Asprey, Thomas Pink, and the British Luxury Council and he spoke about the luxury end of customisation. He talked about how the luxury market is forecast to grow by 57% over the next five years to £9.4bn. He talked about how a lot of companies often create the impression of offering customised products, but in reality just offer small changes e.g. by adding initials to a designer hand-bag or offering different colour options. He also gave the example of the Prada Lace-up project.

In contrast, Sarah Maynard from SML offers an extremely high end, bespoke service in the luxury transportation market. She has a team of craftsmen who can provide anything from working with a team of chemists to choose a specific colour pigment to a gold-plated gear stick. For her business, customisation is achieved through one-to-one relationships with clients over a longer period of time. Customisation is her USP and her customers are willing to pay a lot of money for the craftsmanship involved.

Our last speaker was jewellery designer Mark Bloomfield from Electrobloom. He is a huge fan of 3D printing and explained how it opens up opportunities for customised design, low-cost manufacturing and experimentation. Through 3D printing you can produce prototypes quickly and the creative process can be very iterative. It also reduces the cost and energy required for shipping and manufacturing abroad.

He produces beautiful flower-inspired designs in around 20 different colour and shape combinations. They are made out of nylon (which incidentally is also dishwasher proof).

12 December 20112 July 2013

90 Tiny Tips to Build Your Personal Brand

In the past, Rasheed Ogunlaru (who presents our monthly Your Life, Your Business workshop), has talked about the importance of building your personal brand.

So this list of tips from Alissa Alvarez at Online MBA is welcome.

90 Tiny Tips to Build Your Personal Brand

Personal branding isn’t something you can just sit down and work on for a day and then forget about. Rather, personal branding is built in small pieces, as your day-to-day actions all add up to the brand that is you. That’s exactly why we’ve found so many small tips that can help you build your personal brand, taking things one tiny step at a time. Read on, and we’ll share 90 tips that can help you slowly but steadily build your personal brand.

Finding Your Niche

Personal branding is all about figuring out who you are and how you want to project your image. Use these tips to help identify what you’re really all about.

Consider what makes you different

1. When determining your niche, you should think about what makes you different from other brands out there.

2. Identify your primary product

3. Think about what you have to offer others, whether it’s a service, resource, or special ability.

4. Find out what your talents are

5. Consider what your talents are, what you’ve been recognized for and what you’re better at than most people.

6. Think about how others identify you

7. Take a look at your brand attributes and confirm that your brand matches what others would say about you.

8. Do something remarkable

9. Instead of playing it self and sticking to what you know, do something that’s worthy of taking notice.

10. Identify your core values

11. Share what really matters to you in order to identify what your core values are.

12. Be unique

13. Don’t feel like you need to copy another person’s brand. Be unique and stand out.

14. Think about your passions

15. Identify the things and ideas that you love, and identify your passions.

16. Ask colleagues and friends to sum up your professional image

17. Get a true reflection of what you’re all about by asking others to define you.

Creating A Message

Follow these tips to find out how you can share the personal branding message you have created.

1. Physically make a message

2. Write a paragraph and tag line that tells your story and emphasizes your speciality and talents.

3. Share your message

4. Once you have your message, be sure to actually share it with someone.

5. Be authentic

6. Don’t create a message that’s about someone else: be true to yourself.

7. Control your message

8. Don’t be too many different things to too many people. Stick to your primary message and focus on that.

9. Find your target audience

10. Consider who you really want to be talking to, and use your target audience to define what kind of presence you want to create for your brand.

11. Know your audience

12. Think about to whom you’re directing your personal brand, and communicate your messages appropriately.

13. Be yourself

14. Let your personality shine through and show the real authentic “you.”

15. Use the right vocabulary

16. Communicate with your audience using the right words from the industry so you can show your understanding of what’s going on.

Credibility

1. Use personal branding to establish yourself as a trusted professional in your industry with the help of these tips.

2. Be useful

3. In everything you do, take a moment to consider how you are being useful to others.
4. Live what you say

5. Have a trustworthy, transparent, and educated voice to build your credibility.

6. Be trustworthy

7. Be careful not to offer anything you can’t provide, and deliver on what you’ve promised.

8. Believe in your brand

9. Commit to and invest in the ideas that support your brand.

10. Create a portfolio of successes

11. Showcase your past work, get testimonials, and do whatever you can do show off how great you are.

12. Find and share great content

13. Create a buzz around your own personal brand by finding great content and sharing them with others.

14. Create a visual hook

15. Find a memorable visual hook that people will enjoy and remember you by.

16. Find out what other leaders are doing right

17. Find the experts and leaders in your profession, and see what they are doing to promote their brands.

18. Cultivate a personal style

19. Select clothing that represents you and makes you stand out from the crowd in an attractive way.

20. Be a leader

21. Lead by helping people, and use leadership to grow your influence.

22. Get featured in the media

23. Find opportunities to be featured in the media, possibly creating even more opportunities for exposure and credibility.

24. Show your confidence

25. Don’t be arrogant, but be sure to project confidence so that others will be comfortable with you.

26. Contribute to Q&A sections

27. LinkedIn, eHow, About.com, and lots of forums offer opportunities for sharing your expertise.

28. Be a speaker

29. Much more effective than just attending, speaking at events shares the opportunity for showcasing your expertise.

30. Be consistent

31. Make sure your resume, LinkedIn, and Facebook are all saying the same thing.

32. Win awards

33. First, do work that’s worthy of awards, and be sure to apply for awards in your field. This can bring lots of recognition and credibility to your personal brand.

34. Take a writing class

35. The way you write has a major impact on how you are perceived, so take a writing class to make sure you’re getting it right.

36. Stay on top of trends

37. Educate yourself and stay on top of newly emerging trends in your industry.

38. Back everything up with proof

39. Share objective proof to back up broad statements, using numbers, dates, statistics, and more.

40. Toot your own horn

41. Publicize awards, achievements, and anything else that’s remarkable so that people actually know about it.

Efficiency

1. Keep personal branding from taking over your life with these tips that will help you streamline your efforts.

2. Interact effectively

3. Give yourself a time window for interaction so that you don’t spend all day networking and using social media.

4. Determine where to invest your energy

5. Building a brand is a major undertaking, and there’s only so much you can do in a day. Think about where you really want to invest your energy in brand building.

6. Be brief

7. State your value quickly and in bite sized chunks, or you run the risk of droning on and becoming forgettable.

Online Presence

1. Maintain an online presence that reflects who you are with the help of these tips.

2. Own your domain

3. Register your name or unique URL to project a more professional image.

4. Have a great website

5. Your website is still like a virtual lobby, offering a jumping off point for your entire online presence.

6. Learn about SEO

7. Search engine optimization might sound a little scary and daunting, but in reality, it’s actually quite easy, as long as you’re creating quality content. Taking the time to do SEO right can make all the difference when making your brand stand out.

8. Keep your personal and company brand separate

9. Establish yourself as a person, rather than a company, so that you don’t limit the power of your personal brand. This is especially helpful if you may not be with the company forever.

10. Be a polite emailer

11. Check your grammar, etiquette, and writing skills so that you’re communicating like a professional.

12. Pay attention to your email address

13. Your email address offers a significant opportunity for building your brand, especially if you use your real name.

14. Do your best to lock down your name online

15. Whether you have a common name or an unusual one, put out as much quality content as you can, with your name one it, so that you can better control your online presence.

16. Find out where you are online

17. Do a Google search to check in on your online presence to see you you’re doing and if you need to make any changes.

18. Monitor your online brand

19. Carefully keep an eye on what is being said about you online, and make corrections as needed.

Networking

1. Get connected and establish your brand with others by following these tips.

2. Find relevant people

3. Seek out the recommendations of colleagues, check out Twitter, and more to find relevant people that you should be connecting with.

4. Join industry associations

5. Meet up with people who can help you build your brand and career by joining industry associations.

6. Be generous with your time

7. Take time to do charitable work and go beyond the call of duty.

8. Say yes more often

9. Accept more invitations and go to more events, finding opportunities and taking advantage of ways to explore and experience.

10. Have business cards

11. Even if you don’t have a job, create business cards with your contact information to share with others who want to contact and remember you.

12. Do your research

13. Before any networking event, be sure to know who is going and what will be discussed so that you’re well prepared.

14. Be accessible

15. Let people know you’re out there, and that they can reach you on a regular basis.

16. Don’t miss out on events

17. Attend conferences, seminars, and other events to get out there and shake hands and meet other relevant people.

18. Ask for testimonials

19. Ask other people to recommend you for your expertise, and then be sure to publish what they’ve said about you.

20. Be an active alumni

21. Make the most of where you went to school by joining the alumni association and taking advantage of networking events.

22. Show support for others

23. Be passionate about helping other people when they need it.

24. Learn how to introduce yourself

25. Be ready to communicate who you are with others, concisely sharing the answer to “Tell me about yourself.”

26. Get connected with passionate people

27. Find other people who live passionately, and get together with them regularly for inspiration.

28. Take guest blogging opportunities

29. Extend your reach beyond your immediate network by taking opportunities to guest blog and share your expertise.

30. Promote others rather than yourself

31. Instead of spending all your time promoting yourself, take the time to point out what others are doing really well.

Job Hunting

1. These personal branding tips are especially relevant for job hunters.

2. Work for free

3. Your experience is worth its weight in gold, so when it comes to getting a job, any past experience can really pay off, even work you’ve done for free.

4. Create a value statement

5. Highlight your values and strengths to get the attention of a hiring manager.

6. Put your resume online

7. Add social features, photos, and more to your photo by putting it online.

8. Quantify your results

9. Prove your value by showing quantified outcomes.

Social Media

1. Follow these tips for great ideas in building your personal brand through social media.

2. Carefully consider which tools you want to use

3. If you can’t effectively use a social media tool, there’s little point to having it at all. A poorly managed social media presence can be worse than not having one in the first place.

4. Listen up and stay in the loop

5. Don’t be one sided: be sure to listen and respond to what others are saying.

6. Fill out your profile completely

7. Fill out all of the information fields to promote everything important about yourself.

8. Go out and find new followers

9. New followers will find you, but you can build your presence much faster by seeking them out yourself.

10. Listen first

11. See what others are saying on social networks, and even set up Google Alerts to listen in on how social networks are working before you get started with them.

12. Engage and interact

13. Participate in the back and forth of social media, engaging with others and interacting with content.

14. Create multiple streams

15. Be ubiquitous, creating an online presence on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and more, as many as you can reasonably maintain on a regular basis.

16. Be adaptable

17. Social media is constantly changing, so always be ready to adapt to new developments with a consistent approach.

18. Don’t forget videos

19. Video projects can pay off in a big way and offer a great way to really showcase your brand.

20. Manage and optimize your social media systems

21. When creating your social media accounts, set them up so that they can be automatically updated, pushing to your blog, home page, and more.

22. Stay interesting

23. Don’t just set up social media and walk away: keep things interesting by writing, sharing videos, photos, and more.

24. Curate content like it’s fine art

25. Think carefully about how you share links, news, and resources, curating your content like a museum director might select works for an exhibit.

26. Use the same profile photo

27. Make your online presence easily recognizable by using the same profile photo everywhere.

28. Use a consistent name, too

29. Build recognition by using the same name in everything you do online, preferably one that is close to your actual name or profession.

30. Schedule regular posts

31. Stay on top of your online presence with scheduled tweets and blog posts, so you always have something new to share.

32. Think before you Tweet

33. Be careful not to write anything that’s embarrassing or offensive, or anything you wouldn’t get away with in any other professional setting.

34. Keep everything PG

35. Be careful not to post anything you wouldn’t want your grandma (or potential employers) to see.

36. Point to your social media presence elsewhere

37. Promote your social media presence everywhere, on your website, blog, and even email.

38. Bring offline relationships online

39. Ask your “real life” friends if they are on Twitter or Facebook.

40. Blog your voice on the web

41. Blogging is a great way to find natural traffic without too much marketing effort.

42. Don’t give away too much personal information

43. Be careful not to over-share information or be inflammatory when building your brand.

44. Make some accounts private

45. If you feel the need to share things online that aren’t professionally appropriate, be sure to make those accounts private.

24 November 201119 February 2013

Open Innovation: Working with others to make new ideas fly

My colleague Nigel Spencer, Research and Business Development Manager reports on our exciting workshop next Monday 29 November:

Do you have access to all the skills, knowledge, experience and perspectives needed to develop innovative products and services within your own organisation?

No matter how large that organisation is, it is highly unlikely that you do. If you seek input from other businesses, often in different sectors, customers, and others you are much more likely to identify innovative ideas and solutions and to build the type of partnerships which will help you turn those ideas into sustainable products and services. This simple premise is the basis of open innovation.

Stefan Lindegaard 15inno says that people should view open innovation as ‘a philosophy or a mindset that they should embrace within their organization. This mindset should enable their organization to work with external input to the innovation process just as naturally as it does with internal input’.

So,you should not look at open innovation as a rigid business or innovation model. It is a shorthand that describes a diverse range of engagement and collabration activity with differing levels of formality and structure. Examples of these include crowdsourcing, online competitions, online jams and more closely facilitated relationships. There are many examples of global corporations that have applied open innovation methods. These include ‘Orange’, Procter & Gamble, Boots, Lego and Virgin Atlantic but the growth in social media and online open innovation platforms like Innocentive, mean that anyone can find a way of applying open innovation principles.

However, if you are looking to embrace the world of open innovation, or even dip your toe in the water, a number of perceived and genuine barriers and challenges may make you hesitate. Some of these are:

How to make the contacts needed with external organisations and people and develop long-term mutually beneficial relationships. This a particular concern if the businesses are of differing sizes.
How to overcome the internal organisational cultures which may be uncomfortable with the kind of openness, transparency and perceived loss of direct control which are involved in applying these ideas.
How to protect ideas and creative outputs when these are being shared and an uncertainty as to how intellectual property fits into an open innovation environment.

On 29 November 2011 the BL is hosting a half-day conference which looks at these challenges head on. It is called ‘Open Innovation: The Challenges & Solutions’.

We have brought together a great selection of experts and practitioners from organisations like 100% Open, Creative Barcode, Procter and Gamble and Quantum Innovation Centre to debate these issues.

More information and booking on the event.

The event is part of an EU-funded Interreg IVB NEW project called The Open Innovation Project.