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The Future is not what it used to be

Went to a fascinating Sir Kenneth Cork Management Lecture last night at the Octagon (part of Queen Mary, University of London in the Mile End Road).

The event was organised by the London Branch of the Chartered Management Institute and featured Brian Baldock currently Chairman of Mencap.

In his wide-ranging talk Brian covered the changes to technology, society, communications, business and finance which have brought us to our present state. He explored how once cutting edge Business Models are now universally outdated; why corporate re-engineering, re-organisation and cost-reduction processes are all time and effort wasted; why organisation structures and processes are generally not fit for purpose.

His role model companies were Google who are focussed on creating services their customers want, and Walmart who constantly reduce the price of products for their customers.

Amongst a long list of suggestions for what business needs to do to become competitive in the future were the following highlights:

  • Eliminate committees
  • Replace trainers with coaches
  • Create a culture of ‘restless dissatisfaction’
  • Become customer and consumer obsessed
  • Think the unthinkable
  • Recruit mavericks
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The Secret of Success: How to be a Start-Up Star

I am grateful to my colleague Julie Boadilla for this report.

I thought this event was a very productive session. Having done a bit of networking on the night of the event, I noticed that most of the attendees were undergraduate students. There were four presenters who explained how they set up their businesses and gave tips on how to become successful, they also outlined how they overcame challenges and obstacles they encountered.

The first speaker was Adam Goodyer who’s business  Concert Live produces live CD’s of music concerts within 15 minutes of the end of the event, so fans can re-live the concert experience. He decided that rather than rely on patents to protect his invention he would compete by being better than his competitors. Despite no previous music industry experience, the company is going from strength to strength, and last year generated revenue of over £1million. His tip was to always be aware of the little things. He didn’t arrange for local banking facilities in the early days and so ended up in the uncomfortable situation of having to take a bin bag with £65,000 in cash to his local branch.

Tricia Weener is co-founder of Intelligent Marketing, a creative marketing agency that achieved a £2million turnover last year, and represents clients such as Honda, Woolworth’s and Guinness. Tricia and her co-founder won this year’s Women in Business category at the Startup Awards. She recommended not to be afraid of employing people who are better at you.

Rhodri Ferrier of Bulldog Grooming Products left samples of his natural moisturiser for each person in the audience. The company was named “Sainsbury’s Small Branded Supplier of the Year 2007/08”.

We also had Dan Cobley, who is marketing director, UK Ireland and Benelux for Google.

I thought it was interesting and informative in a way that they explained what they did right and wrong. Also they were honest and admitted that they made mistakes along the way.

The 45 minute questions and answer session was equally good and overall I greatly enjoyed the event.
Julie Boadilla

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South of England wild with big cats

I’m not sure if BBC South have been reading my blog recently, but this evening they had a feature news story on big cats spotted in the South of the country.

They had a couple of scratchy videos which could have been a lynx, plus lots of citizens who had seen these beast close up – even brushing past in one case.

As you can see from the graphic copied from the BBC website there have been plenty of spottings. I still can’t quite make my mind up on this. Some of the stories are worryingly similar to the kind of alien or crop circle ones I have heard over the years.

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‘Beast of Balcombe’ spotted in my backyard

Definitely not the Beast of Balcombe
Definitely not the Beast of Balcombe

Although I feel very fortunate to live so close to nature in my rural retreat on the edge of Balcombe, I feel somewhat perturbed by the recent spotting of the ‘Beast of Balcombe’ just beyond my back garden.

As you will have seen from my recent post, deer are not unknown in my garden, and in fact are becoming something of a pest in to gardeners in Mid-Sussex. When I first moved into my current house we also used to have rabbits wandering freely in the garden. But that all stopped when our aged cat was replaced by two young and active farm cats. Now we just get recently deceased remains brought in through the cat flap for final consumption on the kitchen floor.

However this ‘big’ cat appears to be a puma from the recent sighting (and sounding) from a reliable source in the village. I shall certainly be on the lookout for the ‘beast’, and if I manage to snap a photo you will be first to know.

Fans of big cat sightings in the south of England can keep up do date with a blog dedicated to this topic.

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Business & IP Centre minor media star

We are very proud of Jeremy O’Hare our minor media star in the Business & IP Centre team. His first appearance was last summer on the BBC’s Working Lunch show.

They came in to the Centre to film a ten minute slot on our wonderful and unique free sources of information and interviewed a couple of our ‘success stories’. As well as finding out how they had used our information, the journalists wanted to interview a member of our reference team. Jeremy volunteered and did an excellent job, suppressing his understandable nerves to give a clear but enthusiastic summary of our service.

In fact Jeremy’s appearance was so successful the rest of the team had to deal with several weeks of answering phone enquirers who specifically asked for Jeremy to assist them with their business information needs.

Since then he has played a staring role in our award winning interactive annual report.

Last week we received a call from the Working Lunch show saying they wanted to come in and get three British Library staff to review the latest batch of E-readers. They wanted to know if the ‘professionals’ thought we were ready to usher in the era of digital books. You can watch for yourself to see what their views were.

Once again Jeremy was pressed into action and once again acquitted himself excellently.

Who knows where this media career will lead!

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Vote Silly 2008 – Vote Michael Palin

My intention is to keep politics (and religion) out of this blog. However I couldn’t resist the Vote Michael Palin campaign. Especially when you consider how qualified he is for the job (watch the video below). Added to that is the gift of a free ‘fuzzy thing’ when you sign up to their newsletter.

Michael Palin could be the new ‘nice’ face of politics, even if we discount the fact he can’t stand, as he is not a US citizen.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jf1y9s73Nos]

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Our future world is Blue, Green or Orange

Just back from the ebic 2008 conference organised by TFPL, and exhausted from listening to so many speakers and ideas (plus networking late into the night). This year we spent an afternoon brainstorming the implications for the information and knowledge profession of the Pricewaterhouse Coopers‘ scenario worlds of the future, Managing tomorrow’s people: The future of work to 2020. This predicted three very different possibilities and gave each a colour:

The Blue World: Corporate is King: Big company capitalism rules as organisations continue to grow and individual preferences trump beliefs about corporate social responsibility.

The Green World: Companies Care: Social responsibility dominates the corporate agenda and concerns about demographic changes, climate and sustainability become the key business drivers.

The Orange World: Small is Beautiful: Companies begin to breakdown into collaborative networks of smaller organisations and specialisation dominates the world economy.

Our task was to attempt to answer the following three questions:

1. What significant developments/events/trends that will impact on KIM (knowledge and information management) activity can we expect/anticipate across the forecasting time-line in this world?
2. What KIM activity would ensure success in this world?
3. What KIM roles and skills would be of value to organisations in this world?

The outputs from these discussions were recorded and I am looking forward to seeing the conclusions in the next few weeks.

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MUST get1.com

As many inventors are all too aware there are many sharks out there ready to rip-off those less experienced. So it comes as a pleasant surprise to find a commercial website that wants to to help bring new products to market without the sting.

As well as selling innovative products (many first seen on Dragon’s Den) MUST get1 gives useful information and advice to inventors and would be entrepreneurs. New products very often début first on MG1 either as full launch products or as marketing trials.

As well as my old friend the Milli-grip spanner I came across a remarkable new take on that old favourite the umbrella, which according to Wikipedia dates back to at least 2,000 years BCE. This one is called the Fanbrella and avoids all of the complicated and dangerous springs and spars of the traditional folding design.

Unfortunately the promotional website is not as professional or detailed as I would have liked, so I can’t get a clear view of how it works.

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ebic 2008 and Flight Memory.com

I’m off to ebic 2008 on Wednesday for the TFPL organised conference of which I was a regular attendee a ten years or so ago. After a gap of a couple of years they have revamped it in the form of a “networking event for people working in the knowledge and information arena”.

I am looking forward to meeting some old and new faces from the profession, and to seeing Berlin again after a ten year gap. At that time it was the largest building site in Europe as it adjusted to the removal of ‘the wall’.

flightmemory

Appropriately today’s Net@Nite with Leo and Amber included Flight Memory, a new flight tracking website which enables you to record previous trips and produce cumulative data. It also generates a map similar to the ones found in the back of the airline magazines showing where your flight routes.

They will also calculate your total time in the air, distance flown and even keep track of aircraft types and airlines. All they need to add is the amount you have added to global warming to complete the picture.

flightmemory2

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Dead Wringers and the Thatcher Nut Cracker

I’m not sure if the current trend for politically inspired products indicates a growing disenchantment with politicians (of all flavours). Or is just another unexplored niche in the crowded household products market.

One of our success stories Bill Anderson has developed a range of salt and pepper grinders under the brand Dead Wringers. He hopes to expand the range beyond the existing set of politicians and royals to include celebrities. You get the chance to vote for who’s neck should be next on the line.

Bill hopes Dead Wringers will put some much needed colour and fun back into politics. “For seven years I lived directly underneath Screaming Lord Sutch of the Monster Raving Loony Party. Some of his spirit of mischievous wit must have trickled down through the ceiling.”

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

A more recent, and even less respectful, product is the Thatcher Nut Cracker

“The Iron Lady is back one last time to serve her country, crushing nuts between her steely thighs. Walnut, Macadamia, you name it – there’s no nut that’s a match for Maggie’s mighty pins!”