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?

Public Relations and Press

This is a great article on how to pitch your story. Although it's aimed at bloggers, it rings true for press releases too. If you were unable to attend either of the events on PR, have a read and get some tips on getting your story out there.

Unrelated on the same website, how to tell jokes...Oh dear, officially, I have seen it all...

Awards update

Winners...well everyone who has completed their SPEED placement is a winner in our eyes...but we had to narrow it down otherwise we'd have been there all afternoon! Check out the slideshow above to see other photos. More to be posted on Facebook and pasted on lamp posts around the campus later...

All photography by Andrea Palmer www.andreapalmer.com

Highest Achiever, Kawsar Miah, with the Lord Mayor of Nottingham, Councillor Gul Nawaz Khan. Not sure what Kawsar can see of to his right, but whatever it is, it's scaring him!

www.digicomsolutions.biz

Spirit of SPEED Award winner Amy Simons was presented her award by Chair of Nottinghamshire County Council, Councillor Joan Taylor

www.pipalina.com

Andrea Palmer, winner of the Creative Business category, with Shed Simove - our guest speaker for the day

www.andreapalmer.com

Will Anderson, whose Contrast Media business won in the Multi Media Category www.freshguides.tv

Adam Roberts collecting his award for Best Business Plan from Shed
www.godine.co.uk

Nathan Thompson, who won the 'Shed Standing in a Hole' award, no hang on... he won Best Product!

www.newmsg.co.uk

Jasbir Bindarh picked up the award for Best Student Focussed Business with Student Solutions

www.studentsolutionsonline.co.uk

Julianne Catkin won the award for Social Business with 'Start 2 Learn' www.start2learn.co.uk

Glyn Daniel and Nedstar won for best Web Retailer

www.nedstar-uk.com

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

New Hive@Mansfield Business

• Are you a professional or skilled person?
• Are you working the way you want to?
• Are you working enough?
• Maybe you are a freelance or self-employed and would like to know what opportunities there are for you … who wouldn’t?

None of the above?

• Are you are an employer who would appreciate a simple, time-efficient and cost effective way to recruit the skills you need for your business.
• Would you like to avoid commissions and other hidden costs?

No?

Go for the back button then, UNLESS, of course you have managers, colleagues, family or friends who are frustrated by restrictive and expensive recruitment channels and would like to find a better way.

Share this post by clicking the little envelope icon below - and do someone a favour today.

Empowerment in recruitment begins with www.Qan-Du.com

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!

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.

Searching Intellectual Property

I'm by no means an expert on Patents, Design Rights and Copyright. I rely very heavily on the Intellectual Property Office, but luckily their website is very clear and loaded with help and information. If you need any guidance on what intellectual property rights you can secure, click here to visit it before going to an expensive Patent Attorney.

Another UK organisation with a vast body of knowledge is the British Library, whose patent blog is written by Steve Van Dulken. I read it through my RSS reader, and he probably updates about once a week, which is just about right in my book, many more update and I have too many blogs to read on a daily basis! Mostly he’s pointing out the quirky and ridiculous patent submissions through history, but sometimes he gives an insight into everyday but revolutionary products, such as the Dyson vacuum cleaner.

The British Library has a Facebook group for aspiring entrepreneurs, click here to visit it. They also have a YouTube channel, which for some reason I can’t locate right now, so check out this video on their Business and IP centre here.

I also subscribe to a website called ‘Killer Start-Ups’, which reviewed a new start up for searching patents. A Patent Search is the first thing you should do if you think you have invented something unique, and this website may help with that. A patent search will show you:

a) If you actually have got a unique invention,

b) Whether you’re infringing someone else’s intellectual property and

c) If it’s really worth pursuing!

If you want to read more about Patents and intellectual property in a language that doesn’t confuse or befuddle, read ‘A Better Mousetrap’ by Peter Bissell and Graham Parker. It makes it clear what you can do yourself and what is better left to the professionals. You don’t even have to buy it, NTU Library has a copy (I know I ordered it!)

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.

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!!

Zen, and the art of to-do lists

Anyone who's sat in an office with me for more than five minutes, will probably know that I like to write a list of things to do. Some of you have noticed that if I don't write down what I say I'm going to do, I probably won't do it. Not necessarily because I look back at my notes, but because the act of writing it down seems to store it in my head.

Plus, I have a note of it to prompt me when I forget.

Head like a sieve.

So when someone gives me a tip on to-do lists, organising my day, generally being task focussed, I feel the need to share it. I found a lovely little web app today that I'm just busting to share. Unfortunately for you guys, there's no-one here right now, so you're all gonna get it!

Its so simple, it's great!


Read this blog post on Manage Life about making tasks easy!

New Competition

Ever dreamt of winning a high profile award? We've been told about the Midlands Business Awards, why not find out more?

This year entries have become even easier and can be submitted online, to enter please visit the website: www.midlandsbusinessawards.com

The categories for entries are:

- MIDLANDS ENTREPRENEUR OF THE YEAR

- MIDLANDS YOUNG ENTREPRENEUR OF THE YEAR

- MIDLANDS NETWORKER OF THE YEAR

- MIDLANDS BUSINESS PERSON OF THE YEAR

- MIDLANDS SERVICE PROVIDER OF THE YEAR

- MIDLANDS INNOVATION OF THE YEAR

- MIDLANDS EXPORTER OF THE YEAR

- MIDLANDS NETWORKING CLUB OF THE YEAR

You are now able to enter the awards, please log on to the website (nominations may be made for yourself, your company. as well as for any other company or person for any of the categories)

If you want some help with your entry, let us know!

The SPEEDy interview- Tribbles Giftstore

–State your name for the record - Diane Ryan

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

Brings lots of themed ideas together, saving the internet shopper time, effort and money when gift shopping for friends, family and pets

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

I sell at retail, via my website and on eBay, a wide range of quality animal themed gifts and accessories

–Explain who your customer is

Primarily women, aged 35, looking to spend £25+ per visit, with a keen interst and awareness in animal welfare

–Describe where you see yourself in 5 years’ time

Running the business as part of a larger enterprise, covering holistic animal care. Having the income to enjoy the lifestyle I’ve been working towards – to make a sizeable contribution to animal welfare.

Random Questions –

• Who would you most like to have dinner with? The Dalai Lama

Parkinsons Law

I have recently had conversations with some of you that your business is taking a lot longer to set up than you had originally anticipated.

I found the blog post below really interesting. I have found that when I worked for myself I had plenty of time to complete projects, but they still took up all that time. Have you noticed that if your boss gives you a task, even one with a really tight deadline, you can pull out all the stops to deliver on time, but if you don't really have a time limit, you'll take longer to complete it.

I guess what I'm suggesting is that if things are taking longer to set up than you thought, maybe you need to be your own 'boss' and set tight deadlines for yourself. You may find yourself delivering things much more quickly!

My last employer, the award winning Neil Coles would always say that work expands to the time available, and it's quite true. What I hadn't realised that someone had proved it. It's called Parkinson's Law and you can use it to your advantage, as the following blog post from Lifehack.org suggests...if you don't want to read it here, click this link to read it on their website

Author : Joel Falconer

Work expands to fill the time available for its completion. If you’re into productivity, you’ll know this proverb as Parkinson’s Law. This interesting statement was made by Cyril Northcote Parkinson, the famous British historian and author, in 1955 - first appearing as the opening line in an article for The Economist and later becoming the focus of one of Parkinson’s books, Parkinson’s Law: The Pursuit of Progress.

Parkinson was qualified to make such a statement, having worked in the British Civil Service, seeing first hand how bureaucracy ticks. Bureaucracy itself is a by-product of our culture, thanks to the limiting belief that working harder is somehow better than working smarter and faster.

Parkinson’s Law - work expands to fill the time available for its completion - means that if you give yourself a week to complete a two hour task, then (psychologically speaking) the task will increase in complexity and become more daunting so as to fill that week. It may not even fill the extra time with more work, but just stress and tension about having to get it done. By assigning the right amount of time to a task, we gain back more time and the task will reduce in complexity to its natural state.

I once read a response to Parkinson’s Law insinuating that if it were an accurate observation, one would be able to assign a time limit of one minute to a task and the task would become simple enough to complete within that minute. But Parkinson’s Law is exactly that - an observation, not some voodoo magic. It works because people give tasks longer than they really need, sometimes because they want some ‘leg room’ or buffer, but usually because they have an inflated idea of how long the task takes to complete. People don’t become fully aware of how quickly some tasks can be completed until they test this principle.

Most employees who defy the unwritten rule of “work harder, not smarter” know that, despite the greater return on investment for the company, it’s not always appreciated. That’s related to the idea that the longer something takes to complete, the better quality it must inherently be. Thankfully, the increasing trend of telecommuted employment is changing this for those lucky early adopters, but only because employers have no idea what you’re doing with all that spare time!

Let’s look at a few ways you can apply Parkinson’s Law to your life, get your to-do list checked off quicker and spend less of the work day filling in time just to look busy. This is relevant whether you work in an office or at home, since “work harder, not smarter” is a cultural idea that many individuals fall prey to even when nobody’s supervising their work.

Running Against the Clock

Make a list of your tasks, and divide them up by the amount of time it takes to complete them. Then give yourself half that time to complete each task. You have to see making the time limit as crucial. Treat it like any other deadline. Part of reversing what we’ve been indoctrinated with (work harder, not smarter) is to see the deadlines you set for yourself as unbreakable - just like the deadlines your boss or clients set.

Use that human, instinctual longing for competition that fuels such industries as sports and gaming to make this work for you. You have to win against the clock; strive to beat it as if it were your opponent, without taking shortcuts and producing low-quality output. This is particularly helpful if you’re having trouble taking your own deadlines seriously.

At first, this will be partially an exercise in determining how accurate your time projections for tasks are. Some may be spot on to begin with, and some may be inflated. Those that are spot on may be the ones that you are unable to beat the clock with when you halve the time allotment, so experiment with longer times. Don’t jump straight back to the original time allotment because there may be an optimum period in between.

If you work at a computer, a digital timer is going to be very useful when you start doing this. It’ll also save you a bit of time, because a timer allows you to see at a glance how much longer you have. Using your clock involves some addition and subtraction! There are free utilities available for OS X, Linux, and Windows.

Crush the Cockroaches of the Productivity World

Look for those little time-fillers, like email and feed reading, that you might usually think take ten or twenty (or even, god forbid, thirty!) minutes. These are the “cockroaches” of the productivity world - little pests that do nothing but make your life a pain in the backside, pains that you can’t seem to get rid no matter how much you run around the house with a shoe or bug spray.

Instead of doing the leisurely 20-30 minute morning email check, give yourself five minutes. If you’re up for a challenge, go one better and give yourself two minutes. Don’t give these tasks any more attention until you’ve completed everything on your to-do list that day, at which point you can indulge in some email reading, social networking and feed reading to your heart’s content. Not that I recommend you spend all your spare time that way!

These are tasks where 10% of what you do is important and 90% is absolutely useless. This forces you to tend to the important tasks - feeds you need to read in order to improve in your work (for instance, if you’re a web designer who needs to be read up on new practices), and emails that are actually high-priority. Experiment with how far you can take this. Make your criteria for what makes an email important, really strict and the penalties harsh! That means using the Delete button, by the way - I’m not advocating violence against your colleagues.

You can experiment with Parkinson’s Law and squashing your deadlines down to the bare minimum in many areas of your life. Just be conscious of the line between ‘bare minimum’ and ‘not enough time’ - what you’re aiming for is a job well done in less time, not a disaster that’s going to lose you employment or clients.

10 Common Start Up Errors

This blog post was found on www.localbusinessadvisor.co.uk and I reproduce it in full here. Food for thought!

10 common start-up errors

Every new business owner kicks off with big dreams - but it's essential to keep your feet on the ground and avoid the kind of mistakes that cause around half of start-ups to close down within three years. Here are ten of the most common errors to look out for

1. Bad planning. The lack of a business plan, or a poorly executed one, will drastically reduce your chances of getting funding. It can also leave you underestimating the running costs of your business and overestimating what you can achieve. Make it a priority to write a comprehensive business plan.
   
   
   
2. Over-optimism. Positive thinking is good but believing your market to be bigger than it is, or that customers will pay over-the-odds for your product or service, is foolhardy. Rigorous market research will help set your sights at a realistic level.
   
   
   
3. Splashing the cash. Over-investment in property, plant or other fixed assets can lead to cashflow problems, as can over-stocking. Think carefully before making major purchases and carry out efficient stock control.
   
   
   
4. Easy credit. Offering customers and suppliers credit terms which are too lenient can leave you, again, with cashflow difficulties. Carry out thorough credit checks and make credit terms clear. This is especially important in today's uncertain economic climate.
   
   
   
5. Ignoring the bottom line. Concentrating on turnover rather than profit is dangerous. You can use up your financial reserves and find yourself unable to fulfil orders - in other words, you'll be over-trading. Slow and considered expansion is preferable.
   
   
   
6. Dependence on a single customer. Concentrating on one big customer or supplier will leave you at their mercy. They could go under, choose to go elsewhere or start dictating terms. Spread your risk.
   
   
   
7. Appointing the wrong people. Your employees are one of your business's major investments. Choose your people carefully. You should be sure enough of their abilities to delegate with confidence.
   
   
   
8. Overlooking the competition. Setting up your own business will consume most of your time and energy - but you should never take your eye off competitors. Remember, too, that competition can come from unexpected directions.
   
   
   
9. Complacency. Interest hikes, instability in overseas markets, changes in the regulatory landscape and technology leaps cannot always be anticipated. You need to have reserves to weather difficult times and consider new directions if necessary.
   
   
   
10. Failure to acknowledge your limitations.Taking independent, external advice from experts such as accountants, lawyers or business advisers is essential. Don't assume you can do everything yourself - the most successful entrepreneurs know when they need help and seek it out.

Stats all folks!

Considering these words mostly go unread, I am chancing the hideous pun in the title!

As you know I can't really get enough of the internet. Now I can't stop looking at my blog stats. It's intriguing to try and figure out what caused spikes in the numbers, why there's been no views for a few days and then bam, 20 visitors! I am pleased to know that there's probably max 60 people who know about the blog from me or through the SPEED Project, but I'd say we've had a good proportion of them view it!

It's also interesting to see what people search for...for example SPEED Project blog (pretty obvious) Hive SPEED Project, Coypu Speed (???). But since I put on the post about market research sources, I've had 5 visits from the keyword Silobreaker and funnily enough some of them were interested enough to have a look around!

The key is returning visitors, something I am trying to work on all the time, finding new topics to post about is pretty tricky actually.

Any suggestions?

Go Viral

Another cool article, found and sent to me by Mike Huxley of The Hive@Mansfield (aside- check out their blog, David has posted on setting up RSS feeds, using Google maps for your business and other technical help)

Last time I reproduced a blog post in full- which made for a very long post, maybe this time you could click this link to read it...

Another great link is to the Guardian's Viral Video Chart, check out the MUTO wall painted animation by Blu

Just a reminder, your NTU SPEED team are here to help you go from this...

To this!!

See you soon!

Researching your idea

Neil Infield's blog 'In through the outfield' can be hard work sometimes, in fact I subscribed to it thinking that the reference to the 'outfield' meant there would be more cricket talk and less business! Ho hum, nothing so far

Anyhow recently he reproduced this great post on background research which I thought really insightful, so here it is...

...Information expert Karen Blakeman of RBA Information Services publishes a list of top business research tips on her blog at the end of each of her Business Information workshops.

This is the list generated by the researchers attending her workshop in April. As you may have spotted the 10 has grown to 15 in this instance.

1. FITA Import Export Business and International Trade Leeds. http://www.fita.org/. The “Really Useful Links”in the menu on the left hand side of the screen takes you to a range of international sources on business information. One participant of this workshop found the “Doing business”, and in particular in the Middle East, especially useful.
2. Nationmaster http://www.nationmaster.com/.An interface to a plethora of statistics on web sites world wide. Some of the statistics are 2-3 years old but there are links to the original site so that you can search for more up to date information. Several participants suggested that this site is a good ‘index’ of where data is likely to be found.
3. Blogpulse http://www.blogpulse.com/.One of several blog search engines, but this was singled out for its Trends graphs. These show how often your search terms are mentioned in posts over a selected period of time. In a business context the occurrences will usually match reports in the mainstream media. When they don’t, click on the peaks in the graph to see what is going on behind the scenes. Superb for picking up on rumours and gossip.
4. Yahoo Finance. Go to any Yahoo and click on the Finance link. For the UK version go to http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/. Yahoo Finance provides basic information on stock exchange quoted companies on the major stock exchanges around the world. Information includes current share price information (delayed by 15-30 minutes) provided by the stock exchanges;
   company profiles; charts in which you can compare the company share price with another company, the sector and an index such as the FTSE 100; current news on the company and focussing on the regulatory news; and daily historical share prices as figures that can be downloaded to spreadsheets.
5. Freepint Bar http://www.freepint.com/.Head for the discussion area, labelled as the Bar, where you can post your query and tap into the knowledge of regular ‘tipplers’
6. Silobreaker.http://www.silobreaker.com/. A new site pulling news from
   the usual newspapers and journals, but also blogs, video and audio. In
   addition It offers geographical hotspots, trends and a network visualisation tool, which was singled out by one participant.
7. Contact a relevant research, trade or professional body for help inlocating experts. sources of information and reports. They may not have anything on their web site but there may something ‘on file’ that they are willing to supply free of charge or for which they are prepared to negotiate a fee.
8. Intelways. http://www.intelways.com/. An interface to many search tools grouped by type e.g. news, video, image. Type your search terms in once and click on the different search tools one by one. A reminder of the different types of information that you should be looking at and of the wide range of search engines that are out there.
9. Click on the Advanced Search option for any of the tools that you encounter, be it Google et al or a web site’s own search option. They offer great ways of focussing your search by date, file format, site, author etc.
10. RBA Business Sources. http://www.rba.co.uk/sources/.Selected sources of business information organised by type e.g. statistics, share prices, company registers. Yes, it is my own site [blush] but they did insist!
11. Phil Bradley’s web site and blog. http://www.philb.com/ and http://philbradley.typepad.com/. Excellent sources of information on Web 2.0 ’stuff’ and search tools. In particular, his blog has no-nonsense reviews of new search tools that claim they will change the world of search.
12. Intute. http://www.intute.ac.uk/. Forget about the ac.uk label.This is an excellent starting point for anyone working in business and wanting to identify quality resources on a wide range of subjects and industries.
13. Hometrack. http://www.hometrack.co.uk/.This site provides key statistics and data on the UK housing market and financing of that market. Especially relevant in the current economic climate.
14. Alacrasearch. http://www.alacra.com/alacrasearch.A Google custom search engine that focuses on business sites selected by Alacra. [A personal note: this is in my top 5 favourite search tools].
15. CIA World Factbook - country profiles. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/.Key statistics on every country. For those of you of a more adventurous disposition when it comes to travel, it even includes the number of airports with unpaved runways!

Next Event, book early please!

Creative Goal Setting

photo credit: dogfrog

Wednesday 25 June 2008

12.00 to 2.00 pm

Hive Seminar Room

Presenters:

Adrian Reynolds & Annie Dickinson

If you're going to embrace creativity in your business, start by using it in the way you set your goals. In this session you'll experience a simple way of tapping into your unconscious desires that brings renewed life to business planning, and new perspectives on your priorities.

Annie Dickinson works as an Executive Coach with Fortune 100 companies across Europe, focusing on changes that impact the bottom line. Clients include IBM, Unilever and AstraZeneca.

Adrian Reynolds is an award winning screenwriter with a background in advertising. His clients include HMV, Motorola, and Paul McKenna Training.

Suitable refreshments will be provided at this event

If you are interested in attending either of these events, please contact

Karen Doxey on 0115 848 4354

or e-mail: karen.doxey@ntu.ac.uk