08 January 2014
Recycling Business Resolutions
As another year begins, it is an ideal time for us to think of those business resolutions that we always thought about but find it difficult to put into gear. One of my own is to recycle more since taking a tour of the EcoPark at the London Waste Company.
They collect rubbish… but they do so much more such as diverting waste from landfill responsibly by recycling and generating renewable energy. Some examples are by producing 292,100 Mwh of electricity a year and 10,000 tonnes of compost from the 35000 tonnes of kitchen and garden waste – compost which you can buy from local councils in North London. Since my eye-opening and nostril-pleasing visit I have increased my own rubbish recycling and gained amazing insight and understanding of the possibilities of recycling rubbish.
There are a number of innovative ways that global and national businesses are doing this in a big way, such as Veolia Environment in this article in the Evening Standard. You may already have ideas in your head, but my challenge here is to research and learn other ways that small businesses and individuals can create a business out of recyclables before it gets to the bin or landfill.
Reclaimed bath at Gilbert’s Garden Bar, St Pancras, London.
Ravensbourne college is a great grassroots example of encouraging innovative designers and sustainable businesses based on recyclables as showcased at their Penrose Festival. Some of these include jewellery, fashion, home wares, laser-cut sculptures, paradox oil lamp made of recyclable light bulbs sourced from the recycle machine at IKEA, and lamp-shades cut into city shapes produced from different shops from around London.
On a larger scale Treehugger has more examples of items such as washing machines to chairs, vintage bone china tea cups to bracelets and even old phone booths into public aquariums in Japan.
Closer to home, we have had businesses that have used the Business & IP Centre for setting up and growing their recycling businesses. Some of them took part in our Spring Market last year, including Boodiblu who design jewellery out of recycled china and Motties who make shoes that are constructed entirely from reclaimed materials that would otherwise go to waste – with £1 from every pair sold going to the homeless charity Emmaus. In our Innovating for Growth programme we also have an entrepreneur, Tristan Titeaux of Custom Carpentry, who designs bespoke furniture out of waste off-cuts, which otherwise would go to landfill.
Custom Carpentry’s bespoke furniture made of reclaimed materials.
In conclusion, it seems like it is not only a good new year’s resolution for households and businesses but “trash can be cash”. There are some good business ideas and evidence out there that recyclables can be environmentally responsible as well as can be a sustainable and profitable business.
Don't forget that we have lots of workshops and resources that can help anyone looking to start or grow their own business. Have a look at our calendar to see what's coming up.
Seema Rampersad on behalf of Business & IP Centre
29 November 2013
Innovating for Growth success story - Socially Bright
With mobile and apps growing all the time, we’re seeing a lot more of these types of businesses using the Centre and applying for our Innovating for Growth programme.
So we asked Socially Bright to share their experiences on growing their company with the advice and help they received at the Centre.
“Socially Bright help agencies and brands to create apps that are beautifully designed and deliver impressive results. We are a Facebook Preferred Marketing Developer but are also familiar with all network APIs such as LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube. Everything is built on our platform, Bandstand, which contains a suite of tools for managing app content and facilitates rapid production and deployment.
Our journey with the British Library Innovating for Growth programme began when our Technical Director saw an advert. Having already had the idea of creating a new software platform ‘Bandstand’ for our clients, we hoped that being part of the programme would kick-start the development process and that the expert business advice we received would double our efforts and help us focus on the long term growth strategy of the business.
We were thrilled to be accepted onto the programme and received a number of one-to-one tutorials from industry experts ranging from product development to finance and intellectual property.
There was also the opportunity to attend some really interesting talks outside of the scheduled programme sessions such as Inspiring Entrepreneurs: Marketing Maestros, where speakers including Jo Fairley, founder of Green & Black’s and Will King, founder of King of Shaves shared their experiences and innovative strategies.
Having recently completed the programme, we are now working on implementing a number of recommendations received from the programme with a view to making Bandstand the most robust and intuitive platform it can be.
Alongside this, we are also working on the transition to a license model for the platform thereby giving us the increased security and predictability of a fixed income that will allow us to budget more effectively in the future.
Most recently, we’re very proud to announce that the ‘Cif the Web’ app we developed for our client DLKW Lowe picked up the gold award at the Campaign Big Awards.
The Campaign Big Awards aim to champion and celebrate the very best work, in any and all media, in one place on one night. They bring together the brightest agencies and the smartest clients from across the advertising spectrum to applaud and reward brilliant British advertising. The Big Awards are now recognised as one of the UK’s most important barometers of creative advertising in the UK.
We’re looking forward to using the Business & IP Centre a lot more as our business develops and grows."
If you’re an ambitious London-based business looking to grow, apply for Innovating for Growth now for the chance to get tailored support and advice to get your business to the next level.
Socially Bright on behalf of Business & IP Centre
27 November 2013
University innovation: using the wisdom of the crowd
The innovation strategies of universities should focus much more on ‘connection than protection’. This was the over-riding message that emerged from The Open Innovation & Higher Education event at the British Library.
This approach contrasted an inward-looking and secretive approach to assessing and developing ideas characterised by risk-aversion and decision-making by committee and an emphasis on use of intellectual property protection, to one in which universities worked with external business, funders and others (‘the crowd’) to turn ideas into innovative new products and services.
The former approach had led to a graveyard of interesting ideas which were never taken to industry as their potential was not seen or the institutions did not posssess the knowledge or skills to develop them.
Each of the speakers looked at a different aspect of addressing the challenges of engaging with ‘the crowd’.
Stefan Lindegaard
Stefan Lindegaard from 15inno talked about the need for a major cultural change within high education whereas Daniel Hulme from UCL spinout Satalia looked at how algorithms could be used as a way of involving and engaging external communities in a focussed way.
Brian McCaul specified three pinch points in the innovation process in which ‘the crowd’ could play a role. These were:
- Validation - this involved addressing the question: ‘does this idea have any legs?’
- Business development - this involved using external resources, knowledge and skills to take an idea forward
- Funding - linking up with potential investors potentially using options like crowdfunding.
Brian described the example of The Innovation Commons, a successful online community of universities, businesses and funders which had developed in the North West of England.
The Innovation Commons logo
Els Delaere from Voka Chamber of Commerce in Flanders looked at an earlier stage in the process, that of unleashing the entrepreneurial talents of students, by talking about the annual Ghent Mega Brainstorm in which 200 students take part in a 48-hour ideas competition.
The event formed part of the British Library’s contribution to the Interreg IVB funded Open Innovation Project. Previous events had looked at how open innovation can be applied by businesses and public services.
Videos of the presentations from this event, as well as the lively panel discussion can be found online
Nigel Spencer on behalf of the Business & IP Centre
07 November 2013
The Internet has revolutionised marketing
If, like me, you use the Internet frequently, but still need to improve your understanding of online marketing, I recommend that you attend the Online Marketing Masterclass, taught by Alasdair Inglis of the small business marketing consultancy Grow.
Right from the start of the class, Alasdair made the most of the available time by taking us through the essential elements of online marketing, including:
- The importance of thinking about lead generation in terms of inbound marketing
- Email marketing – the grandaddy of low-cost marketing
- SEO and keyword research
- Google Pay-Per-Click (PPC) – the reason why yellow pages is worth pennies
- Content marketing
- Blogging
- Facebook PPC
Alasdair explained the technical aspects of the above topics with the help of graphics and visual cues, which made everything easy to understand. He also gave us exercises that were good for networking with other workshop attendees – in my case with Rachael from video content company Vividecho.
One of the most useful exercises was the keyword-ideas exercise, which showed us how to do keyword research and set up SEO. This information will be extremely useful in a competitive market, as it will help you make the ‘first page of Google’ and get people responding to your online advertising.
Google records every search people make for phrases and keywords in every country in the world, and makes this data available to everyone. Alasdair showed us Google AdWords, which allows you to make a list of keywords, so that when someone types one of your keywords into Google, your company will show up above the competition. To do this effectively requires dedication and persistence, as well as a good business strategy – it’s advisable to have a clear strategy for your search campaigns.
Online activity can make marketing accurate. Be it art or skill, your company can use these techniques to ensure a good Return on Investment and a good success rate.
Trance Party
Photo Source: WikiMedia
Another exercise we carried out was searching for keywords related to trance music, and ads based on the fact that one of the attendees, William, runs the trance- party business, Sydiom. It was a revelation to me that by using this technique alone, we found out not only the number of searches for ‘Trance Parties in London’ but also that people were searching using the term ‘Progressive Trance’. This information was right on track (pardon the pun) to help William promote his work.
One interesting but strangely challenging exercise was creating an AdWords and AdGroup example. It was more difficult than I expected trying to fit the right words into limited space to get the highest impact!
Another tip from Alasdair when setting up your PPC campaign was to use keywords that target locations relevant to your business. For example, you could target phrases such as ‘Bicycles in London’.
Personally, I found there were only a few technical things you need to understand to optimise your online campaigns. This workshop explains how to use the various techniques and provides a good introduction. It might also help you decide whether you want to outsource this aspect of marketing to an SEO expert! Either way, you should definitely be doing this for your business and if you get it right - you will benefit.
Content marketing, such as books, podcasts and video are other forms of online marketing that can be effective. You can use the Content Marketing Matrix to ensure that your strategy and marketing remains effective. It was also suggested that you look at what content your competitors are sharing – since your ‘competitors are your best friends’!
Blogging and Facebook PPC were tools mentioned, with the latter targeting customers by location, town, city, gender, connections etc. I think most of us will be used to these ads by now. However, you’ll learn to be on the other side, pushing them out to potential customers.
The Online Marketing Masterclass was very detailed, so I am unable to put everything in this post. Do attend the workshop if you want to get that competitive advantage. Doing the right research the right way will always lead to better results.
Seema Rampersad on behalf of Business & IP Centre
31 October 2013
Management Book of the Year 2013 shortlist announced
The Chartered Managament Institute have just announced the shortlist for the Management Book of the Year 2013.
The era of 'Management 2.0' with fast-paced technological change, flatter workplace structures and a sluggish economic climate means that a new kind of manager is now needed.
The titles shortlisted emphasised how managers need to be less controlling and more coaching in their approach in order to get the most out of their employees and to encourage innovation and growth.
All the need-to-know topics for today's managers are covered including big data, innovation and decision-making.
There were 142 books entered into this year's competition across five categories, which are:
- Innovation and Entrepreneurship
- Practical Manager
- The New Manager
- The Commuter's Read
- Management and Leadership textbook
The winners of the five categories and the overall winner will be announced on 3rd February 2014.
Find out who made the shortlist.
Chloé Titcomb on behalf of the Business & IP Centre
25 September 2013
Fashion has nowhere to go but in circles
‘Fashion has nowhere to go but in circles’ was a statement that my friend’s mother told her and I can see the validity of the statement in many ways since starting at the Business & IP Centre. Fashion is one of the most popular industries among users of our Centre.
In my opinion, there have been some important business changes in the last 10 years of the fashion industry such as commercially viable vintage shops, boutiques, swish parties and other conscious efforts for ethical and sustainable business success without compromising people and the environment.
A couple of years ago, I acquired a heightened state of awareness of sustainability which was brought on by a night of fabulous fashion at an ethical fashion show themed ‘Fashion with a Conscience’ by the Ethical Fashion Forum at the William Morris Gallery in London.
The London designers on the night created items that were ethically sourced, manufactured and distributed – this was a splendid ticketed fashion event which showcased their designs in the Gallery’s spiral stairwell with various stalls and raffle prizes for goods served over a glass of wine and canapés. It was memorable evening but more than anything – it made me more conscious of ethical fashion in principle.
Roll on one year – whilst being part of the Women’s Network working for the Greater London Authority, we were in the process of organising a number of events for the 100th International Women’s Day and it was my suggestion for us to have an ethical fashion show not only to display some ethical fashions but to bring staff together and celebrate the day with some fun and facts!
Colin Firth (actor) and his wife Livia Giuggioli (eco-entrepreneur).
Photo Source: Wikimedia
To cut a long story short, I eventually connected with designers Queenie and Ted who were very keen from the onset to take part and thus provided numerous marvellously designed ‘upcycled’ jackets for staff to model. Coincidently, it was also the week of the Academy Awards Oscar’s in 2011 where Colin Firth’s wife Livia Giuggioli, eco-entrepreneur at Eco-Age, was also doing her bit to champion ethical fashion on the Oscar’s red carpet. Personally, I thought it all ended being a grand success on a monumental and fun occasion.
Queenie & Ted’s Upcycled Jacket
The event was also a great way to meet with designers and female entrepreneurs Queenie and Ted who started their own company part-time by applying decorative resuscitation techniques to tired garments to create amazing one-off clothes. Their business has grown since then and they now have a permanent presence and shop on Columbia Road market with even international customers when I visited.
Back to the present, this brings me back to the saying above ‘Fashion has nowhere to go but in circles’ - this is definitely true in a business and design context such as with upcycling, vintage, ethical global sourcing or sustainable fashion to consumers in the UK.
There are numerous resources in the library that can help you research sustainable fashion businesses or practices with help from our very popular Fashion Industry Guide and workshops which sometimes focus on fashion.
For vintage and upcycle fashion design inspiration – download the ‘Guide to Fashion Resources at the British Library’ that we prepared earlier this year.
Seema Rampersad on behalf of the Business & IP Centre
02 September 2013
My favourite brand is complete rubbish
My new favourite trademark was spotted on my way to work today, and is rubbish.
More accurately, it is What a Load of Rubbish! And I was pleased to see they have registered both their logo and text at the UK Intellectual Property Office at UK00002525927.
I love their combination of a cheeky but memorable name, which is reinforced on their website whataloadofrubbish.com.
Their trademark registration page.
The lorry in question.
Neil Infield on behalf of the Business & IP Centre
21 August 2013
Trendspotting in a Nutshell for Innovators to Laggards
A few weeks ago I attended a Business & IP Centre workshop by Cate Trotter of Insider Trends on ‘Spotting Trends and Opportunities’ during our ‘Cooking up Success’ series of events.
It was obvious from the beginning that the attendees were really on the cutting edge of the food business. During the icebreaker an attendee’s insight was that ‘food is trendy now and we want to be a slice of it!’
Cate helped us identify techniques for trendspotting as an essential strategic process that helps organisations and individuals anticipate change, plan more effectively, introduce more successful initiatives and spot niches in the market. Doing this means a business can focus on what to do next, make better decisions quickly which saves a lot of energy and money in the long run.
Cate started by showing us a clip of a single person dancing at a festival but slowly…gradually…one by one… the dancer was joined by other people to form a mass gathering of something that they all enjoyed. It was obvious from the clip that there may have been persons who didn’t want to participate or who may have needed that extra push or help to take part.
Based on Rogers, E. (1962) Diffusion of innovations. Free Press, London, NY, USA. Source: Wikimedia
The moral of the story – trends takes a bit of passion from an innovator for it to move through the ‘Roger’s Innovation Curve’ from an innovator to laggards, gathering impetus to the mainstream where even the laggards eventually come on board.
For the food business we discussed innovators and early adopters who would go to the most obscure places to eat and sample new trends. Mostly, these persons are connectors and like to keep at the cutting edge of the industry and would attend foodie events from their social network or in their local area. Cate reinforced that if you have your business cap on, you would use these experiences to gather information by observing, talking to people, brainstorming new initiatives and conduct informal market research for your next business idea or spotting the trend.
Two practical exercises used were:
- The use of Google Trends to find out what people are taking about or what is ‘common knowledge’, for example cupcakes have far more hits than dosas
- How to use trade and consumer magazines to find out what those ‘in the know’ are writing and talking about. Have a look at our popular Food Industry guide for resources available from us in the Centre.
Here are some tips for trends and opportunities spotting:
- Know why you are spotting trends – the clearer you can be on what idea you’re looking for, the easier it will be to find it
- Observe – trendspotting begins with an in-depth look at the various areas of influence such as new and old media, research, networking, scoping, everyday observations and problems highlighted
- Connect the dots – after gathering the nuggets of information, make sense of it by connecting the dots with tags like Delicious, Freemind, Evernote or even Post-it-Notes on a wall or whiteboard.
- Assess – investigate trends to assess the level of opportunity inherent in tools such as Google Trends & Keywords and Facebook Ads, which has how many people are interested. Work out where they are in the Innovation Curve.
- Ideate – Produce ideas that tap into the trend that you deem to have the most potential. Identify and engage with the target group with the right balance of effort and reward that can help you have a more thorough understanding of the level of potential in each idea.
- Test – Get feedback from the real world! Keep looking at your sales data, web analytics, press coverage for traction, monitor your social media or basically, speak to your customers.
In conclusion, we were reminded that trendspotting is something that should be continuous and you should formalise the process every 12 months or so to make sure that you are aware of all opportunities or risks ahead and the best position to take advantage or avoid them.
Find out when the next Insider Trends workshop takes place.
Seema Rampersad on behalf of Business & IP Centre
01 August 2013
Business success stories
One of the best things about working in the Business & IP Centre is seeing the passion people have for their businesses and how their confidence increases as they go along their journey.
I’m lucky enough to be involved in the filming of our success stories and it’s always really interesting to hear what they’ve found the most useful in the Centre as it varies so much.
I spoke to a great business yesterday who have a really innovative product in some big name retailers (video to come soon so watch this space!). For his business, the market research databases were invaluable and made all the difference to getting his business to market.
One of my favourite comments is from Birgitte Lydum who set up Baby Beamers to create a pram cover for her daughter when she couldn’t find one. She sums up the sentiments of many entrepreneurs that I come across.
“I basically did workshops in everything that surrounded being a small business because as a small business owner you have to put a different hat on pretty much every hour and do the different things because, you can’t, well I couldn’t afford to outsource anything so I had to do everything myself.”
It’s also amazing to see businesses who have come to a free initial Information Clinic and are now established and flourishing like Blueberry Hill Cakes who have also taken part in our Innovating for Growth programme for established businesses.
I’m always on the lookout for more stories about businesses who have used the Centre when starting out so if you think you fit the bill and would like to become one of our Success Stories, have a look at the website for more information about what we look for.
Chloé Titcomb on behalf of the Business & IP Centre
25 July 2013
Innovating for Growth success story - The Hairforce
The Hairforce – Lice Assassins is one of the businesses supported by the Business & IP Centre, during both start-up and growth phase. Set up in 2006 by Dee Wright, the business provides a unique nit and head lice clearing service using technology that dehydrates the nits and head lice by controlled heated air.
I found out about the Hairforce when Dee applied to join our Innovating for Growth programme. I think the Hairforce service is unique and innovative, as it provides an effective solution to a known problem. As Dee states, the nit and head lice problem in the UK is significant with over 50% of all children catching it annually.
Parents spend a lot of money without getting very far and are highly frustrated by this. They claim that nit and head lice products don’t work, delivering an over 80% failure rate. In contrast, the innovative technology – the LouseBuster™ - used by the Hairforce delivers a highly effective treatment quickly.
The Hairforce technology
Dee has been using the resources of the Business & IP Centre since the early stages of setting up her business. Three years ago, she got a grant to examine the viability of franchising. She commissioned a franchising partner and successfully franchised in 2010.
Rasheed Ogunlaru is her mentor and recommended that she apply for Innovating for Growth, which provides high quality business and intellectual property advice and support services to help existing small businesses in London innovate and grow.
After being accepted onto Innovating for Growth in April 2013, Dee had a number of one-to-one advisory sessions with our expert partners and received support on evalutating her routes to growth as well as advice on how to approach her different target markets and strengthen her value proposition and customer appeal. It was really interesting to follow Dee during the programme and observe her progress.
The Hairforce growth business model is based on the franchising concept. At the moment there are six Hairforce Lounges and one Rapid Reponse Unit. However, the franchise model is not growing as fast as Dee wants, because she finds hard to convert enquiries about franchising to sales. Most of the potential franchisees that are enthusiastic about the business do not have the money to buy the franchise.
Our experts recommended that Dee should look for sources of finance to support her potential franchisees who are interested in the business but do not have the necessary financial resources. They also gave her advice to collaborate with people, who are more interested in the business concept rather than the service delivery, to help in sales.
As a member of the Innovating for Growth project team, I did research work for Dee and helped her identify the areas where her potential customers are located, providing her with contact lists of target markets in order to promote her services and products.
Following the advice she received during the programme, Dee is in the process of re-designing and re-structuring her website and promotional material, to be more clear and appealing to her different target markets by separating the service delivery message from the business opportunity message.
She is also in the process of meeting new business clients for collaboration, following the business contacts she got from market research at the Centre.
Best of luck to Dee as she continues on her journey!
Irini Efthimiadou on behalf of the Business & IP Centre
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