Complete our small business information survey and win an iPod Nano

I’m not normally one for offering inducements to read my blog… but, for a limited time only (July 17 2009)… you have the chance to win an iPod Nano courtesy of the British Library.

My colleague Nigel Spencer has created a 5 minute online survey giving participants an opportunity to help shape the future of information for small businesses.

The survey is part of a major study into how small businesses get the information they need to develop and grow. It is being carried out by the British Library on behalf of JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee).  The questions look at how and where you get information now, the problems you face and changes that you would like to see in the future.

The findings from this online survey will be published in the form of a statistical analysis and no responses will be attributed to individual businesses.

Survey Link:  http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=FNU3R5eZlMTE7KhpyzcdOQ_3d_3d

Start-ups who think big

On my way home the other evening I noticed an unusual poster advertising the Daily Telegraph newspaper. The poster consisted of three of the photos below, and was a salient reminder of the humble beginnings of what are now household names.

Some of the entrepreneurs I meet have no greater ambition than becoming their own boss and making enough money to be comfortable. However, some have global ambitions right from the beginning. Last week I saw a client who has patented an invention which if successful could be in every home in the world which uses electricity.

BM 1930: Before it became a computing power house, IBM used to manufacture and sell machinery ranging from commercial scales and industrial time recorders to meat and cheese slicers.

Lamborghini 1955: Lamborghini started out as a tractor-building company in the Italian village of Sant'Agata Bolognese.

IKEA started here. Ingvar Kamprad, aged 17, set up Ikea in a shed in Smaland, Southern Sweden. From here he distributed Christmas cards, packets of seeds and pens.

Google started here. Larry Page and Sergey Brin set up Google as a research project while they were Ph.D students at Stanford University. In 1998 they moved into Susan Wojcicki's garage at 232 Santa Margarita, Menlo Park.

It pays to think big, The Daily Telegraph, Britain’s Broadsheet
It pays to think big is the Telegraph’s major new advertising campaign to promote Britain’s best-selling quality daily paper. It pays to think big, proudly celebrates the fact that the Daily Telegraph is the only quality daily paper in the broadsheet format – giving readers more coverage of news, sports and business.

25,000 inventors a year scammed

One of my colleagues has pointed out an article in today’s edition of the Daily Mirror. In the regular Rogue Traders column, Andrew Penman reviews the sad fate of Terry Ferguson who lost $10,000 to American inventions agency Davison Design.

The online version of this article is followed by several posts from previous employees of Davison Design who testify to their dubious operating procedures.

According to one of the posts over 25,000 inventors are conned each year (just in the United States). The information comes from the Invention Statistics website at Inventor Scam Statistics.

My colleague Steve van Dulken has recently posted a blog story warning of UK Invention Promotion companies, and the UKIPO have produced a pdf Step by step guide to using invention promoters.

Another sensible piece of advice is to use Google to find out a range of views on any potential company you come across. For instance the third item in a search on Davidson Design is titled Ripoff Report Search Results: DAVISON DESIGN.

Marketing Maestros: Innovative Strategies for Small Businesses

Many thanks for writing a blog article about Marketing Maestros!  Just a thought – if possible, would you mind adding a link to the webcasts as well?  http://www.inspiringentrepreneurswebcast.co.uk/

Once again a great Inspiring Entrepreneurs panel this evening, with regular chair Matthew Rock (the founder-editor of Real Business) brining his inimitable enthusiasm to the event.

(You can still watch a  webcast of the event at http://www.inspiringentrepreneurswebcast.co.uk/)

Ajaz Ahmed Chairman of AKQA, the world’s largest independent digital agency showed some impressive examples of innovation in advertising, illustrating his point about the importance of originality.

His key message was for his company to let their work do the talking’. In other words, don’t tell you customers how great you are, show them.

Not surprisingly Simon Calver the CEO of LOVEFILM (a £100 million turnover company) is a fan of films, and so used examples to illustrate his four P’s of business success.

P1 – ‘I’m going to make you an offer you can’t refuse’ (The Godfather).
Focus on the consumer proposition first and worry about building the brand later on. The three legs which hold up his company are choice, value and convenience.

P2 – ‘Self preservation society’ (The Italian Job) i.e. Preserve the cash in the business. Make sure you focus on the time it takes to get cash in and out. If you get it right it gives you a competitive advantage. Also analyse everything you do – where you spend your cash and how you do it.

P3 – Spin City (American sitcom)  Never under-estimate the importance of PR. In his case they have three targets, their investors, trading partners and of course their consumers. You have to be constantly creating new stories about your business the papers will want to publish.

P4 – Passion (a choice of seven films according to Wikipedia) Make sure you surround yourself with great people from the beginning. ‘Fiirst division people recruit first division people’, which makes the business great. Make sure you have fun too. Simon hosts a monthly BBQ for his colleagues. Also reward your people on a quarterly basis (in the case of LOVEFILM bonuses of between 10 and  20%. This allows for more flexibility in changing targets in a fast growing business.

In conclusion, starting a business is probably the most rewarding thing you can do in your life.

Tristram Mayhew the founder and ‘Chief Gorilla’ of Go Ape, the UK’s leading forest-based adventure company talked about Gorilla marketing.

Instead of focussing on their specific activities Go Ape are branding themselves as ‘creating adventures’, and are encouraging everyone to live life more adventurously.

Gorilla marketing means turning your customers into an effective free sales force. These are his tips:
1.    Wow them with what you do.
2.    Delight them – turn complainers into ambassadors.
3.    Build a trust and charm based relationship
4.    … and they will buy more, and more often – Tristram openly admitted that many of their ideas have been borrowed from the Innocent drinks company.
5.    Innovate, validate, cultivate.

Tristram strongly recommended The Brand Gap, it is very readable and nice and short too.

They are building a loyalty base using Tribe magazine (published every 6 weeks) to reinforce brand values.

They also make use of Social Media such as encouraging customers to post videos on YouTube, and have nearly 5,000 to date with hundreds of thousands of views.

By ‘making friends’ with existing adventure bloggers and giving them free Go Ape experiences they hope to generate positive reports online.

‘Doing good things.’ For example to help support gorillas in Rwanda 25 staff and 85 customers completed a fun run dressed as gorillas.

Will King is the ‘King of Shaves’, creator of the cult shaving brand that has overtaken Wilkinson Sword and Nivea to become number two to Gillette in the UK shaving market.

After 16 years of building the brand Will launched his own razor the Azor one year ago almost to the day. They already have up to 10% market share in the UK.

Lessons learnt:

The Harvard rule of 4
1.    No one has it
2.    Every one will have it
3.    Price for profit
4.    Price for sale

Take an existing product and make it better – eg iPhone, Innocent smoothies.

Change constantly, push boundaries – it also helps to generates news stories for PR coverage.

Will introduced his SPACE strategy, which stands for Satisfaction of Success, Passion and Persistence, Attitude of Action, Confidence and Communication and Enthusiasm and Enjoyment.

There is a great degree of satisfaction in succeeding. If you achieve great satisfaction, whatever that is, it may be having children or running a marathon, but you’ve got to work at that. There’s no substitute for hard work to get that satisfaction of success, which feeds on to the passion and persistence bit. Things don’t happen overnight, it takes years to become truly successful..

You’ve got to have a can-do attitude to get things done; if you can’t be bothered who else will? The confidence and common sense part relates to having confidence in yourself and what you’re doing but not being delusional; if you try to take on Apple with an iPhone it’s a big ask, but if you want to come up with a cover to protect the iPhone clearly that’s something you could do.

There’s a certain amount when you’ve got to have confidence beyond the success that you don’t enjoy, especially when you’re starting out – people won’t give you credit, people don’t believe you’re going to do it, people think you’ll go bust, you’ll owe them money, and you’ve got to imbue them with confidence if you’re going to be successful.

And finally the enthusiasm and enjoyment piece; if you’re not enjoying it then nobody else is, especially if you’re leading a business. So have enthusiasm, have an edge about what you’re about to do because people do look to you, especially if you’re running a business or are involved in senior management. If you can’t get them motivated by transferring your enthusiasm to them, then how are they going to transfer their enthusiasm either to the products you sell or to the services you provide? They’re not.

Many thanks for writing a blog article about Marketing Maestros!  Just a thought – if possible, would you mind adding a link to the webcasts as well?  http://www.inspiringentrepreneurswebcast.co.uk/

The smell of fiction

Since the dawn of time in the ‘real world’ people have enjoyed creating complicated hoaxes, spoofs and pranks (April 1 in particular being a popular time of year).

However, I don’t understand the thinking behind the multitude of fake products ‘for sale’ on the Internet. The latest to bamboozle the blogosphere (and Internet savvy Librarians) is the Smell of Books.

As you can see from the images and text below, someone has gone to a lot of trouble to create this ‘product’.

However, the Smell of Books is just one of a range of unexpected items produced by DuroSport Electronics. These include the DuroSport, a digital music player that no longer supports MP3 format songs. The DuroSport website links to the Prism DuroSport Insider Blog which contains many long and detailed posts written by Vladimir Concescu, the Chief Product Engineer at the DuroSport Electric Company.

I have included a photo of him below to indicate the nature of this site.

Either ‘Vladimir’ has too much time on his hands, or is working to some kind of agenda I can’t fathom.

The smell of e-books just got better

Does your Kindle leave you feeling like there’s something missing from your reading experience?

Have you been avoiding e-books because they just don’t smell right?

If you’ve been hesitant to jump on the e-book bandwagon, you’re not alone. Book lovers everywhere have resisted digital books because they still don’t compare to the experience of reading a good old fashioned paper book.

But all of that is changing thanks to Smell of Books™, a revolutionary new aerosol e-book enhancer.

Now you can finally enjoy reading e-books without giving up the smell you love so much. With Smell of Books™ you can have the best of both worlds, the convenience of an e-book and the smell of your favorite paper book.

Smell of Books™ is compatible with a wide range of e-reading devices and e-book formats and is 100% DRM-compatible. Whether you read your e-books on a Kindle or an iPhone using Stanza, Smell of Books™ will bring back that real book smell you miss so much.

The latest example is the the website devoted to selling

Initial thoughts about SLA 2009 conference

Although I have yet to make it back home as planned, thanks to missing my Thursday evening flight, I have been mulling over the SLA 2009 Conference in Washington DC.

Here are some initial thoughts:

It was fascinating to hear Colin Powell talk about some of his experiences in his long and mainly distinguished career  (many of the American librarians I talked to have not yet forgiven him for failing to dissuade President Bush from invading Iraq). Although his support for the Barack Obama in October 08 has somewhat softening their criticism of him. He has become a big fan of Web 2.0 technologies, and tries hard to keep up with his grand children. He expressed concern that America may have over-reacted to the 9/11 atrocity by making it too hard for tourists and foreign students to get visa permits. He felt this was damaging the economy of the United States as well as limiting the opportunity to promote the benefits of democracy and freedom.

I think the highlight of the trip was a night-time visit to the Library of Congress on Capitol Hill. The round reading room was a thing of beauty. I was lucky enough to be allowed behind the counter and down (a tiny flight of stairs) into the space below.

The round reading room

Underneath the round reading room

Underneath the round reading room

For the initial views of a first timer to the event I suggest you look at woodsiegirl’s blog post.

Beginners Guide to Business Finance with Johnny Martin

From time to time I take time out to attend one of our partners workshops. This enables me to recommend them to clients and visitors to the Business & IP Centre from personal experience and hopefully to learn something new and useful.

I have been aware of my lack of understanding of business accounts (despite having spent 16 years working for an investment company in the City of London). So although familiar with the terms gross and net profit, cash versus accruals, assets versus liabilities and not forgetting the many and varied ratios such as: Liquidity, Asset turnover, Financial leverage and of course Profitability, I wasn’t confident about what they actually meant.

If you had watched the semi-final of the latest BBC Apprentice series, you would have seen the eventual winner get in something of a muddle about the difference between net and gross profit for the business she had been successfully running for six years.

Now, thanks to attending our Beginners Guide to Business Finance course run by Johnny Martin I am feeling much more confident about how to create a set of management accounts (both for before and after a business starts). And I am now more familiar with these important business concepts. I particularly liked the way he used live spreadsheets to show the impact of a change in price or order volume on the profit (or loss) for the year.

My favourite quote from Johnny after explaining the roles of various accounting jobs from Book keeper to Financial Director was, ‘you can delegate but DON’T abdicate’, financial responsibility for your business. The experiences of both Elton John and Leonard Cohen are salutary reminders of this point.

The courses cost just £18 and are run at regular intervals here in the British Library.

Visit to the new Guardian newspaper building in Kings Place

The same evening as the The Social Media Exchange – For the Cultural and Heritage Sectors event, I hobbled over to Kings Place to visit the shiny new Guardian (and Observer) newspaper offices.

As it was evening, we were able to see the journalists hard at work creating the next days newspaper. The building itself is amazing, with lots of glass and open spaces, making for a ‘transparent’ working environment. But as the building is also partially open to the public, the journalist are even more open to scrutiny.

Our guide, Luke Dodd, the Guardian’s project manager for the building and former Director of the Newsroom, explained the background to the move. In particular the bringing together of several disparate offices into one space. As well as merging the paper and digital activities, so that content for both media is produced by one extended team instead of separately, as before.

As a bit of a techie, I was most impressived by the  sight of literally hundreds of uniform 24 inch iMac computers on every desk. Each floor was filled with these very desirable pieces of kit as far as the eye could see. Again, the move gave an opportunity to equip all the staff with a same technology.

Many thanks to the Association of UK Media Librarians (AUKML) and SLA Europe for organising such a fascinating visit.

The Social Media Exchange – For the Cultural and Heritage Sectors

It has already been a week since I attended the one day Social Media Exchange – For the Cultural and Heritage Sectors. Organised by the irrepressible Jude Habib, co-founder of Sound Delivery the communications and training company, it was a fun day learning about the uses of social media in museums and libraries.

I have included a selection of my notes from the day below, but most of the content plus updated comments are available through their dedicated website at http://socialmediaexchange.org.uk/

Using Web Content to Build and Engage Your Audience

Madeleine Sugden – KnowHow NonProfit – http://www.knowhownonprofit.org/
http://www.slideshare.net/sounddelivery/making-content-work-for-you-presentation

What is web content for:

• Proof of existence
• Help people to learn something – 24/7 learning
• Encourage action / change behaviour – find out more/shop etc

What is web content for? – 5 Questions to help you make the most of your web content

1. Audience – will they get beyond your home page?

Examples:

• Museum of Witchcraft – poor design, which doesn’t match the nature of the content i.e. it looks like it is designed for accountants – http://www.museumofwitchcraft.com/
• Walsal new museum – too much text, missing image – http://www.artatwalsall.org.uk/
• compare to Tyne & Wear museums page – http://www.twmuseums.org.uk/
• Porthcurno telegraph museum – sections for different visitors – http://www.porthcurno.org.uk/
• Pages for visitors or for creators eg about page from Museum of Brands and Packaging is too boring – http://www.museumofbrands.com/background.html
• Working with Men website one of very few asking for feedback to improve website – http://www.workingwithmen.org/
• Friends of the Earth website – what you said content following on from consolation exercise – e.g. local groups. – get into the mindset of audience
  http://www.foe.co.uk/community/local_groups/group_resources_index.html

2. Presentation

• Are you helping with skim reading?
• Use headings, blocks of text, links to more content
• Are you giving too much information?
• Placing text over images leads to accessibility issues
• Is content accessible
• Are you encouraging people to read on?
• Don’t use – “Click here to find out more about…” unnecessary text
• Bring in other content to improve experience e.g. weather forecasts from BBC

Examples:

• Samuel Johnson website – good layout – http://www.drjohnsonshouse.org/
• Shakespeare birthplace trust – more links to content – http://www.shakespeare.org.uk/
• British Heart Foundation – good example of design – http://www.bhf.org.uk/

3. Medium

• Content isn’t just printed words
• Are you using the best format?
• Are you using audio and video content?
• Is it interesting and fun?

Examples:

National Museums Liverpool – audio content is key part of page – subject integration – includes transcript alternative – http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/

Great Fire of London – interactive video game type experience for children – http://www.fireoflondon.org.uk/

Welcome to Yorkshire – help to build your day in … – dynamic itinerary building tool – http://www.yorkshire.com/inspire/inspire-me

Hackney Museum Virtual Tour – very boring – http://www.virtualtours360.net/hackney/virtual-tour.html

4. Marketing

• Help people find your site
  Search engines – work on Google Search Engine Optimisation, think about subject terms used to find your content. E.g. A search for Victorian homes does not find many of the relevant museums.
• Use all channels
• Integrate on and offline activities

Examples:

Eric Bloodaxe from York Museum has a Facebook page

Mediamuseum on Twitter with 1,700 followers

Eureka museum putting their images on flickr

Wellcome collection – medical London – videos of relevant walks around London – http://www.medicallondon.org/related_events.html

Imperial War Museum North – their page on the Big Picture Show does not come close to capturing the impact of the actual experience in the museum – http://north.iwm.org.uk/server/show/ConWebDoc.2141

5. Influence

• From passive users to active users to super active users…
• Make it easy to interact and take action
• Influence windows

Examples:

• Nation Museum of Wales – use e-cards – http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/ecards/?cat=all
• + make your own love spoon – http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/lovespoon/
• Barley Hall – oral history involvement – http://www.barleyhall.org.uk/content.asp?ID=35
• Kent Police Museum – donations page – call us, but no phone number – http://www.kent-police-museum.co.uk/core_pages/donations.shtml
• Sponsor a valve on Colossus web page – http://www.colossusonline.com/
• Museum of Childhood – page on Lego has no opportunity for interaction – http://www.vam.ac.uk/moc/collections/toys/construction_toys/lego/index.html
• Museum of London – e-newsletter ‘close this window’ page after completing request – http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/English/AboutUs/Newsroom/Enewsletter/EnewsletterForm.htm
• KnowHow NonProfit – good example of many points – http://www.knowhownonprofit.org/

********************************************************************************************

Group Tweeting or Finding your organisation’s voice on Twitter

Ali Holder – Westminster Libraries

@wcclibraries

Started in March 2009

Currently lone tweeter

First tweet: Planning to put all news and events in libraries here. Also additions to the 24/7 library of exclusive online resources for library members.

11:34 PM Mar 3rd from web

Why?

Instant

Getting started:

Buy-in from senior management important as speaking for Westminster

Get tweeting – once or twice a day, most days – not too much, not to little

Set up Business Continuity colleague so they can tweet library closures etc

Aims:

Mainly post news & events, but also draw attention to existing / regular / ‘hidden’ aspects of service.

Issues:

• Organisational voice
• Broadcasting, not conversing
• Access restrictions within the work setting
• Getting customers and potential customers to follow us.

Lessons:

• Aware of popularity of posts with existing and future followers – e.g. free wi-fi
• Use search tools to find out what people are saying about us.
• Proactive use allows us to build trust and demonstrate use to organisation
• Ditto for users –

Finding our voice – who is tweeting?

Me, us or them?

Future plans:

• Group tweeting – or groups of tweeters
• More feeds
• More use of hashtags
• Tweeting through events
• Feedback and conversation
• How do we measure success?

Tips:

• Never forget the biog section
• Work out who is speaking
• Provide links
• Don’t protect updates
• Watch how others do it
• Don’t exclude – have a feed

Twitter demographics – typical user – around 30 and urban

********************************************************************************************

Round up discussion

Patrick Forbes – Head of Documentaries at Oxford Film and Television

Nick Reynolds – Editor, BBC Internet Blog

Frances Croxford – Consultant and Account Manager at Jane Wentworth

Be aware of both huge opportunities and significant risks associated with adoption of  social media.

Inherent lack of control.

Before you start make sure you are aware of the external perception of the organisation.

• Clarity
• Confidence
• Transparency

Tell stories which come from both your staff and your audience.

Conclusions:

• Institutions are naturally resistant to social media as it leads to loss of control.
• Biggest resistors are curatorial staff
• Cultural change can take between 5 and 10 years

The kindness of strangers… and acquaintances

Although not in the same league as Lucy Kellaway’s recent trauma, and resulting life affirming experience (How a thief gave me 10 reasons to be grateful), my newly acquired torn calf muscle has led to unexpected kindness from strangers.

Not exactly how I sustained my injury - but a nice footy photo

As I have limped around a sometimes hostile (or frequently indifferent) London I have come across instance after instance of help and thoughtfulness. My first experience was a ticket inspector at the entrance to my train station. Instead of his usual approach of not even bothering to make eye contact, this time as I struggled to retrieve the ticket from my pocket, he rushed forward to open the automatic gate for me. Later on, as I crept at snail’s pass a red London bus waiting to begin its journey, I asked if they were going my way. The driver’s initial response was a rather shirty, ‘this isn’t a bus stop you know’, but after seeing my painfully slow limping progress (painful and slow), she relented and invited me on board.

Friends and acquaintances at work have also expressed great concern as they see me leaning heavily on my walking stick. And even when they discover the injury was sustained during a veterans football match, and their initial laughter has died down, they still ask what they can do to help.

All in all a very positive feeling which has gone some way to ameliorating the stinging pain of the injury itself.

A role model for sustainable business

As mentioned in a previous post, more and more new business are setting up with various shades of green when it comes to their impact on the environment.

However the real challenge, and the real scope and need for change, is with existing traditional firms. For example carpet tile manufacturing. Well, having just watched an inspiring TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) video, I think I may have seen the answer. Ray Anderson the CEO of global carpet company Interface outlines his vision for sustainable commerce, with their Mission Zero commitment to eliminate any negative impact Interface has on the environment by 2020.

He shows how they have increased sales and doubled profits while turning the traditional “take / make / waste” industrial system on its head.

Not only are they acting as a role model by proving how this can be done successfully, they are helping other corporates by developing a business model for them to follow.

The Interface model for sustainable business has emerged, one that guides our journey and from which other businesses can draw inspiration and design their own journeys. As we put the model to work within Interface, we set forth our vision and, imagining all it would take to realize it, developed the Seven Fronts™. We then put in place measurements, called Ecometrics™, to monitor our progress and keep us on our journey’s path. Learn more about the 7 Fronts of Sustainability.

New Business & IP Centre website went live today

After many months of patiently waiting, I was glad to see that our new website went live today at www.bl.uk/bipc.

It has a much cleaner look than before and is designed to simplify what we offer to entrepreneurs, business start-ups and inventors.

The sections are divided into :

• Business networking
• Business planning
• Protecting your ideas
• Researching markets

I would be very interested in any comments you have on the website (both positive and constructive criticisms).

Learn the basics of copyright in less than 7 minutes

This is the enticing title of a recent email video campaign aimed at information professionals.

Given the level of confusion around copyright, and the fact that librarians and information specialists are often in the front line, I was pleased to be able to increase my awareness.

In fact even though the legal aspects cover US law and includes the their concept of Fair Dealing, it covers a very complicated topic in surprising detail in a short space of time. I like the way they include sources of content that are not covered by copyright, such as ideas, facts, data,  and publications created by the US Government.

Needless to say, given the source of the video (the Copyright Clearance Center) the information tends towards compliance and the reasons why.

Sadly, they don’t make any reference to Creative Commons and the choice of licences available there.

Corporate workers share information every day, but what percentage get copyright permission?

Most people don’t knowingly violate copyright law, they are simply unaware of their copyright responsibilities. To help increase awareness, CCC has created a FREE video that provides the basics of copyright in a fun and informative way.

In less than 7 minutes, Jim T. Librarian explains why copyright is important, what is and isn’t covered
under U.S. copyright law, and why attribution isn’t always enough.
Copyright Basics – The Video
Thank you for your interest in CCC’s
Copyright Basics

This Program is made available for your use by the rights licensing experts at Copyright Clearance Center. We welcome you to view the video here and/or download it for non-commercial use in your organization (terms and conditions apply).

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.

Vote for your favourite marketing hero

As if compiling votes on the favourite brand of the last 50 years wasn’t enough, the Marketing Society also wants to see who is your marketing hero.

There is quite a long list to choose from, but I was disappointed they only managed to find two women; Anita Roddick of The Body Shop fame, and Dianne Thompson the CEO of Camelot Group who run the UK National Lottery. I have added a few others to see who you recognise.

Vote for your ‘most loved’ brand

To celebrate their 50th Anniversary the Marketing Society has selected 50 brands from last 50 years, and asked visitors to vote for their favourite.

Although some of my favourites such as Apple and The Body Shop do appear on the list, they have missed some truly iconic names such as Walkers Crisps, Marmite and my personal favourite Alessi.

In true social media style the site allows comments, and I was amused to see “No Marmite No vote” from Michele.

1959 was the year The Marketing Society was founded and the birth of modern marketing. Today, The Marketing Society is the most influential network of senior marketers dedicated to championing marketing in the UK. Fifty Golden Brands is our exploration of the changing role of brands since our foundation.

Selecting a brand for each of the past 50 years was not easy. Our shortlist was assembled using a variety of different criteria. Which brands were launched, relaunched or revamped? Who was winning awards? Who were the top spenders and the top sellers? And which brands encapsulated the zeitgeist of the year?

Pick a brand 1959 – 2008

This is not a definitive list. It’s a work in progress, a platform for discussion and now we need you to get involved. Who have we missed? Where were you? Which brands shone more brightly? Share your memories and insights of the last 50 years. Your involvement will enable us to finalise the definitive 50 Golden Brands in time for our anniversary in 2009.

Follow the risers and fallers on the FairTrade 100

Having spent much of my working life working in the investment world of the City of London, the various share indices were bread and butter to me. My key one was actually the FTSE All Share, but the FTSE 100 was a regular feature in my working day.

So I was pleasantly surprised to see that the good people at World Fair Trade Day have developed their own take on the indices by introducing the FT100 for organisations that are “100% committed to Fair Trade”.

You may recognize some familiar names on the list such as Oxfam, Traidcraft, and one of our recent Inspiring Entrepreneurs speakers – People Tree.

However, the nicest surprise, was to see the only company I have ever directly bought shares in sitting in the list. I bought 1,000 shares in Cafédirect over five years ago, and since then the company has gone from strength to strength.

Cafédirect is the UK’s largest Fairtrade hot drinks company. Our brands, Cafédirect, Teadirect and Cocodirect are sold through most of the major supermarkets. We buy from 39 producer organisations in 13 countries, ensuring that over a quarter of a million growers receive a decent income from trade. We are proud to be working with farmers who have the expertise to provide the exceptional quality we require. This ensures that you enjoy the finest selection of coffees, teas and chocolate drinks. As part of our Gold Standard Fairtrade policy, over the past three years we have invested on average 60% of our profits in the businesses and communities of our grower partners.

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.

Top 10 things that can kill your business from PRIME

PRIME (The Prince’s Initiative for Mature Enterprise) has produced a neat little handout covering the Top 10 things that can kill your business.

I was surprised that ‘Not watching the cash position’, had been demoted to number two, as this is usually considered to be the main reason for business failure. Instead they have ‘Failure to sell’ at number one.

1. Failure to sell New businesses should concentrate on winning their critical early customers before anything else. If you are uncomfortable with selling, try another approach. Selling doesn’t have to be the traditional hard sell, but it does need to be done. Even if you are busy now, set time aside for thinking about where your next customers are going to come from.
Feel bad about selling?
Basics of selling explained
Free club course on marketing (audio podcast and workbook)
Understanding customer needs

The electronic version of the document has added value with these links to explore the topic in more detail.

The remaining topics are:
3. Failure to chase for payment
4. Underpricing
5. Failure to do a reality check on your basic business idea
6. Ignoring seasonality
7. Forgetting about the competition
8. Ignoring legalities
9. Getting involved with scams and con artists
10. Getting trapped in long-term arrangements

PRIME helps people over the age of fifty set up in business for themselves. PRIME was founded by HRH The Prince of Wales in response to letters he was receiving from people desperate to work but unable to find anyone to employ them – because of their age.

Desk Space Genie for vacant desk space in London

A common request from visitors to the Business & IP Centre is for us to recommend cheap local office space.

Thanks to Desk Space Genie, a new website that advertises vacant desk space, we can now help people find space right down to an individual desk.

According to Springwise:

The service helps businesses make a bit of money from their unused office space and enables cash-strapped freelancers or other small businesses to become more established.

Desk Space Genie lets space-seeking ‘deskers’ search for a space by postal code or town, contacting the advertisers directly. The site lists vacancies in most major cities around the UK, covering ‘all inclusive’ desk packages with wifi and other utilities, or more basic ‘pay for what you use’ services.