What makes a good entrepreneur?

This article gives 5 key attributes of an entrepreneur, and while I recognise that they are all important, I question whether they are the most important ones. What about having a good idea? Is that an attribute worth having?

What do you think?

Blogging for Business

photo credit: Will Lion

Is it worth blogging for business? This article seems to think so, although I'm not sure I agree with the daily updates instruction!

View from the Top

First pictures of our exhibition. If you have any to add, please let me know or upload them to the Facebook group.



More to follow!

Thanks again!

A quick post to say thanks for your support with our event at View from the Top, photos to follow.

If you weren't able to make the awards ceremony and networking lunch and still want to see what we've been up to, take a trip up to the 4th Floor of Waterstones and look at our exhibition. We'll be there until Monday 24th.

Oh and for those of you who took our marketing seminar with Russell Kennard, remember his willow pattern plate exercise??? I think this takes it one step further!

Celebration of SPEED at Nottingham Trent University

To mark the final months of the SPEED (Student Placements for Entrepreneurs in Education) programme, Nottingham Trent University’s business incubation unit, The Hive, is holding an exhibition of SPEED businesses and projects.

The revolutionary programme has provided students taking a placement year the opportunity to set up and run their own business in The Hive, instead of pursuing a standard industrial work-placement scheme.

The event will take place during Enterprise Week at the View from the Top Gallery on the top floor of Waterstones Bookstore in Nottingham, from Wednesday, November 19 to Sunday, November 23.


We are really looking forward to meeting 'The Ideas Man' Shed Simove at our special event on Thursday 20th November, and also at Thirsty Thursday at Oceana at 6.30. Why not meet us there and network, learn and be inspired!

New Pathway To Enterprise Event

‘Pathway to Enterprise’

Forthcoming Events

Wednesday 3 December 2008

12.00 to 2.00 pm

Hive Seminar Room

‘Getting to grips with PR Planning’

Presenter: Vivienne Tregidiga, Managing Director, Impact 108

Vivienne, whose senior management experience working in
newspapers & magazines spanning over 20 years, will deliver this
interactive workshop and will cover topics, such as:-

Getting your business out there
Public Persona
Your image
How do your customers perceive you
Crisis Management

Never under-estimate the value of PR and what it can do for small businesses
– not to be missed!

Suitable refreshments will be provided

If you are interested in attending this event,

please contact Karen Doxey on 0115 848 4354 or e-mail: karen.doxey@ntu.ac.uk

We've been asked to distribute this information across our networks. It could be an interesting and informative event, check out the website for more details. It is the day before our event..forgotten what that is? Click here!

EXPO 2008

19 NOVEMBER 2008

EPIC CENTRE, LINCOLNSHIRE SHOWGROUND

EXPO in the East Midlands is an annual free event focusing on sustainability. It provides an opportunity to see how we can achieve our vision of a vibrant economy that values all our people and protects and enhances our environment locally and globally.

This year we are focusing on Climate Change and the ways that as a region we can respond innovatively to this serious challenge. The EXPO will provide a showcase of solutions for reducing our carbon impact of our buildings, our use of energy and resources, the goods and services we consume and the ways we move around. It provides a unique opportunity for networking across many sectors and to tour round the Epic Centre, the UK's largest 'green' conference and events centre.

Meetings at this year's EXPO include a Green Infrastructure Network event, Building Climate Friendly Communities workshop and a RSS seminar on low carbon design and renewable energy.

Full details are available at: http://www.emra.gov.uk/news/events/east-midlands-expo

Things are getting there, slowly!

I am off to the View from the Top today to have a look at another exhibition that's similar in format to ours. I'm going to check out how they have hung their posters, fascinating I know but pretty important for our expo!

Things are coming together, but as I said to someone yesterday, I abandoned my to do list this week as it was actually distracting me. I have been a 'one-job-at-a-time worker' for the past few days, just so I can complete some tasks and move on. It's been quite liberating, I have to say!

I am beginning to get worried though, we've got a whole bunch of people joining us for the main event on the 20th November...WILL YOU BE THERE?

The GUEST SPEEDy interview- Denis Denisenko

This interview features Denis, who's a SPEEDster in the West Midlands

www.copyfox.co.uk

–State your name for the record

Denis Denisenko

–Please tell us what problem your business solves in 50 words or less

It makes student life easier by providing free photocopying service

–Expand on your idea – how will you make money from it?

Companies finance the service and get advertised

–Explain who your customer is

Any company, charity or/and organisation interested in marketing to the youth

–Describe where you see yourself in 5 years’ time

I will be running a multi-million £ company.

PS We are expanding, so if you think you are an entreprenuerial type of person, do get in touch with me to discuss possible cooperation – dennis@copyfox.co.uk / 07892840399 / skype denis.denisenko

Random Questions

• Who is your hero?

…a person in the mirror, honestly!

A celebration of the SPEED programme at Nottingham Trent University

To mark the final months of the SPEED (Student Placements for Entrepreneurs in Education) programme, Nottingham Trent University’s business incubation unit, The Hive, is holding an exhibition of SPEED businesses and projects.

The revolutionary programme has provided students taking a placement year the opportunity to set up and run their own business in The Hive, instead of pursuing a standard industrial work-placement scheme.

The event will take place during Enterprise Week at the View from the Top Gallery on the top floor of Waterstones Bookstore in Nottingham, from Wednesday, November 19 to Sunday, November 23.

Please do support the endeavours of our students over the last two years by coming along and networking with them.

Venue: View from the Top Gallery - Waterstones Bookstore, Bridlesmith Gate, Nottingham

The Hive has secured the services of a Bentley Jennison a leading accountancy company from within the city, for a series of accountancy surgeries. The first sessions were a sell-out and the feedback has been very positive;

Very useful - I would definitely recommend these - Mandy

Yes, it was great...John’s awesome he makes things very clear and simple - Simeon

Definitely worth it as it offers a second opinion and allows you to ask questions which you are unsure of but don’t want to keep going over with existing accounts – Adam

We are offering 40-minute one-one appointments – bookable in advance.

Next Session planned for:

November 2008

Hive Meeting Room

We consider this service to be a valuable opportunity for your business.

If you would like an appointment, please contact:

Karen Doxey on 0115 848 4354 or e-mail: karen.doxey@ntu.ac.uk

Patents

Some useful lessons in patents, trademarks and design registraion can be learnt from this post on Steve Van Dulken's Patent Blog.
I'll reproduce it in full below:

The Tangle Teezer®

Dragons' Den is an entertaining TV programme as so often those asking for cash for their ideas are naive, but sometimes the experts do get it wrong. Shaun Pulfrey's Tangle Teezer® is an example.

A year ago he asked for £85,000 in return for a 15% stake in his new hairbrush. Its teeth are designed to flex just the right amount to minimise tugging while smoothing the cuticles, says a story on the invention. An experienced London hairdresser, Pulfrey had thought of the idea 15 years ago but only made a prototype in 2004. All the dragons dismissed it.

A few weeks ago, Boots agreed to stock the product at 600 stores. Turnover (largely on the Internet, at £9.95) is already £800,000 annually, a quarter of which is profit. It looks as if the dragons missed out on a nice profit.

I had a look at the intellectual property behind the idea. In March 2005 Pulfrey applied for a European Community trade mark for the name, probably his most powerful selling tool.

In March 2007 he applied for a British patent, which was published a week ago as a Hair care device.

Then in April 2007 he applied for a Community design, one of the drawings of which is shown here.

In October 2007 he applied for design protection in the USA with American "design patent" D576804.

Finally in January 2008 he filed for a US trade mark/ trademark for the name. There may be other applications waiting publication, such as, perhaps, an American patent application.

The difference between designs and patents is, broadly speaking, that the former protects the appearance while the latter protects how it works. He used Marks & Clerk, a firm of patent attorneys, to advise him on his strategy and to write the applications.

A problem for anyone interesting in foreign protection is that this must be sought within 12 months of filing for a patent, or within 6 months of filing for a design. "Filing out of convention" by missing those deadlines means that your own domestic filings can be used to show that the idea is not new. Many who might be interested in filing abroad do not (yet) have the finance, or are not certain of product appeal, and therefore decide not to gamble on filing. Failure to file in a country means that the idea can be used there by others.

Another take on tasks

So I have a to-do list and it seems to works ok.

The Nag is another way of working with tasks, in that they send you 'nags' of things you might do (in their case to help the environment or whatever). So you get a nudge or reminder to do things that you might not otherwise do.

One way of doing this for yourself is to set reminders, for example using Microsoft Outlook, you can set tasks with dates way off in the future. They might be 're-visit business plan' to remind you that you need to look again at the goals you set yourself when you started out, or 'pay council tax' if you always forget to do this regular but mundane task. then you can just forget about it until it becomes due.

Genius

More to do lists

You'll remember our last post on to-do lists . Well, much as I love the Zen-like simplicty of Now Do This, it turns out it's a bit linear for my mind.

I've gone back to Ta-Da list, because I don't have to write my list in the order I need to do things. But honestly, for everyday tasks I have gone back to recycling scrap paper and writing up a list for each morning, either before the work of the day starts, or just before packing up time.



Picture credit:Florian

I also heard something somewhere that you should aim to do three things off a list per day, to avoid running yourself down because you're not clearing the 'Learn Esperanto' item that's been on your list for the last 3 million years. Dustin Wax from Stepcase Lifehack recommends you have a Someday/Maybe list. Could work, except would this list simply grow with no incentive to tackle the items on it.

Others recommend that you break the items on the 'long' list down and put the first step of that onto your daily list.

So in order to learn Esperanto, I need to find a free podcast course. The next day I could go to iTunes and sign up to the podcast, day three, download onto iPod, day four watch first episode and so on. These steps would go onto my daily task list one at a time and before I know it I'll be asking 'Ĉu vi parolas Esperanton?'


Oh and for the TV fans, Learn Esperanto was on Arnold J Rimmer's to do list in series 2 of the BBC show Red Dwarf. How do I know this?... Wasted youth.

What's the weather like up there?

We are so lucky, we've got the chance to exhibit at Nottingham's creative venue, View from the Top!

The NTU SPEED exhibition will run from 19th to 24th November, with set up day on the 18th. I'd love for everyone to exhibit something, but I guess I'm too much of a realist to think that would happen (Violins please!)

As a reward for all your hard work over the last two years, we're even putting on a SPEED awards ceremony! The special guest star is booked (can't release the name just yet though!), the catering is being sorted and the invites being written.

Will you be involved? Leave a comment and tell me what you'd like to see! Plus, guesses about the identity of the mystery guest are welcome!

Are you a 'Gym Gerbil'?

It's funny what can give you inspiration. Mine often comes from other blogs, conversations with people and seeing people's business ideas slowly gain momentum.

So I guess it's not that unusual that a blog post would make me think 'hey there's something in that!' But this article from Stepcase Lifehack is about getting into a rut when you workout, not varying your gym routine and your level of fitness suffering as a result. I should add at this point that I am most definitely not a gym bunny, so I certainly haven't fallen into a rut. (In fact the rut just is a scratch in the earth to me)

this quote from the post says it all:

Your body is highly adaptive when it comes to exercise. Especially when it comes to these low intensity, gerbil-on-a-running-wheel-type routines. We see results at first because just doing any type of exercise at all is enough of a change to elicit some type of metabolic reaction. In order to keep seeing results you need to create variety. And the more gym experience you have the chances are the more variety you’ll need. Your body will become increasingly more adaptive as you make progress.

It got me thinking though, about how variety can make a business leaner and fitter. Whether it's in your advertising, your sales call, your daily routine even, are you doing things just because you've always done it that way? Consider mixing it up a little, and see what happens.



And the real reason this article appealed to me? My gerbil Jevon (RIP) looked just like the one at the top of the Lifehack article. I'll dig out a photo and you can compare and contrast.

The SPEEDy interview AP Photography

–State your name for the record

Andrea Palmer

–Please tell us what problem your business solves in 50 words or less

People have many special times in their lives. They want to be able to store their memories in visual images. Businesses and public bodies are increasingly using visual media to get their message across. Traditionally commercial photography is boring and expensive. I offer competitive but tailored solutions with my commercial packages

–Expand on your idea – how will you make money from it?

I offer all kinds of photography packages from special events to commercial shoots. People can order and pay for their photography online. In fact I see my website www.andreapalmer.com as an online shopfront, where a large proportion of my business takes place

–Explain who your customer is

Businesses, public bodies, such as councils or the police force, and the general public

–Describe where you see yourself in 5 years’ time

I’d like to have a studio and have a business employing staff

Random Questions – choose one and answer

• Who would you most like to have dinner with? Someone who can make me successful, quickly!!

Links for Creatives, but not exclusively!

Fellow Hiver Debbie Bryan told me about the first of these links, Image Loft. It's a website where you can upload photos of your work for journalists to use in publications. Making sure you have your pictures tagged with useful keywords will be crucial, so people can actually find your work. Debbie has since had her work picked up for use in three magazines, including the Financial Times! Click the image or the link above to go there...

Rhea Clements has registered on Indie Quarter, a UK based Designer's Blog. It looks great, for promoting your creative business, for finding inspiration from the other designers, or for shopping! Click the image or the link to visit it...

Competition- just for the Chicas

Women make up half of our population, but interestingly nowhere near half of our entrepreneurs, company bosses or managers. According to the BBC, almost half of private companies in the US are headed up by women but the UK is lagging behind. Many agencies are trying different strategies to encourage women in the workplace, one of whom is the Make Your Mark campaign.

They have launched the Girls, Make Your Mark Competition which is designed to find and reward outstanding female achievement in enterprise. Find out more by clicking the link, and most importantly enter it! (If you're a chica that is)

But hurry, the closing date is the 21st July 2008

Well done to Kawsar, another glowing report in the local press. If you picked up a copy of the Evening Post on Tuesday, you'll have seen three beatific grins looking out at you from the business pages (That's Phil, K and Chris Hall) If you didn't, read the article here

Kawsar's website is www.digicomsolutions.biz and is currently under construction.

Want to promote your business? Get in touch!