British Library and Business

Paolozzi at British Library 

Earlier in the week back at the British Library for the second of their  Business Start-Up Day's (I was there at the first too)  - seems amazing that a year has passed since I attended the first one.


Something like 20 sessions (all free) to choose from I went to ones about the Social media Start up area as it's what's of interest.


Favourite of the three sessions I attended was Sam Lane's 'Tips for taking Photographs with Smartphones' good speaker and her points work for pictures generally in terms of pictures for Social networks. (You can download Sam's presentation here).

Sara Rego of UK2 Group (standing)

Taking the Leap Online by Sara Rego was good to as was The Google Digital Garage presentation on 'Building a Social Media Strategy'.

(Here's a resource from Google's Digital Garage).

Reassuringly one of the tips I picked up was - no need to blog everyday!

Getting it wrong

I was surprised to see that British Library has it (somewhat) wrong on the notes around Michelle the Beatles song written largely by Paul McCartney  -Paul was not an Art Student, as the note says - still great to see the song lyrics.

And perhaps it can act as another lesson in questioning what we see?

London's British Library - another example of what we are lucky to have in London

Another lecture at the British Library and Red 33

A real mix amongst those attending the British Library

 As promised yesterday here's some more from the Business and IP lectures held recently at The British Library.

I noted at the Series of lectures promoting entrepreneurial activity at the British Library how many women were present and the  ethnic diversity amongst speakers and audience.


The second lecture I attended was  presented by  Sara Rego from Portugal who was speaking for UK2 about the importance of and  how to leverage a Website.

I learnt more about the plethora of alternative domain names starting from as little as £1.00 per year - these even include .photo but the co.uk and .com remain the most popular.

A useful guide

One of the many  very good points Sara made was does a website look like it was designed by a 5 year old? 

The Library sign

She also pointed out 5 Design Issues that should be kept in mind:


1) Bad Navigation
2) Poor Reliability
3) Auto-playing Media
4) Not Optimized for Mobile
5) Disorganized Content


And of course the importance of refreshing the content


Sara mentioned how important to take account of Metrics such as Google Analytics, she also advised that you should:



Checkout  the competition
Start simple
and
Keep it Fresh 


I noticed again how important Eduardo Paolozzi is to London's public art - here's another of his works near the British Library -Piscator 

Another Eduardo Palozzi sculpture - Piscator by Euston Station is now looking a bit grimy 

Red 33

When talking to people about objects that were red someone did mention a ball - I suppose the classic red ball would be a cricket one but this from the local 'Tiger' store has Pink too

Having a ball?

British Library Business and IP and Red 34

Told it how it was

Yesterday I went to glean some knowledge of business at what might seem a somewhat odd place for enterprise - The British Library just between Euston and St Pancras stations

The British Library is an institution that surprises it has the great artists work and exhibitions of diverse cultural significance (Punk at the moment).

A  'celebration' of Punk 

I've seen quite a few speakers addressing business audiences but Julie Deane of Cambridge Satchel Company really stood out.

First of all she told her story - and it was a clear one full of practical lessons learnt that would apply to anyone growing a business.

Here's the story many of us might be familiar with from Google's recent campaign



But it also reflected the virtues of keeping to what the speaker felt was 'right' Julie made clear her expectations on fair treatment not special treatment for people involved in small and start up businesses, she was also clear on her own strengths and weaknesses (she doesn't like networkers and is suspicious of experts descending from on high  and overcharging for things like branding.

Julie who started her company with £600 and the goal of sending her two children to a good 'fee-paying' school where they were not subject to bullying has become an object lesson in how to grow a company.

The head of the Cambridge Satchel Company  is now actively promoting small business for the British Library made a strong argument for using the declining asset of Public Libraries throughout the country to act as a credible resource in helping to build the next wave of enterprises.

Eduardo Paolozzi's statue to Newton outside the British Library 

Julie also shared amusing anecdotes like the one about how she'd bigged up her number of employees to 4 when it was in fact a school girl (doing a few after school hours), Julie's Mother and the dog (Robert - security) this was then revealed to her local paper when  they visited for a photo-shoot.

It was clear that Julie was star struck by the recognition that big names brought her like George Michael and the Rolling Stones  but she made even clearer  how touched she was by Sophie Ellis-Bextor's support for the 'brand'.

A great business lesson and more tomorrow from another session I attended.

Red 34

Well here's a Red that references earlier red chairs but is that thing you'd expect a modern business person to build an office on the run - Chair, Laptop and Coffee

Yesterday afternoon at British Library and an example of someone who deserves to succeed  being resourceful