Unbelievably, the formal part of SPEED Plus has come to an end already. No more Wednesday afternoons and Friday lunchtimes at our second home, Molineux Football Stadium, learning about goals (of the business variety). It seems light-years since that initial pitch (sorry) to gain a place on the programme. There’s been plenty of food to fuel our mental exercise, but thankfully no dribbling. No shortage of set pieces either – the buffet lunch was steadfastly identical for each of the twelve fixtures, displaying something of a lack of culinary imagination to a bunch of creative entrepreneurs. The curly fries went down well, however, and the puddings did vary – but with the emphasis always on cream, sugar and calories.
We didn’t sign up for this with the sole purpose of putting on weight, of course (notice I carefully avoided any clever puns about gaining pounds), but prefacing the workshops with lunch was a useful opportunity to catch up with the other beneficiaries and swap stories of progress, lessons learned and challenges faced. What classes of trademark are you applying for? ... how are you getting on with renovating your premises? ... here’s a good printer for business cards ... have you joined Twitter yet? ... which is the preferred blood type for signing a Funding Application Form? And apart from all the encouragement, shared knowledge and cross-fertilisation of ideas, it’s been a thorough pleasure simply getting to know such a lovely bunch of enthusiastic and talented people. Long may the associations continue, even though the scheduled group efforts have finished.
What can I say about the compulsory workshops ... times to learn, with varying degrees of interactivity, about finance, branding, value propositions, more finance, marketing, social media, even more finance, intellectual property and, erm, animals. The presenters displayed a range of styles, usually engaging, stimulating and relevantly informative, but as for the gentleman who chose to address us with his shoes off, what was that all about? Some sessions left us a bit flummoxed, I think it’s fair to say.
But for keeping us transfixed for three and a half hours and unleashing a massive burst of focused activity ever since, the prize has to go to David Hyner, the rhino man. Without revealing too much (I know a thing or two about copyright, after all), his spectacle (no other word for it) on setting massive goals not only inspired us to believe that we can really set our sights on achieving something magnificent but also equipped us with practical tools for the quest. Cows got a bit of a bad press, but I notice David had no qualms about giving away milk chocolate for intelligent questions, singing in public and other rhino-like behaviour. You had to be there.
We didn’t sign up for this with the sole purpose of putting on weight, of course (notice I carefully avoided any clever puns about gaining pounds), but prefacing the workshops with lunch was a useful opportunity to catch up with the other beneficiaries and swap stories of progress, lessons learned and challenges faced. What classes of trademark are you applying for? ... how are you getting on with renovating your premises? ... here’s a good printer for business cards ... have you joined Twitter yet? ... which is the preferred blood type for signing a Funding Application Form? And apart from all the encouragement, shared knowledge and cross-fertilisation of ideas, it’s been a thorough pleasure simply getting to know such a lovely bunch of enthusiastic and talented people. Long may the associations continue, even though the scheduled group efforts have finished.
What can I say about the compulsory workshops ... times to learn, with varying degrees of interactivity, about finance, branding, value propositions, more finance, marketing, social media, even more finance, intellectual property and, erm, animals. The presenters displayed a range of styles, usually engaging, stimulating and relevantly informative, but as for the gentleman who chose to address us with his shoes off, what was that all about? Some sessions left us a bit flummoxed, I think it’s fair to say.
But for keeping us transfixed for three and a half hours and unleashing a massive burst of focused activity ever since, the prize has to go to David Hyner, the rhino man. Without revealing too much (I know a thing or two about copyright, after all), his spectacle (no other word for it) on setting massive goals not only inspired us to believe that we can really set our sights on achieving something magnificent but also equipped us with practical tools for the quest. Cows got a bit of a bad press, but I notice David had no qualms about giving away milk chocolate for intelligent questions, singing in public and other rhino-like behaviour. You had to be there.
 | It doesn’t all stop because the workshops have come to an end. It’s really just the beginning, with the business proper starting and consultations with our mentors continuing for another few months. Meanwhile, I’ve been beavering away (in a rhino-like fashion) at my branding – a local design company has weaved its magic on my original concept and I have a logo of which to be proud. A website to match is just around the corner, then there’ll be some proactive promotional work ahead ... exciting times. Even without actively marketing myself I seem to have generated business by osmosis. I have a couple of commissioned pieces to write today, so time for this rhino to fly. |
