Make Your Mark Blog

On Friday 19 September there was plenty of secretive behavior in the Make Your Mark office. Matt Littler & Darren Jeffries, formerly of Hollyoaks, took time out of their busy schedules to pop in and film some short video clips for this year’s Make Your Mark Challenge. Matt & Darren have been tasked to look after this year’s secret brief and they successfully managed to make the video but conceal its content from Make Your Mark staff who were sniffing around for clues! Visit www.makeyourmarkchallenge.org.uk to watch the video, but remember, you’ll have to wait until 17 November for the Challenge to be revealed! If you’d like to take part there’s still time to register – you’d be bananas to miss it.

Hi, my name is Polly Harrar. I am the newly appointed Ethnic Minority Enterprise Campaigner at Make Your Mark and I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for all your continued support with our Campaign. I would also like to highlight some key engagement and activities that you may be interested in.

Enterprise Week – 17 – 22 November 2008

As you may be aware, Enterprise Week is fast approaching and whilst I am sure many of you are already actively engaged in activities across the UK, I would like to add a call for action for engagement on activities with an Ethnic Minority audience focus. Please do register these events on our site www.enterpriseweek.org.uk or view our Events Page to see what is happening in your area.

Down in Wakefield, eighteen schools are gearing up to compete in the very exciting Kleeneze competition. Kleeneze, the home cleaning catalogue company, is challenging groups of students to pitch fresh ideas for innovative cleaning products. Teams of four to eight pupils will have to file their entry by the 3rd of October and then give a Dragon’s Den style pitch to panel of Make Your Mark-ers and Kleeneze bods on the 14th November. The final will be held on 19th November so make sure you keep your eye on the blog for more updates on the competition. Cool

Diana

A few months ago, my team at Common Purpose gave me the task of taking and shaping a leadership event especially designed to meet the needs of leaders of Small to Medium size Enterprises (SMEs). Weary of the fact that the world of SMEs was new to me, I set out to work. What are their challenges? What are their needs? What role does leadership play in growing a successfull small business? I had no idea, but surely the leaders of SMEs had their own ideas and stories to share on this, so why not ask them to have a conversation with each other about it? After all- they’re the experts.

Last Thursday I attended the North West Unleashing Enterprise Week event hosted by Make Your Mark and NWDA.

The Event was held in a lovely venue the Village Hotel in Warrington and saw an attendance of over 100 guests from across the North West.

The turn out was fantastic with a wide range of organisations and schools from all over the North West attending to hear more about how Enterprise Week this year is part of Global Entrepreneurship week. There were speeches and workshops about activities that could be run and how partners can include a global aspect to their Enterprise Week events this year.

Having been at Make Your Mark working in the Education team for 8 weeks me and my inflatable banana were let out of the office to attend the ‘Unleashing Enterprise’ North West event. This was a great opportunity for me to meet ‘real’ people and hear about what enterprising activities they had been up to. There was a real enthusiasm for all things Make Your Mark and loads of great ideas about what people could do to get involved. I sat in on the education break out session and picked up loads of ideas about how schools can get involved in Enterprise Week; ideas which I will put up on the Ideas Bank very soon.

I’ve just got off the plane back from Washington (via North Carolina) and am sitting in the office enjoying my first proper cup of tea for a week. Smashing! What did I learn in America? Well I learnt that portions are biggggg but then you probably knew that already. I also found out a bit about enterprise in the US. I learnt that being an entrepreneur is pretty cool out there - whilst on one of many planes I met a lady originally from the US who has a restaurant in the Carribean and imports food from Thailand. I also found out in just 10 minutes that her husband likes her in glasses and that she came back to the US last year for her 50th but didn’t tell her parents, and that she is buying a house in Thailand. She talked a lot.

It is a lovely sunny day in London and the sunshine got me thinking of places afar, so what better time to catch up on the travels of Oli Barrett, Make Your Mark Ambassador and speednetworker extraordinaire, who has been sent to 12 countries around the world to spread the word of Global Entrepreneurship Week and, more specifically, Speednetwork the Globe, in a mere 23 days!

Not without at touch of envy, I read about how he has met fabulous entrepreneurs in Toronto, kept his chin up at YouNoodle HQ in San Francisco and talked all things Spanish (or at least tried to) in Mexico City.

Our intrepid entrepreneur Oli Barrett is currently on a whistlestop tour of the globe - visiting 12 countries in 23 days (crazy!) to promote Speednetwork The Globe ahead of Global Entrepreneurship Week. Find out where he is right now and see his photos, videos, blog entries etc.

In Mexico City he turned up and had to run the event in Spanish, which he did really well considering he only found out 20 mins before hand. Check out the video here - it’s worth a look! Speednetworking in Mexico City

If you have an American Express credit card you now have the chance to help save the lives of millions of sick babies around the world. American Express has created the Member Project, an initiative that invites people to come up with solutions that will aim to solve some of the world’s biggest issues. The solutions to these issues have been put up to vote and American Express card holders can help decide which idea best deserves a share of $2.5 million. One of the candidates we think definitely fits in with our global ethos is Embrace. Three savvy students have come together to create an incubator which is only $25 and is easy to use. These incubators will help keep poorly babies warm and ward of infection and with the ease and accessibility, they can be used anywhere. This will be essential to mothers or families who may live miles away from the nearest hospital. Click here to read about Embrace story and make sure you vote today.

Not sure if it’s official yet, but we seemed to be in the depth of a recession. I don’t have any large outgoings (except for shoes!) but food does seemed to be rising steadily. It is nice however to see a flurry of articles about how the recession is a good thing! I know, sounds crazy, but a recession may make us feel miserable and hunger for cheap chocolate but it can also be super for enterprise. It makes sense. If private and commercial institutions are losing money, thus losing staff, setting up on your own can be the very thing to keep you afloat. In fact John Bird, he of the Big Issue, social entrepreneur and all round good egg, set up his magazine amongst a crippling recession using his wits and creativity to beat the storm. So if you have a burning passion to create your own business, use the recession to motivate rather then scare you and remember he who shine first, shines brightest!

We’re in Kansas City right now in the Kauffman Foundation offices (which are pretty swish and alledgedly have an amazing espresso machine). Whilst most of you in the UK are thinking about going to bed we’re getting ready for the day’s action - about to meet employees of the Kauffman Foundation and update them on Global Entrepreneurship Week in the UK (and worldwide).

It will be interesting to see how enterprise - or entrepreneurship - is promoted in the States and we’ll hopefully pick up some stories and statistics which will help the campaign in the UK.

As part of Talent Week, local entrepreneurs are being offered the chance to showcase their businesses for free in two busy shopping centres: Hempstead Valley, in Gillingham, and Meadowhall, Sheffield. You can publicise your business, meet new customers, and even take orders, right there in two of the regions’ busiest shopping destinations.

Talent Week is a celebration of young people’s great array of talents, and will launch in South Yorkshire and Kent this half term (w/c 26th October).

Congratulations to three of our female ambassadors who have been shortlisted for the Women of the Future Awards.

Vicky Psarias - Art and Culture Woman of the Future

Tanya Budd - Science and Technology

Sara Lovett - The Woman of the Future Voluntary Award

Congratulations ladies and Good Luck!

The Awards ceremony is taking place on November 6 at the London Marriott Grosvenor Square

To find out more about The Women of the Future Awards visit

http://wof.realbusiness.co.uk/page/1

Saskia and Beccie (and Hazel and the rest of the team at Enterprise Lowestoft) organized a fantastic MYM Meet-up yesterday. It took place on Ipswich Town Football Grounds and was very well attended.

Highlights for us included:

Awesome speakers. We heard from Richard, an MYM Challenge alumnus who was inspired to start his own company and went on to become one of the Prime minister’ s Global Fellows. His speech epitomized what Enterprise Week and Global Entrepreneurship Week are all about. We also heard from Lianne Miller, founder of natural cosmetic label Young & Pure. We also heard from Jenny and Julie, Enterprise Advisors at The Denes High School in Lowestoft, the school that registered the most EW events in the UK last year. Saskia did a great job MC’ing the event.

Great venue. View of the lush green pitch from our conference room.