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

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!

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

What sets the 'stars' apart?

picture credit: Lily Zhu

We've been thinking about the 'Stars' of our SPEED programme here at NTU in advance of our celebration and awards ceremony in November.

I came across this blog post on Lateral Action which is very relevant to our thinking. Everyone has 'it' in them to be successful, but what have the stars got to set them apart? Mark McGuinness says

"Like many of us, the stars began with a dream. But dreams are cheap. Instead of sitting around daydreaming, they took action. Each of them did something very unusual. Something distinctive, outstanding, unique. They learned their craft. They worked hard. They took risks. They took their craft and transformed it into art. They took kicks in the teeth and learned from them. They got effective people on board. They got the word out. They promised and delivered, over and over again."

Read the rest of this well-written post here

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

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.

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!

I subscribe to the EnterQuest Bulletin, which is a weekly newsletter about small business issues, and usually includes great articles about sales, staff, commercial behaviour and so on.

I read this morning's headline article as I sat in a (very) quiet Hive, and thought how interesting it was that the Hive provides just such a workspace to NTU SPEED students free of charge and very few of you actually use it. How bizarre! I reproduce the article below, but if you want to read it in it's original location, click here (actually, I'm hoping they'll have it posted by the time you click it!)

The benefits of serviced workspace

Finding suitable and affordable workspace has always been a major hurdle for people deciding to start their own business. In fact, many individuals who initially go down the freelance route often continue to use their home well into their third or fourth year because of the obstacles in taking on permanent premises.

Business owners are faced with a dilemma because location and the working environment can be the difference between success and failure. Yet property management is not something you'll want to worry about, let alone a long-term lease.

Serviced offices enable businesses to have accommodation that suits their needs without the hassle of leasing and managing a place of their own.

One of the main reasons why many businesses choose to take space in a serviced office is the flexibility it gives them. Conventional leases, which typically last for 10 years or more, tie businesses in to their offices. This means that if during the life of a lease, a business's space requirements change, they are unable to adjust without incurring significant costs, administrative issues or delays.

In a serviced office, tenants are able to expand and contract as they wish, usually at very short notice. This can be beneficial to a business when times are good and you need more space quickly, or equally when times are bad and you need to contract.

As well as flexibility, serviced offices allow businesses to enjoy an all-inclusive service. For a fixed price, tenants can expect to receive everything they will need to run their business, from desks, chairs and telephones to staffed reception desks, cleaning services and refreshment facilities.

The costs involved will vary depending on location, how many desks are taken and the length of stay, but serviced offices should not be thought of as an expensive option once all the associated costs involved in leasing or buying an office are taken into account.

Small businesses can benefit greatly from serviced offices, with the ability to set up quickly (within days) and enjoy facilities they would otherwise not be able to afford.

While serviced offices will never be a solution for every business, the flexibility and convenience of serviced offices can offer a great stepping stone on the road to expansion.

So how about it people, are you gonna take advantage of the facilities offered to you?

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!

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!

Promote your website

Got a business, got a website, sit back and wait for the cash to roll in. Hmmm, brilliant strategy! (At your SPEED interview, you might have got a few huffs and puffs from Mr C, showing his true feelings about this strategy)

Just one tiny little problem...where are your customers? Oh hang on, they're still there. Everyone knows that the web is where everyone is doing their business these days (*pah, don't get me started on that one!)

So why aren't they buying from you? Could it be, shock horror, no-one knows you're there? But, you have a website, surely they know about it (note heavy sarcasm).

Search Engine Optimisation - surely that will solve all your problems. Ok, it might help, but don't assume it's easy, because if it is, all of your competitors are doing the same.

How to promote your on-line business? Answers on a postcard please...

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.

Tag lines

Do you need a tag line? A sentence that encapsulates your business ethos, that sums up your product or service in one sweet phrase.

The ones that work...try and guess the brand from the line.
I'm loving it
Obey your thirst
You're worth it
Be your own label( no? ok, Clarks shoes!)

This website has a great database of tag lines and slogans from all kinds of brands. Great for inspiration or testing that your idea is original (or not!)

Do you have any examples of ones that don't work?

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!