“In the real world, there are more ‘good’ deals than there is money. However, there is much, much more money than ‘great’ deals”.

“A well-articulated Elevator Pitch is ultimately more important than a well-written business plan. Your sale occurs when you are presenting your opportunity to your prospective investors, not later when they read your plan”

Ran across this article and found it very interesting and useful for myself. Hope you also find some good experiences thru Mel Pirchesky’s POVs too.

The All-Important Elevator Pitch

Happy New Year to All!

Run across this post and think it’s interesting topic to discuss before coming semesters. Looking forward to hearing your opinions on these POV. How and Why to Impress Your Instructors

On December 18th (the festive season meant a short break from blogging – sorry) myself and fellow student Hai attended the Procuring Social Media event held at Coffee Lounge, Birmingham.  The main point of the event was to discuss what social media is and how it can be used for the benefit of businesses.  There were many social media experts on hand to speak and provide advice and guests were required to move between them.

The speakers were:

• Nick Booth (Podnosh)
• Anthony Tattum (Big Cat Group) – a slide from his presentation is pictured above
• Mark Brill (CEO Formation)
• James Robertson (Online Marketing Expert)

Pictures by Hai Nguyen

Posted via web from karenpatel’s posterous

On Wednesday in our final lecture for Creative Industries and Cultural Policy, we were given a talk by Lauren Amery from the West Midlands Cultural Observatory.  Lauren (pictured below) carries out research into the social and economic role of culture in the West Midlands. Her department is a subset of the West Midlands Regional Observatory which is overall a hub of information and statistical data about the region.  Lauren was a particularly interesting guest for us because we wanted to know what part she has to play in policy making.  Her main concern is with collating data and research with regards to the role culture has to play in the West Midlands; one example she provided with us was a survey of cultural participation (i.e. which percentage of the population in the region takes part in cultural activities such as sport, visiting art galleries and so on). Lauren’s working definition of ‘culture’ is the same as that of the DCMS.  

She presents her research to policy makers, and makes suggestions for new policies and initiatives.  We thought Lauren would be more involved with policy making, but ultimately the decision is out of her hands.  An interesting fact she did tell us about was that the only cultural service local authorities have to provide by law is a library – nothing else.  I found this astounding, and it made me think whether this could be changed to foster more cultural participation.  A large concentration of cultural activities in the region are in the urban areas such as Birmingham and the Black Country, whereas more rural areas such as Hereford are short on the provision of culture.  Would making art galleries a legal requirement in all local authorities help increase cultural participation?  I suppose the appropriate answer for this is: how long is a piece of string?

What I also found interesting was Lauren’s methodologies, especially her use of online surveys.  With my second assignment for this module involving primary research, I was interested to see how people such as Lauren approach research on a large scale.  Overall it was an interesting talk, and it made me think about how influential research is in the policy making process.

Posted via web from karenpatel’s posterous

Interesting debate at Creative and Cultural Policy class this week. What is education?

Was born in a difficult time of Vietnam when the war has just finished, I grew up in a countryside area in the centre region of Vietnam, a place with its famous severe weather and poor conditions. My parents worked very hard to make sure four of us able to join schools. We took schools as duty, as proud of family and as it was the only one way we could do to brighten our future. Question of “what is Education” would never been asked in Vietnam because Education is as naturally part of your life schedule except you do not have condition to go to school. You might not believe this fact but “Bill Gates” phenomenon is rarely happened in Vietnam until you have a strong family background with enough supports. I have been experienced Vietnamese old education system in my time, new education system (a bit new I think) thru my nieces and nephews and European education system which is completely different. There is always advantages and disadvantages in each system, however, they are all benefitable if we know how to enhance the best side of each system. Read more »

It was very interesting and useful session this afternoon with Enterprise group. I walked out Annette’s office and it was in my head all the way home the question of “How I can sell myself and my project concept better to sponsors/business partners?”. Interestingly I found this post from a tweeter and thought it would be interesting for you as well. Would love to see your opinions regarding how do you think personal branding will impact to your business projects…

Personal Branding – The Perfect Storm<

I know you are familiar with this motto. The first person who told me that sentence was my Dad when I was in a competition of my university to win a one year scholarship to Japan. It was with me in almost things I have done so far. However, I should admit that Justice Williams (Tru Life Magazine – BCU Guest Speakers) was far more energy and desirous then I was in taking this motto. I can see from her all characters that an entrepreneur needs: Creative, Entrepreneurship and Innovative and not least a strong desire to do things she wants to do. Read more »

It was meant to be two hours allotment for our lecture, but its impact was as though one was in a highly charged room full of action and the whole world was watching from a glass. We had a visit from Justice Williams, Ruth Ward and Dan Bowers who were walking the talk and coming down to our level and explaining what their experiences and their passions were. I did not have the pleasure of being there physically however twitter made it possible for me to enjoy some important words of advice. For a little over two hours, essential nuggets of wisdom and advice in the industry that we were seeking to begin movers and shakers in the future were all being brought to us. Without missing a heartbeat, it felt like paying for a consultancy session from professionals. I could barely walk away from the computer, and when my laptop battery started beeping I searched impatiently for my charger not wanting to miss any part of this interesting event. Even though I use to think of myself as one abreast with changes, the experience of seeing the developments on twitter was both exciting and very much informative. What was interesting from my perspective was that there were student colleagues as well as lecturers in the room that were all interested in making sure that the outside world that was watching were not missing out on all the brilliant lines that stroke a chord with them. Those who had access to twitter in the session were doing their best to keep the rest of the world knowing.

WHAT THEY SAID MATTERS.

In many years that I worked as a journalist, the tradition has always been to go the event, record all that was going on, make some notes, come back, go through everything and write your piece and then the audience can read it in the newspaper. It is true that the world has changed and moved on and speed was extremely essential in parading information. A few years ago, one will only imagine major corporation with the financial backing to be able to do this however it was not so with my fellow students. They understood that part of our training was for making quick judgments and walk the walk of technology by being active agents who provide real-time information without being paid any money because it was all possible from one lecture hall at Birmingham City University. From important messages like “your network is your net worth” to “web is fantastically transparent” to a key message to using the city that you are in to your advantage. It was certainly a very useful experience and what’s more it cut to the chase.

THE TIGER, THE BEAR AND THE LION

Some of the time when one ever considers what his reaction will be in the face of some of the heavyweights of the jungle ready to pounce, it is easy to consider flight as the first option. However I believe if these three offered to take you on a tour of the jungle, to a degree of certainty, one will feel safe. For the students on the MA Enterprise, this was the case when we had Justice Williams, Ruth Ward and Dan Bowers come in to spend some time with us and offering to help us make sense of the big business jungle that awaits us in our process of becoming entrepreneurs. Of course they came as friends even though they all had portfolios of conquest that identify them as successful in their own right at what they do. They were there to give us the guided tour of how they made it, what they learn and what we should always remember.
They did not disappoint at all, I daresay and even I was over 90 miles physically away from them. These three had all come in with a great deal of experience that was behind them and the fact that they were ready to open us their tool box and explain to us what aided them in their journey of becoming we found many more things to hold unto which will allow us to impact the our generation and perhaps in some years to come, repeat these whole episode however this time it is us who will be opening our tool boxes.
In conclusion I certainly believe that an experience like that coming to us students at this crucial time is extremely useful. It gives us a sense of assurance that if we go out there and do our best, the sky indeed is the limit. As much as I enjoyed the action from afar through tweeter and live blogs, I kind of believe that in the future, I would love the opportunity to be there and rather be tweeting to the outside world.