In through the outfield

18 May 2009

How good is your Escalator Pitch?

I often ask my business advice clients if they have an elevator pitch. Quite a few have not heard this expression before which surprises me.

The basic idea is that in the fortunate event you find yourself in a lift with a potential backer for your business (think Richard Branson), could you convey the essentials of your idea or invention before he got out on the 20th floor?

In practice this means between 30 seconds and two minutes to express all the salient (selling) points without any waffle, which for some of my clients is a challenge to say the least.

To see examples of this in an even more demanding environment head over to Techfluff.tv to watch one of their many escalator pitches. Just be aware that practicing this on the London Underground might get you arrested.

Another inspiring place to visit for when you get a little bit longer to get your idea across (in this case 6 minutes), is Demo.com. In particular have a look at some of the Demo Gods in action to see how it should be done by the best of the best.

About DEMO
The feel you get when you enter the ballroom at DEMO is unlike any other conference. Each company is given just six minutes on the DEMO stage to truly demonstrate how their product will change the world. No PowerPoint or flashy corporate presentations allowed. Just the founders and the technologies many are staking their careers on… it doesn’t get any more straightforward and fast paced than that.

8 May 2009

Build your own snazzy website with Squarespace

As a non-techie who has dabbled with building websites for many years, I have constantly been in search of the holy grail of easy build web software.

This is also a big issue for many business start-ups who feel under pressure to have a website, but are worried about the cost or time it would take to build a professional looking one.

Having graduated through Hot Dog (from Sausage Sofware), Microsoft FrontPage and various versions of Adobe Dreamweaver, I have come to conclusion that building even small simple websites is hard work.

However thanks to a mention on net@night with Amber and Leo I have discovered Squarespace. Using some very clever programmers they have produced a web based service which enables you to produce really quite snazzy websites about as easily as one could imagine for a relatively low cost.

According to their blurb their service has the following advantages:

Know Your Visitors
Learn where they’re coming from, and what keywords they’re using to find you. Our powerful analytics tools help you view the traffic and behavior of your visitors in real time.
Templates That Aren’t Templated
Dozens of professionally designed style variants from name-brand designers. All Squarespace styles allow point and click control over every design element.
Beautiful Photo Galleries
Customizable photo galleries let you choose how you want to present your work. Lightbox integration, hover effects, and automatic image resizing are just a few of the perks.
Intuitive Editing
Want to add content? Perhaps edit something you already wrote? Want to trash something all together? No problem. Our rapid on-site content editing tool will assist you every step of the way. All elements of your text can be manipulated here.
Form Building & Data Collection Squarespace Business packages come equipped with an industrial strength visual form builder. Our form builder contains over 14 field types, and can collect data concurrently via email and a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet
Moving In? Moving Out?
Do you have a blog or website you want to switch over to Squarespace? Moving over to another platform? We make it easy! Regardless of your direction, we can help.

They also give you a month to try it out for free to see how you get on.

9 March 20096 March 2013

Our first Free Live Webcast – Mothers of Invention

I am proud of the way my colleagues in the British Library have adopted and experimented with Web 2.0 and social media in the past three years.

We have activities in Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Linkedin, a free e-course on intellectual property, a good old fashioned monthly e-newsletter and of course our two blogs on business and intellectual property.

Our next venture is into the world of live webcasting starting on Tuesday 10 March 2009 at 6.30pm (UK time) with Mothers of Invention.

Not only will you be able to watch our Inspiring Entrepreneurs event online at website www.inspiringentrepreneurswebcast.co.uk/, but also put questions to our panel of experts.

	Gurinder Chadha OBE is one of Britain’s most successful film directors, best known for Bend it Like Beckham, Bride and Prejudice and, most recently, Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging. Born in Kenya, she began her career at the BBC before making a huge impact with Bhaji on the Beach in 1993.
	Liz Jackson MBE started her telemarketing business Great Guns at the age of 25, with few educational qualifications and a £4,000 loan from The Prince’s Trust. In the first year of her business, she lost her eyesight, yet has gone on to build a £3m-turnover business with eight offices across the UK.
	Laura Tenison conceived her children’s clothes business in 1993 after a severe car accident in France; the woman in the hospital bed beside her complained about the standard of mail-order kids’ clothes. Today JoJo Maman Bebe is an award-winning multi million-pound retailer with stores across the UK.
	Dee Wright‘s business The Hairforce is an innovative nit and lice removal service. After just three sessions with one of Dee’s “lice assassins” both the nits and the lice are gone, and children are treated like VIPs in a massage chair; the whole experience is fuss-free. Dee supports female staff by providing a job which they can fit around school hours.

The British Library is bringing together four trailblazing British women for an evening of inspiration in celebration of International Women’s Month. If you can’t make the event, you can still join in the debate by watching our live webcast.

In partnership with HSBC, the world’s local bank.

Our speakers:
Gurinder Chadha OBE, director of Bend it Like Beckham and Bride and Prejudice
Liz Jackson MBE, founder of telemarketing business Great Guns
Laura Tenison MBE, who runs award-winning mother and baby brand JoJo Maman Bebe
Dee Wright, the brains behind The Hairforce, an innovative nit and lice removal service

How to watch:
How: Visit the website www.inspiringentrepreneurswebcast.co.uk/
Date: Tuesday 10 March 2009
Time: 18.30 – 20.00 (GMT)

Don’t worry if you can’t make this time; you’ll be able to view the webcast after the event.

15 February 2009

The Gift of Inner Success book launch

Tuesday evening in the Business & IP Centre was the launch of The Gift of Inner Success the latest book from the British Library’s partner business coach, Rasheed Ogunlaru.

The fact that the event had been hastily re-scheduled from the snow hit previous Tuesday and yet was a full house, indicates just how popular the charismatic Rasheed is becoming.

As he says on his blog of the evening, “The event was an evening of inspiration, celebration, connection and was attended by a rich range of spirit souls. “

Rasheed kindly gave a copy to the Centre, and using my recently acquired speed reading technique (of which, more in a later blog post) I managed to whistle through it on the way into work the next day.

The theme of the book is about how we need to give ourselves the mental space (a difficult challenge given the daily demands on ourselves) in order to listen to our hearts. Rasheed is a great believer in allowing yourself to trust yourself to let your heart rule your head.

15 February 2009

British Library Entrepreneurship Training Day

Last week was a pretty hectic one for me.

It began with an all day Entrepreneurship Training Day on Monday 9 February. The day introduced postgraduate students to the Library’s collections, and the ways we can support entrepreneurs. Although the students were a bit reticent in the early part of the day they gradually warmed up, and we ended up with a fascinating closing session. The title was “Street smarts and book smarts – are business people and entrepreneurs really talking the same language as entrepreneurship scholars? How can academia actually help business in the current economic climate whilst still producing high quality peer reviewed outputs?”.

I was privileged to chair contributions from Dr Tristram Hooley (Senior Manager: Stakeholders and Networks, Vitae), Simon Butt (Director of Communications, NCGE – National Council for Graduate Entrepreneurship) and Dr Jim Gazzard (Enterprise & Technology Executive, Royal Veterinary College). In addition we were joined at the eleventh hour by the British Library’s partner business coach, Rasheed Ogunlaru. The students, who were evenly split between those who were planning to start their own business and those who were studying entrepreneurship, came up with some excellent questions

One questioner was met with an unexpectedly strong response from the panel. He wanted to know why he should move from his safe and secure research job, with guaranteed funding for the next three years, to the risks and uncertainty of starting his own business. The panellists asked him how he could be so sure of his future employment with government cuts in education funding expected almost any day now. For many people entrepreneurship is the safer option, as they are their own boss and more in control of their destiny.

4 January 2009

From redundancy to reinvention

Last February I wrote about Rasheed Ogunlaru and his Zest for Business. During 2008 he regularly ran his Making it as an Entrepreneur sessions which proved very popular.

Given our current economic straights and the rise of redundancies during 2008 with more predicted for 2009, Rasheed (who’s redundancy during the last downturn ten years ago, led to his current vocation) has written a blog post From redundancy to reinvention with his top ten tips. Having been made redundant myself over three years ago, I remember what a traumatic experience it was. But also how it was the springboard to a much more satisfying job.

1. Give yourself time and space to be, breathe, reflect and even grieve.

2. Find out exactly what the redundancy will mean: and your options / entitlements.

3. Seek support: from friends and loved ones – and professionals in / beyond work who can help you.

4. Take time: to consider what you really want to do next in your life and career and follow your heart.

5. Practicals: Brush up your CV and your interview skills, identify all your strengths and skills. Ensure you stand out. Include a powerful personal statement at the top.

6. Get hold of my ‘Moving ahead in your career free guide – visit my resources page it will help you focus on what you want in a job

7. Write a list of all the people you know who can help you (inc contacts, friends, former colleagues and who they know) Call or make appointments to meet and chat with anyone who may be able to help you.

8. When applying for jobs: keep your spoken/ written correspondence clear, crisp, concise and captivating.

9. Spread the net: include internet, networking, agencies, contacts as well as newspapers for your job search.

10. Tell people: You probably know 200 people or more tell them what you’re looking for…together you may find it… It’s a small world.

www.rasaru.com

26 November 2008

Christmas sells – Christmas sales

During a spot of television watching the other evening I couldn’t help noticing how many times the word Christmas was used during the advert breaks. I know that Christmas starts earlier every year in the hope that business will reap the benefit. But this was almost as though the word was being thrown at the viewer as some kind of mantra. The irony is that almost all of these pleas to worship at the cult of Christmas commercial consumption ended with a hastily tacked on half price offer.

By chance, on the same day I read about a character who has well and truly bought into the ‘Christmas spirit’, by celebrating Christmas day every day since 1994. His name is Andy Park (aka Mr Christmas) and he estimates to have consumed 117,600 brussel sprouts, 5,110 bottles of Champagne, and opened more than 230,000 Christmas cards. He has also worn out 37 electric ovens, and 23 video recorders by watching the Queen’s Speech every day.

However, this year the electrician from Melksham, Wiltshire, is being having to cut back due to the credit crisis.

Divorced Mr Park said that this year the postage is so dear he is having to deliver his cards to himself by himself, instead of relying on the Royal Mail. Also he is being forced to downsize his turkey from 14lb to 9lb.

22 June 2008

The Future of the information profession part 1: Report from SLA2008

I have just from the annual SLA conference which this year was in Seattle. It was strange returning to the city of my very first SLA event ten years ago. Then I was very green information professional and spent most of the four days trying to get my head around the complexities SLA, the conference and cultural differences between the UK and the USA.

This time I was there to fulfil my commitments as co-convener of the Fellows annual meeting, the First Timers Event and to Chair the Public Policy Advisory Council. Since being made a fellow of the SLA in Baltimore in 2006 I was expecting to be required to continue to contribute to the association.

I was more than happy to be involved with the First Timers Event which is held at the beginning of the five days of conference. I passionately believe in encouraging and supporting new entrants into the information profession. So helping to explain how to get the best out of the conference and to enable networking, as well as the opportunity to find mentors is a job I was happy to do.

The loud buzz in the room from the 300 or so who turned up to the meeting indicated they were more than ready to network with their fellow information professionals.

Chairing the Public Policy Advisory Council gave me great opportunity to be involved with SLA’s effective efforts during 2007 and 2008 to campaign against library closures in the US Government’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), as well as a host of other activities. In the case of the EPA libraries, SLA in the form of Doug Newcomb (Chief Policy Officer) and Janice Lachance (SLA CEO) had been in the vanguard of the move to prevent the closures without due consideration and discussion.

15 April 20086 March 2013

Stephen Fry in the British Library Basements

After my recent blog post about the rather exclusive location deep below the reading rooms of the British Library, I was surprised to discover this week that Stephen Fry was there before me. He was there as part of a fascinating documentary in which he helps to build a copy of Gutenberg’s (and the world’s) first ever printing press. You can still catch this fascinating program via the wonderful BBC iPlayer service.

I love the way he demonstrates the principles of typeset printing using an old John Bull Printing Outfit whilst sitting in the British Library Café. I have fond memories of that game from my early youth.