Interest piece about a researcher who disputes Malcolm Gladwell’s vaunted “Tipping Point” model of how social ideas spread in society.
What do you reckon? Are Super Influencers overrated?
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/01/28/tippingpoint-skeptic.html
Melody, an ambassador for Make Your Mark in the Music Business, tells us a bit about herself…
Hello everyone
My name is Melody and I am a singer-songwriter from west London. I released my song ‘Boytoy’ myself last year with electro and garage remixes to great acclaim, and my vinyl sold well in Ibiza, Sweden and England. Inspired by Madonna, Roison Murphy and Donna Summer(to name a few) I am currently in the studio recording an album with an eclectic group of new producers and Dj’s.
A connoisseur of pop music, my passion for music led me to become an ambassador for the Make Your Mark Campaign, which I’m very excited about! I have been involved in all aspects of making music since graduating with a commercial music degree from Westminster University, and I am keen to promote and encourage any opportunities for better access to music and new business in the industry.
With the demise of Top Of The Pops, Top 40 Charts and music sales in general, it is crucial for young people to have instant access to music via the internet by downloading, blogging and online communities and forums. Instead of being negative towards this technology, I believe the industry needs to invest in live music, and the development of artists. Record companies may have lost contact and touch with young people (or perhaps not… it’s my assumption). Make Your Mark in Music is awesome because it can help to inspire, and connect music fans and entrepreneurs with the record industry and highlight the huge opportunities available during this time of industry change.
The site went live today, so check it out www.makeyourmarkinmusic.org and don’t miss the chance to play THE GAME and win 5,000. And there’s another comp coming online soon where you can win 1,000 worth of musical instruments and equipment if you come up with the best idea of how this cash (and the instruments)would help you to make your mark in the music business. Don’t think about just being a performer - get creative and use your ideas for business in the music industry!
www.myspace.com/melodycouk‘Boytoy’ Remixes now available on vinyl at UDM, Uptown Records (Soho), Blackmarket Records (Soho), Htfr.com, Beggars Banquet (Kingston) H2fr.com, Rhythm Division (Bow), DnR Vinyl (Croydon)Mixing Records (Croydon), Swagg (Croydon) Juno.co.uk
Garage, Bassline and Afro-House mixes from Cocoa Butter Beats, 4KLUBBZ, Tera Blanca and Dj Beckett’s Big Boy Mix Ft Entyce and MC Dan.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown is calling on communities across the country to identify the local heroes who they believe should be honoured by the nation.
Gordon Brown said:
“All of us know someone in our street or someone in our community who spends all their spare time helping others. They are always raising money for charity, running errands for elderly neighbours, coaching kids, or doing something to bring the town together.
“Carers, helpers, or just good neighbours, nothing is ever too much trouble or too much effort: they are the people who inspire us all, make our lives happier or easier, and make our neighbourhoods safer and stronger. They are the everyday heroes who make Britain great.
“And how many times do we say to each other: ‘That person deserves a medal’. Well I think it is time they got what they deserved. And that is why I want us to see more of our local heroes presented with an MBE or an OBE by Her Majesty The Queen.
“And now you can help your local heroes get the recognition they deserve. Nominating someone is simple: call 020 7276 2777 or visit http://www.honours.gov.uk and you can start the ball rolling today.”
Lets make sure there are some enterprise champions in there!
Channel 4 is looking for 16 to 21 year olds…
…to take part in a new and exciting interactive project.
In the next 12 months are you hoping to achieve a certain goal? Deal with personal issues? Make a professional dream a reality? Address relationship problems with family or friends? Get your life back on track? Are you willing to be filmed for the next 365 days?
If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then they want to hear from you.
To find out more please email youth@sotelevision.co.uk or call 0207 960 2009
Hey people for those of you who don’t know me, I’m Oggie, I’m a singer songwriter mostly known on the UK Garage scene, I had my first Garage hit in 2004 with Danny C on a track called ‘Follow Me’, I then released a solo track called ‘YOU’, and last year released a single with Ed Case called ‘All I Wanna Do’. This year ill be releasing a new version of YOU with Agent X, I’m currently recording an album and just put a band together so look out this summer cos we will be everywhere! (Lol).
I am absolutely honoured about being an ambassador for Make Your Mark In Music, mainly because right now I feel that the music business is going through a major transitional period, with music becoming instantly accessible via downloading. Everyone seems to be up in arms on how to promote and sell music to a mass audience. The Make Your Mark In Music Campaign is the first step into finding out some of the answers. The site will show today’s emerging talent how to manoeuvre within the music industry, introduce you to roles within the industry that are vital to the business and give you the opportunity to network with major labels and build the bridge between major labels and up and coming musical entrepreneurs. This campaign is not just about musicians; it’s about people with a passion for music and desire to be part of the business. With new fresh ways of accessing music you need new fresh ideas from the people who love it the most, the ones who still go clubbing every week and have music as the main topic of conversation. Do you save all of your money to go and see live shows and still get that incredible buzz every time you see your favourite act? Are you someone who can not consider doing anything else in your life that does not involve music in some way shape or form? If this sounds like you, then check out Make Your Mark in Music. It’s going live really soon with a great virtual game competition and you could win £5,000. And another competition giving 3 people under 30 £1,000 worth of musical instruments and equipment simply by writing 100 words on how you’d make your mark in the music business (with £1,000 worth of equipment).
Hurry up, get on board and Make Your Mark In Music! J
Enterprising Young Brits finalists Mark Bowness and Ben Keene featured in the BBC documentary Paradise or Bust last night.
The documentary follows them trying to launch Tribe Wanted, a sustainable eco-community and interactive online community on the island of Fiji.
The documentary is repeated tonight on BBC2 at 11.20pm, check it out…
Find out more about Tribe Wanted at http://www.makeyourmark.org.uk/get_involved/enterprising_young_brits/2007_finalists#mark_bowness_ben_keene
Working from the West Country market town of Tavistock, Sam Deeks and his partner Clare Winsor are providing people in Devon and Cornwall with invaluable advice about local networking opportunities.
The G2B@ Podcast is a free weekly podcast which started just three months ago in October 2007. Sam explained that he wanted to create something relatively inexpensive that would promote networking opportunities in a simple and straightforward way. He felt that new businesses and young entrepreneurs were without a good resource to inform them about networking locally but that people wanted to hear about events that would be “good to be at”, hence G2B@.
It’s often younger people that have a better grasp of new media phenomena such as podcasts and blogs so Sam and Clare are finding that they’re able to reach a younger audience which is fantastic news for the Make Your Mark campaign. Whatever your age however, we all know that when you’re starting out there’s limited, well, often zero budget to spend on networking, so G2B@ is particularly keen to promote free events as well as those with a price tag.
Why not visit the G2B@ Podcast at http://good2b.wordpress.com/ where you might even hear a little about Make Your Mark there! On the associated blog you will also find events listings for the next 10 days.
Sam’s Top Tips for choosing a network
Have Your Say
If you want to take part in the G2B@ podcast and share your best networking tips, call the podcast hotline on 01752 424410 and record your message. Alternatively, email g2b@mukaumedia.co.uk to get in touch with Sam & Clare.
I went to a drinks reception last night at a new members club in London - One Alfred Place is somewhere you can work from, run meetings, store luggage, enjoy the fantastic food (haggis scotch eggs - inspired!) and view the amazing art on the walls.
It could be a great place for entrepreneurs who are either based outside London but need to be here a lot or who have limited office space and need somewhere more swanky in which to do business. Unlike other places it is only open until 9pm so doesn’t convert into a late night drinking den and it seems like they’ve really focused on the details to make it work for their members. Suggest you check it out as there is a discount for founding members…
It was worth me battling with delayed trains to get to the rainy and windswept city of Canterbury last week since it played host to some of Kent’s most innovative and enterprising young people last week.
The University of Kent organised a competition that brought together schools, Further Education Colleges and University students together to use their enterprise skills to solve a challenge.
The challenge was:
“to develop a blue print for a sustainable community town, one that will retain our towns and Cities unique community spirit. Your blue print can be a generic plan for a new community or you can focus on your own local town or City.”
What emerged were a series of thought-through and integrated plans using enterprise as the basis of social and physical regeneration. Responses to the challenge were unlike many conventional enterprise competitions; instead of coming up with fantasy money-spinning projects, students were challenged to put together a considered set of ideas that looked at the relationship between business, community, culture and city infrastructure.
The panel of judges included someone from Kent County Council who was so impressed with students that he’s invited the winning team to present their ideas to councillors! Some of the teams may go on to start enterprise clubs at their schools which will be a great way to push their ideas further.
It was a truly Kenterprising day (geddit??)
Run by the Federation of Small Businesses the British Small Business Champions competition has been launched. There is a young entrepreneur category as well as most promising new business and regional / national ‘champions’. You can find more info here…
last week i attended a really great event - the world entrepreneurship summit, in central london. it was the very first of its kind and i was pleased to be manning a make your mark / global entrepreneurship week stand. i met a lot of great people from around the world - ethiopia, hungary, bulgaria, sierra leone, kenya, canada - who were all similarly enthusiastic about entrepreneurship and the social good it can do.
i have to admit that the highlight for me was hearing kevin spacey - yes, kevin spacey, the ACTOR - talk to us about social entrepreneurship and his work at the old vic theatre. the old vic is a social enterprise (it doesn’t take gov’t subsidy and it delivers educational programmes) and kevin is the artistic director there. the audience learned of a few key ways that the theatre ’nurtures talent, develops work and and grows audiences’ - from international creative exchanges to running workshops and masterclasses for young people in the uk. to find out more, check out the old vic new voices webpage.
his speech was informative and informal, not to mention sweetened with impressions of former US president, bill clinton, and his late mentor, jack lemmon. he spoke for a good 25 minutes, took a load of questions, and got a few standing ovations at the end. a really inspiring guy, working on a great social enterprise.
and for those who now need a fix - here’s a a link to the famous dinner scene in american beauty, one of my favourite moments in film… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp4ayx8Moc4
(may contain strong language!)
chris spavin
Back in mid-October Helen and I attended Enterprising St Helens Enterprise Residential. The two days, aimed to get groups of school children from across the borough, thinking about enterprise. Our prescence there, was to tell them about Make Your Mark, set a speednetworking session and to try and catalyse some Clubs. We brought along one of our local ambassadors Chris Bradshaw from Urban Revolution, who was issuing a real life challenge facing his business - trying to market his UR1 Anti-Gum bin. For the challenge, the schools had to set up a Club, identify what roles they would take within it and speednetwork with other schools to start their market research int. Upon returning to school, the pupils worked one on one with the enterprise advisors, to adorn the bin with a design that encourages people to use it and discourages them from dropping gum. They then had to come up with a marketing campaign to get their fellow pupils to use it, sumitting their entries in time for Enterprise Week.
Seven schools took part in the challenge - they will all receive an UR1 Anti Gum bin with the winning design from Sutton High on the bins. All who took part were thrilled with how the challenge panned out and Chris Bradshaw would like to roll the challenge out to other Make Your Mark Clubs across the UK.
Make Your Mark Connector Heather Wilkinson and her Striding Out network are launching a new competition for budding entrepreneurs to showcase their innovative business ideas. The BIG LEAP competition is looking for young dynamic people aged 18-30, with fresh, innovative, high growth business ideas, who are ready to take the leap to turn their idea into a reality.In 2008, the Big Leap Competition is focusing on entrepreneurial ideas within the leading market sectors of:-
Ten finalists will be selected in the North and South to participate in the competition in
London and Manchester. Two finalists will be chosen per market sector.The Big Leap aims to energize and prepare you to get up and go, with a focus on interactive learning, coaching and peer group support. In September the finalist’s business plans are judged and five winners will be announced - one per category. Winners will receive investment readiness support to prepare them to pitch to a panel of potential investors in November during Enterprise Week 2008!If you would like to be one of the lucky Big Leap contenders find out more and register at www.stridingout.co.uk/competition.php . The deadline is the 1st March 2008.
Good luck!
The Big Green Challenge, is launched today by NESTA to encourage people across the
UK to work together to tackle climate change. They are making available a massive one million pounds for great ideas to save the planet.
Research to launch the initiative shows that 8 out of 10 people in the
UK believe they’ve had an idea that would have a positive impact on everybody’s lives but, for the vast majority (72%), their moment of genius remains untapped over worries such as lack of funding or fear of failure. Four fifths of those questioned believe ideas from ordinary people can make a huge difference to serious social problems like climate change, as well as crime, health and education. However, the findings suggest a lack of funds (36%), lack of confidence or fear of ridicule (31%) and not knowing where to start (25%) are stopping some of the 6 million bright ideas the
UK public dreams up every week from being realised.Designed to address these barriers and develop home-grown ideas into carbon-cutting initiatives, the Big Green Challenge will encourage groups of people and not-for-profit organisations to think of new ways to reduce the carbon emissions of a community. Initial ideas must be submitted by the end of February, after which the top 100 will be whittled down to a short list of ten finalists, each of whom will receive £20,000, mentoring and support to put their ideas into practice. The group with the most imaginative and successful approach at the end of the competition will win the lion’s share of £1 million.
Those interested in taking part in the Big Green Challenge should go to www.biggreenchallenge.org.uk to find out more and submit an application form.
A new generation of socially networked entrepreneurs is emerging with tens of thousands of potential customers recruited through websites such as MySpace, YouTube, Bebo and Facebook. Research for MySpace has found that 14pc of 18- to 24- year-old users earn money through their web pages.
If you’re making money through social networking sites we’d like to hear your about your success. Please email info@makeyourmark.org.uk with your story…
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