In through the outfield

The cool Wattson from DIY KYOTO

In the networking area of the Business & IP Centre are several illustrated examples of ’success stories’. These are entrepreneurs and inventors who have made use of Centre and gone on to achievement.

One of my favourites is the Wattson from DIY KYOTO who’s wonderful motto is, “to value simple things, and seek to produce products of perfect convenience and utility, elegant in their conception and efficient in their operation.”

If you have been reading this blog for a while you may have noticed my interest in product design and the Wattson is a perfect example of form and function combined into one. Not only does it look elegant whilst showing you how much money you are spending on electricity, the coloured glow emanating from its’ base gives you an immediate sense of your consumption as it changes from blue (good) to red (bad).

This achievement has been recognised by Stuff Magazine who awarded the Wattson number 8 on the cool list of gadgets for 2007, beating the iPod nano into 10th place. An amazing achievement for such a young company.

The librarian as sherpa

One of the earliest links to my blog was from Library Sherpa.

The reason Tracy, the creator of the blog chose the name made me wonder if this could be a good way of describing what librarians do in the modern age. I like the idea acting as someone’s Sherpa Tensing, navigating them through the treacherous world of information peaks and troughs.

“Why Library Sherpa?!
According  to the American Heritage Dictionary, a sherpa is defined as:
“A member of a traditionally Buddhist people of Tibetan descent living on the southern side of the Himalaya Mountains in Nepal and Sikkim. In modern times Sherpas have achieved world renown as expert guides on Himalayan mountaineering expeditions.”

I came up with the name as an homage to the indigenous people of the Himalayas, combined with my profession. The original intent for this blog was to be a forum for me to assist or guide people through the rocky terrain of the library and librarianship.”

Lucy Kellaway: Puncturing egos and praising good service

I have been a fan of Lucy Kellaway’s columns in the Financial Times for many years. Her humour, usually at the expense of corporate gobbledygook and management fads, would often brighten up a dull day in the office.

I now get to hear her columns via the wonders of podcasting as I walk to work, which adds a personal element to her columns.

A recent target was Accenture’s group chief executive for management consulting in a column entitled “Accenture’s next champion of waffle words“. This gives a good indication of the content of the item, but I can’t resist including a short quote:

“The memo starts with some background to the announcement: “…wanting to give you continued visibility of our growth platform agenda…” it says. Visibility is the latest thing in business. Companies and executives all crave it but, until last week, I didn’t know that growth platform agendas were after it too. What is he saying here, I wonder? I think, though couldn’t swear to it, that he wants to tell his colleagues how the company plans to make more money.”

However it would be a mistake to assume all of her output consists of (well deserved) barbs aimed at self-important executives. A more recent article concentrated on (an admittedly rare) case of customer service that created a warm glow inside, rather than an icy chill, or getting hot under the collar. Unpolished exchanges put soul into shopping, concentrated on the rare experience in today’s consumerist world of having something repaired, in this case shoes. As Lucy points out:

“An immaculate, luxurious shop gives pleasure the first time, but after that diminishing returns set in. By contrast, having something mended has become an exciting novelty, a nostalgic return to how things ought to be.”

Clip & Pull a Dignified Living product

One of the perks of my job is meeting inventors and then seeing them go on to be successful with a bit of help from us in the Business & IP Centre.

The latest one to make it into the media is Cintra Jaggan-Vince and her Clip & Pull invention. One of several products from her company Dignified Living providing solutions “to help people maintain their independence, safety and dignity with the task of dressing and undressing.”

In a double page feature in the Guardian of 1 February 2008 Cintra is mentioned and a photo of her proudly holding the Clip & Pull product.

Cintra certainly made an impression on me and my colleagues by demonstrating how effective her invention is, in front of our enquiry desk with the aid of a large pair of frilly knickers.

She has already won several awards including the Global Women Inventors & Innovators Network - Special Recognition Award Singapore 2004.

Blogging for small business success

There has been an exponential rate of increase in blogging in the last couple of years. Although there is a danger of a new blog getting lost in the mass of postings, blogging can be a key factor in business success.

The wonderful people at Cobweb Information for Business give some useful tips in their latest free e-newsletter, which I have included below. I believe the key to success is having a passion about your area of expertise. I remember soon after starting this job trying to convince Michael North the owner of the Olive Trail in Bloomsbury to start a blog on Olive Oil as he had such an incredible knowledge and enthusiasm.

1. Blogging takes commitment and time. You’ll have to dedicate your time to providing customers and other site visitors (and this may include other bloggers) with new information. There’s nothing more off-putting for readers when they visit a blog only to find stale, old content. This doesn’t mean you have to type forever - some of the best blogs are short, pithy entries that the reader can view and understand easily.

2. The content must be relevant. Blogs can help to position you as an expert in your field if they’re written the right way. They also enable you to promote your products and services with the personal touch, as you can link to news articles, pictures etc, to keep the content fresh and inspiring.

3. Links are important. It’s easy to forget the business behind the blog and get lost in the blog’s content. Build links to the site from other websites related to your business or your expertise. More links generally mean more traffic and a better search engine position.

4. Blogs are interactive. Readers can normally post their own comments to your blog entries. This allows existing and potential customers to comment on your product or service, or the process involved in buying that product or service. Bear in mind that it might take some time for someone to comment on your entries, so persevere. Install a site counter or check your website statistics to see how many people are viewing your blog. Blog Patrol has free blog counting tools you can download.

5. Is there a call to action? Does the blog link through to a special offer or service you’re currently running? Calls to action will help you win new customers or encourage existing ones to try out new products or services.

6. Can you make cash from your blog? For instance, is there advertising space on it which an organisation could use to market to your audience? Is there an affiliate programme you can join? Post some affiliate links within your blog and you could earn money when a reader clicks through to the affiliate site and buys a product.

An Easter egg in Firefox

Thanks to my Gadgets and Gizmos Pageflakes page by Jenny Zuko I have discovered that Firefox has a virtual Easter egg (Wikipedia definition for those who are curious). It was discovered by one of the geeks at Geek24.com.

Just go into the address bar and type ‘about:mozilla’.

Here is an indication of what you will see, but unless your eyesight is a lot better than mine you will need to view the page.

 

Everyday Marvels of Design

As a late Christmas present to myself I bought a copy of Humble Masterpieces: Everyday Marvels of Design by Paola Antonelli the Curator of Architecture and Design at The Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Each page is devoted to a design classic and I am still working my way through. However I have already come across two of my favourite items.

On the very first page is the Swiss Army Knife which I first came across back in my Scouting days. I have owned one ever since and always take it on my travels. There are now over one hundred different models to choose from, including one with a USB computer storage chip. My favourite has always been one of the simplest (see photo). I have only just discovered it is called the Spartan, which is very apt given my youthful Scouting experiences.

The other design classic is the Screwpull Corkscrew which surprisingly was invented as late as 1979. I have tried many different types of corkscrews over the years and have found nothing to touch the Screwpull. What makes it even better is the simple construction, light weight and low cost, which makes it ideal for pick nicks. The key to it’s success is the Teflon-coated helical screw which enables the screw to penetrate the cork and then pull it out of the bottle in one continuous action.

By a strange quirk of fate, the copy of the book which arrived from Amazon’s used books service originally belonged to Gwinnett County Public Library in Lawrenceville, Georgia in the United States, and still has a security tag in the back. I can only assume it did not prove to be a popular item, and to use a librarian’s term was de-accessioned.

Alastair Ross Goobey - sad loss of an inspirational business leader and CEO

Sad to report on the untimely death of Alastair Ross Goobey.

According to Property Week he will be remembered in the business world for championing ideas on corporate responsibility and governance that were unpopular at the time but are now part of the UK Combined Code which governs the management of public companies.However whilst CEO at Hermes Pensions Management he was an inspiring leader. Not only did he get to know each and every one of the 300 staff by spending time, almost every day wandering the floors engaging in conversation, they felt they could talk to him without fear or intimidation (a rare thing in the City). He also delegated responsibility down through the corporate hierarchy encouraging those with talent and ambition to develop their potential. I think many CEO’s could learn from his ‘management-by-walking-around’ approach.

I remember many interesting and entertaining conversations with him over lunch in the staff canteen. He had a very dry sense of humour, and I remember being asked to  track down images of sheep and lemmings for presentations to fellow fund managers. My colleagues and I had fun imagining their impact on the audience.

The way he dealt with challenge of leukaemia was typical of his tenacity, grit and good humour, which only increased the respect and admiration of his colleagues. The fact that he beat the disease against high odds for so many years is testament to his amazing positive attitude to life. During over a year of intensive chemo and radio therapy he only missed three days from work.

A former colleague quoted in The Times remembers how Alastair never sought the high financial rewards that other colleagues in the fund management industry received: “I just think I missed out on the greed gene.”

The Independent newspaper has a good summary of his achievements.

AngelsDEN introduces those seeking money, for their business, to over 3,800 Angels

Our British Library Entrepreneur and SME Network Facebook  group goes from strength to strength with 993 members as of this evening.

Isabel Oswell our intrepid head of Business Marketing is a reluctant convert to social networking, but has promised to be our thousandth member. So her time is rapidly approaching.

A recent message on our wall looks interesting. It is promoting AngelsDEN, a website that introduces those seeking money, for their business, to over 3800 Angels.

In the last week I have twice been asked how to find business Angels. This could well be the answer.

“Never mind that we have the largest number of angels in Europe - more importantly we are funding 17% of deals on the site. We promise no Pinstripes, no jargon - just good common sense and the grooviest Angels in town.”

Unlike many commercial services aimed at business start ups AngelsDEN are refreshingly up front about their charges, and go on to explain why they charge.

“Why isn’t it free of charge?

Many people have asked us why we charge for this service…well, we’re running a commercial enterprise and we need to cover our admin and promotion costs, pay staff to check your submission and pay for the upkeep of the website. We don’t get any public funding for Angels Den so that’s why we need to charge.

To set up a serious business with outside funding you do need to be prepared to spend some money. In some ways the £499 (plus VAT) fee also acts as a filter for people who are not really committed to doing what it takes to be successful or aren’t sufficiently far down the line to be ready to get funding.”

This entry was posted on 7 February 2008 at 12:25 am and is filed under Web 2.0,  business startups,  entrepreneurship. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Ed

Rasheed Ogunlaru and his Zest for Business

One of our partners at the Business & IP Centre is Rasheed Ogunlaru who delivers a regular workshop called Boost Your Business.

“It will help you develop the three keys - vision, belief and action - to success, confidence, balance, fulfilment and growth in your life and business. Creative, motivational and practical, it’s ideal for anyone running a business or wishing to. It will enhance your success and performance whether you’re a sole trader, entrepreneur, manager or small business owner.”
I was fortunate enough to attend a previous session and got a lot out of it.

Now Rasheed has got together with Nicole Cohen founder of the Marketing Gym to produce a book A Zest for Business which shares the recipe for starting, succeeding and avoiding the pitfalls of life as a small business owner. It highlights that vision, planning, belief and action and staying the right side of the law are the key ingredients to success and the key areas where most businesses fail.

The launch of the book is taking place in the Business & IP Centre on 27 February from 6 to 8pm.

The authors have also launched their own blog which looks really good.