I’m well chuffed today! Intrigued? I’ll tell you why…
It started off as a day like most others. I woke up, used snooze five times, fell back to sleep, got up with 15 mins to get ready for work, ran down to the station… got into work and turned on my computer.
And guess what I found? The email of all emails, a golden nugget in a sea of ’spam’, what every entrepreneur wants to hear, a lovely webby delight… I’ve been named as an ‘up and coming young entrepreneur’ on the 98point2 website (thanks guys!).
UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) is proud to support the launch of Diaspora, the non-profit music foundation that will aim to ensure equality in music exists for everyone at Rich Mix in Bethnal Green on Tuesday 31st March 2009.
Chaired by UKTI’s International Business Specialist for the Music Industry and Diaspora ‘fellow’ Phil Patterson, the event will involve a panel of representatives from music associations and trade bodies across London.
This panel has been selected from some of London’s best musical minds in response to the needs of an audience including upcoming artists, record labels and music organisations who have the potential to become leaders within the music industry.
Well, as for all the negative press and comments about recessions and credit crunches, at the Women in Business event attended by fourteen entrepreneurs and MP, Yvette Cooper in Castleford today there wasn’t a single moan or groan in sight, just positive comments and the most tremendous inspirational stories.
Each person around the table had a different tale to tell and what made it more interesting was that they were so varied and in some cases sparked off a round of giggles – from recession busting ‘oldies’ to decisions between marrying a rich man or getting a job – the job won!
Have you thought of being your own boss, of being an entrepreneur? Maybe you are an entrepreneur. Can you explain it in a video?
The European Commission is looking for videos that explore one of the following subjects: “The entrepreneurial spirit”, “Innovative Entrepreneurship”, “Responsible Entrepreneurship”
For the best video in each of the three categories the European Commission will award a prize of € 3,000, the second best video will be awarded € 2,000, the third best € 1,000.
The producers of the best videos will be invited to the opening event of the European week for small and medium sized enterprises on 6 May 2009 in Brussels, Belgium. Enter here.
A hat from Girls Make Your Mark Award winnerPachacuti is featured on handbag.com and according to the site’s lifestyle editor Alaina has been doing really well in terms of web hits. Fab stuff! It’s great to see entrepreneurs competing for space with the bigger brands on top fashion sites like handbag. Who would you like to see on the site? Let us know and we’ll pass your top tips back to handbag.
Make Your Mark in the Markets is our competition in conjunction with nmtf (The National Market Traders Federation) in which we give some lucky creative type the chance to trade for free at one of our 70 participating markets for six months! The lucky winner will also received a cool £1500 to help with resources whilst receiving one-to-one mentoring and advice too. For more info have a gander at this. Deadline is 20th March so get cracking!
PS: If you are wondering if your local market is involved in Make Your Mark in the Markets this year, never fear as I’ll be popping up a nifty list very soon.
PPS: Oh and don’t forget, you can always email Denise Ramsey (Queen of Markets) or me too!
Congratulations to Make Your Mark Ambassador Cyndi Rhoades, who has won two weeks’ free trading space as one of Make Your Mark in the Mall’s finalists.
Cyndi is the co-founder of Worn Again - recycled fashion made from materials like seat belts, post-Glastonbury tents, bicycle tires and parachutes. Their shoes and bags have been huge hits with dedicated followers of fashion and the media, and their ethos has really struck a chord with eco-conscious shoppers. Be amazed by just how great scrap fabrics and a fire hose can look by catching Worn Again in the Mall: Cyndi will be trading at Walthamstow Mall for two weeks from 16 March.
I regularly run sessions to come up with new ideas and over the years have found a few good ways to do this. Here’s my guide (with all sorts of bits and pieces stolen from other places originally!).
The spirit of creative sessions
Make them open
No blackhatting - no idea is a bad idea at this stage
All ideas are welcomed
Don’t expect to come up with the perfect solution - that almost always comes at a later stage outside this session
As a facilitator of creative sessions, you should:
Today whilst collecting my 6 year old daughter from school, I thought about this question and whether the most enterprising ideas come from a ‘Eureka’ moment or gritted teeth?
To fill you in, I’m up in beautiful Yorkshire - well it usually is beautiful but today it’s raining and snowing! This was the reason for my gritted teeth but it did give me an enterprising idea…
We’ve just heard about an awesome opportunity for young people involved in social change. Our friends at ChangeIt have launched a new award for photos taken by young people that show campaigning or change in action.
We think it’s a great way to let the world know what wonderful work you’re doing in the community and a chance to get creative with your photographic equipment. The winning photos will be showcased at an exhibition in central London and there will also be £250 up for grabs.
In 2009 WinWeb will celebrate it’s 15th anniversary by hosting a Business’09 Competition to win £10,000 or an equivalent currency value for small business owners or budding start up business entrepreneurs.
Make Your Mark are supporting this excellent initiative and recommend that you take a look at the details below.
All that is required is that you let WinWeb know what you would do with the money for your business. Would you start your dream business? Start a business from home? Invest it in your current business and finish a long planned project?
The Challenge: take a random object (this year’s competition was about water bottles) and increase its value by adding something to it - anything - that is creative, imaginative, and innovative.
The result: watch this video from a film studies team in Scotland, who decided to add comedy to water bottles.
For more information on the Stanford Innovation Tournament, an official Global Entrepreneurship Week activity, check out the website.
And now for something completely different, John Cleese (of Fawlty Towers and Monty Python fame) is a keynote speaker at the Creativity World Forum in Antwerp taking place on 19 & 20 November.
He is joined by other big names including Steve Wozniak (co-founder of Apple), Chris Anderson (Editor of Wired magazine and author of The Long Tail), amongst others.
What I didn’t know about John Cleese is that he’s well-respected worldwide for his corporate training programmes. One is his famous quotes is “If you want creative workers, give them enough time to play.” He presents a discussion at the Forum entitled “The Importance of Creativity”.
So many incredible events happening during Global Entrepreneurship Week! “If only I could go to them all!” you’ve no doubt found yourself thinking. What you really need is Bernard’s watch, but sadly real life is not like children’s programming on CITV.
Believe it or not, we’ve got an even better way for you to find out about all the events happening this week: Make Your Mark’s ambassadors are out and about meeting people and documenting Global Entrepreneurship Week as it happens. Amy Aardvark, designer and printer of amazingly quirky and colourful fabrics, reports here from an event at Saint Martins Innovation Centre. Watch the video to get some top tips for artistic entrepreneurs from Lauren Moriarty, the designer-maker behind Peachy.
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