In through the outfield

1 May 2009

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.

desk-space-genie1

20 April 2009

Check your name on the Web with namechk

Thanks to Sarah Lane a guest on net@night with Amber and Leo for recommending namechk.

This is a ‘one stop shop’ for seeing if your personal or company identity is available at dozens of Social Networking and Social Bookmarking websites, such as Twitter and Facebook. It enables you to be consistent with your brand or identity wherever it appears on the Internet.

namechk_screen_shot1

7 April 2009

Business tips from the experts

I spent a bit of time today exploring our collection of videos on the Business & IP Centre Inspiring Entrepreneurs YouTube Channel.

We now have 71 videos to choose from with ex-Dragon Doug Richard the most popular with over 9,000 views.

I decided to have a look at those videos which languish at the other end of the viewing spectrum and came across some pearls of wisdom from the late Anita Roddick.

Her talk was part of our Commerce with a Conscience event from January 2007, and although I was fortunate enough to be present that evening, I had forgotten what an amazing (and unpredictable) speaker she was.

Here are a few quotes to indicate what I mean:

“As entrepreneurs you are incredibly creative, you vomit ideas.”

“What you are lousy at is management, I couldn’t manage my way out of a paper bag.”

“Successful social entrepreneurs are pathologically optimistic.”

Here are just a few of her ideas from the evening:

1. You need to find people who can expedite your ideas, as you won’t have the skills.

2. Set clear goals. Napoleon Hill author of Think and Grow Rich. interviewed some of the richest people in the world in the 1920’s, and distilled their views. The key point was to be so clear of your objective you can visualise it. My subsequent experience as a business advisor has reinforced this view. Only those entrepreneurs who really see where they are going with their business or their idea will succeed in the long run.

3. Learn what you need to know, then network with people who have expertise and knowledge and ask them questions. It seem women entrepreneurs a much better at this than their male counterparts.

4. Copy other people’s ideas if they are great ones. Anita learnt about using tours as a way of inspiring staff and customers from Ben & Jerry’s.

5. Enthusiasm can overcome almost all barriers.

6. Don’t borrow money from close friends or family, as it can lead to control issues.

7. Find your area of excellence.

6 April 2009

Will Spotify kill iTunes?

This is the heading for an intriguing article in the latest issue of gadget obsessed Stuff magazine.

I have to admit that I only heard about Spotify for the first time two weeks ago on Leo Laporte’s net@night 91.

However, since then the mainstream press has started to pick up on it as a potential iTunes killer – Spotify declares war on iTunes.

It seems hard to believe that Spotify can already have six million tracks (including the very latest albums in full) and over a million members signed up to either its’ free advert supported service, or the ad-free subscription of £9.99 per month. Although the fact I am listening for free to the brand new album from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs as I write, proves the case.

Now it has gone one stage further by linking up with London-based online music store, 7Digital which has four million individual tracks.

This is yet another indication of just how revolutionary the Internet can be when it comes to both established and even novel business models. It took iTunes just six years to become the dominant player in music sales, currently accounting for 70 per cent of all online music sales, and selling six billion songs along the way.

However, Spotify was only launched in the UK in October last year and already has more than a million customers.

The lesson, is that if you are going to operate a web based business you can’t afford to stand still for a moment.

6 April 2009

PitchTV – your chance to make your pitch to Richard Branson

Perhaps not surprisingly in these YouTube obsessed times, there has been something of a rash of video-pitching websites. A friendly version of Dragon’s Den? and See my pitch are just two that I have covered previously.

However, when Richard Branson of Virgin fame gets involved you just know there will be a lot of interest.

PitchTV gives you the “chance to pitch your business idea directly to people who could make your ambition a reality.”

Once a month we’ll pick out a selection of the best video pitches and then let everyone vote for their favourite. Each month the five most popular video pitches will make it on to the PitchTV show which will premiere on Virgin Atlantic’s in-flight entertainment – to be seen by top business professionals from around the world.

So if you think you have the media friendly features to make it through to the final round, then why not give it a go.

http://entrepreneur.virgin.com/pitchtv/

30 March 2009

The World Bank ‘Doing Business’

A recent special report in the Economist on entrepreneurship included an article on the World Bank annual Doing Business report.

I have to confess to not having heard of this before. It is a ‘naming and shaming’ report which rates countries for their business-friendliness, by measuring business regulations, property rights and access to credit.

Since the first edition in 2004 it has resulted in more than 1,000 reforms across the 180 countries on the list.

Most of these have been in developing countries, with the top reformers of 2007-8 being Senegal, Burkina Faso and Botswana.

However, the developed nations have not stood still either, with efforts to make it easier to start a new business. In Canada it is now possible to start a business using just one form.

According the the Economist article, Robert Litan of the Kauffman Foundation, suggests the World Bank may have done more good by compiling the Doing Business lists than a significant part of the enormous funds it has lent over the years.

11 March 2009

Update to our first Free Live Webcast – Mothers of Invention

After a few minor technical hitches I managed to watch the webcast of our Mothers of Invention Inspiring Entrepreneurs event last night.

Although the image was small and a bit grainy the sound was excellent and it almost felt like being there, particularly during the question and answer session.

Highlights for me were Liz Jackson the founder of Great Guns Marketing who had left school with just one GCSE, but through the help her first boss who became her mentor and an unofficial apprenticeship, has become a leader in her field.

Her top tips were:

Don’t be a nearly man or women. Make every single day count. Pull your finger out and get on with it.
Don’t believe in luck – Her definition of luck is where hard work meets opportunity.
And a quote from Henry Ford I had not heard before. “If you think you can, or you think you can’t; you are absolutely right“

It was also fascinating to hear how difficult it was for Gurinder Chadha the director of Bend it Like Beckham to get funding for the film, even with a previous success under her belt.

9 March 20096 March 2013

Our first Free Live Webcast – Mothers of Invention

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

6 March 2009

Improve your IP awareness with the British Library and the IPO

Thanks to the good folks at the Intellectual Property Office and my colleagues at the British Library, you have a choice of routes to improve your IP awareness.

We have two courses covering the Basics of Intellectual Property Protection and Searching IP databases.

The Intellectual Property Office have introduced an IP Healthcheck which consists of four questionnaires covering Patents, Designs, Trademarks and Copyright.

You can choose which of the four questionnaires in the IP Healthcheck you want to complete by clicking ‘Go to the first question’. If you’re not sure whether a questionnaire is relevant to you, click ‘Is this for me’.

Once you have answered all the questions, you will see a summary of our recommended Action Points, based on what you have told us. You can click ‘Why/how’ for an explanation of each Action Point, and how you can put it into practice. Your summary also contains links to further useful information and resources.

You can download the full Confidential Report as a .pdf, or ask us to email it to you.

Every Confidential Report is automatically stored in Your Report Library. You can return and view it as often as you like.

You cannot change your answers once you have completed an IP Healthcheck questionnaire, but you can retake it as many times as you like, to see what the Confidential Report says if you give different answers. We recommend that you keep a note of the answers you gave for each Confidential Report.

If you cannot complete a health check questionnaire, it will still be saved in Your Report Library, marked as ‘Uncompleted’. You can revisit it later, and complete it.

5 March 2009

Success Story of the Month: Heather Gorringe at Wiggly Wigglers

As the Business & IP Centre continues to go from strength to strength we have begun to celebrate our success stories; those entrepreneurs who we have helped to launch or grow their business.

This month’s success is Heather Gorringe who founded Wiggly Wigglers in 1990, and now has a turnover of £2.5m, selling composters, plants, tools, worms, and much more.

Heather benefited from an advice session with Dame Anita Roddick, through our Ask an Expert programme. She also used our market research to investigate her industry and find her niche.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18m4dAPYrlw]