Make Your Mark Blog

On Tuesday night the team here hosted the launch of Striding Out at the Make Your Mark Ambassador meet up which was held at the exclusive Hard Days Night hotel.

The evening was a great success with a fantastic turn out from the Make Your Mark Ambassadors and local partners including Liverpool Vision, Blue Orchid, Liverpool John Moores University, University of Liverpool, School for Social Entrepreneurs and Social Enterprise Network.

The event had two purposes the first to gain support for Enterprise Week, lots of ideas are now coming in from local ambassadors on events they’d like to run or get involved with. The second purpose, to launch Striding Out in Liverpool. Heather Wilkinson founder of Striding Out and also a Make Your Mark Ambassador herself has secured funding from Liverpool Vision for this project. With one to one coaching (local liverpool coach Michael VJ Jones is also Make Your Mark Ambassador) networking, online support and an awards ceremony the project aims to support and encourage 100 new business in Liverpool by 2011.

The evening was a great success with lots of networking and speeches by Sarah Bevan - Fischer, Anna Heyes and Heather Wilkinson thank to everyone who turned out and look forward to seeing the lots of Enterprise Week activities being planned.

For more details about Striding Out or if you are age 18-30 and looking to start a business sin Liverpool please contact michael@stridingout.co.uk

Last Thursday I attended the North West Unleashing Enterprise Week event hosted by Make Your Mark and NWDA.

The Event was held in a lovely venue the Village Hotel in Warrington and saw an attendance of over 100 guests from across the North West.

The turn out was fantastic with a wide range of organisations and schools from all over the North West attending to hear more about how Enterprise Week this year is part of Global Entrepreneurship week. There were speeches and workshops about activities that could be run and how partners can include a global aspect to their Enterprise Week events this year.

Amongst those giving speeches were Ann Carter – Gray (BERR), Yvonne Sampson (NWDA) and Make Your Mark’s own Sarah Bevan Fischer and Mariska van der Linden.

The Enterprise Week DVD was enjoyed by all the delegates who were desperate to get their hands on the spare copies.

 The speed networking session was a great success with people buzzing about and comments such as “ It was something I never thought I’d enjoy but it was so easy to get involved in and I’ve met lots of interesting people that I didn’t know. What a great way to network.”

A huge thank you to Eimear, Martha, Matt, Mariska, Emma, Helen, Sarah and everyone at the NWDA for such a great and successful event.

Reaction and IDEATE proudly present….Batt & Ball Animations.

Batt & Ball Animations was set up in February 2007 by Gary Carse and Micheal Baily, who were studying at Prudhoe Community High School at the time. They specialise in stop motion animation which they use to creative anything from adverts to short films.

Their debut animation ‘Look at the Sky’ won a national MTV Boom competition. It was 69 seconds long and took 80 hours of painstaking work to produce! Later in 2007 Gary and Michael also won the ‘Pride in Tynedale School Enterprise Award’

After winning such prestigious award, the pair were inundated with work. They worked 13 hours a day during their summer holidays to produce ideas for new music artists such as Tom Baxter. They also produced a mascot, Paul the Penguin, for Creative Partnerships Northumberland.

Gary says ’Without support from ID8, Batt & Ball Animations would have struggled to find its feet and take off the way it has over the last year, they gave us a foundation to work on, an opportunity to turn our hobby into a success. In today’s industry, young talent rarely gets a break, but enterprise gives you the chance to prove yourself and show what you can do.’  

Reaction not only gave the pair help financially, but also helped by offered opportunities should as workshops and enterprise fairs where they had the chance to put questions to local business people.

Who is Reaction?

It is an organisation intending to fire the imagination of potential entrepreneurs and aims to make towns and villages more enterprising places.  Reaction is an independent Community Interest Company controlled by Tynedale Council.  As well as working with individuals, businesses and community groups, reaction is also active in schools across the region. 

And IDEATE?

IDEATE aims to bring your ideas to life.  If you’re young and have an idea you could get £1,500 to make it happen. 

Who generates economic impact? Luke Johnson writing for the Financial Times (“All of the effort with none of the impact”, 6^th August 2008) set out a proposition that the entrepreneurs that really matter are the tiny proportion who ultimately generate the bulk of economic benefits for the economy. Evidence indeed suggests that these high growth companies or these so called “gazelles”, often defined by their revenue growth, account for only about 3% to 4% of new ventures.

Should government agencies generally stimulate entrepreneurship or should they disproportionately focus on supporting this tiny minority? How can you create the next Google or Dyson or should the real objective be about driving up dynamism and innovation in the economy through venturesome creation and creative destruction?

It would be a real mistake to go down the line of thinking that stimulating entrepreneurship in general or a focus on high growth entrepreneurship are policy alternatives. Yes, these high growth firms do matter but the two scenarios are not mutually exclusive. First, the USA is far better than Europe at generating new global giants, particularly in the technology field – but it also has a much higher rate of entrepreneurship than Europe or the UK. It is having a culture of enterprise that matters, without which we will lack not only new venture creation but also high growth entrepreneurship.

Second, the so called “backing winners” policy and its contribution to overall economic impact is not straightforward. This is because there are also a sizeable number of new ventures which grow steadily but can’t be defined as gazelles or the ones that grow rapidly to a particular size and stay there. Firm growth in reality is not linear but highly sporadic and episodic and it is difficult to pick winners.

One well researched US study focused on “high impact” rather than high growth firms, factoring in both revenue and employment changes. These high impact firms accounted for nearly all private sector job and revenue growth. Surprisingly, the study found that the average age of high impact firms is 25 years old and firms with less than twenty employees represent 93.8% of high impact firms.

It is arguable whether Google or Virgin, when conceptualising their ideas and getting off the ground could have foreseen where their talent and the market opportunity might take them. It is critical to raise the level of ambition in Britain and enhance the quality of would-be and existing entrepreneurs who exhibit growth-oriented behaviour.

Many entrepreneurs in the UK, for example, start small and stay small, and about half have no particular ambition to grow. Maybe it is about teaching people to work on their business rather than in it – and this has to start from a young age.

I caught up with a fair bit of enterprise telly over the weekend - Secret Millionaire which I always enjoy but sometimes think it doesn’t do enough to show how entrepreneurial ideas can change social problems, it’s more about pots of money being handed over which don’t get me wrong I think is admirable and I always get a tear in my eye during that part! Anyway this week’s was even better as the entrepreneur James Benamor not only handed over cheques to three very deserving groups but also gave much more. With one group of youngsters at the Manchester Settlement he motivated them by saying that whoever got one or more GCSEs would get the chance to come and work for his company for a month. You could see how it changed their attitudes to know that someone believed in them and would give them a chance if they worked hard in return. Should be inspiration to anyone else who is in a position to look at different ways of getting people out of the cycle of bad behaviour, crime etc.

Then I watched The Money Programme’s Mumpreneurs programme which was hosted by Saira Khan, who is a mumpreneur herself. There were some inspiring stories of mums doing fab stuff, including Tanya Rostron who recently won the Mother@Work Mumpreneur of the year award. Whilst they all recognised that it had been extremely hard at times to run a business and a family they all recognised the benefits of being able to fit work around their kids rather than fit kids around their work.

And I must admit I did also watch a bit of Last Choir Standing on BBC - which showed how music can change people’s lives, improving their confidence and often giving them a break from their everyday lives. The same can be said of a number of clubs and hobbies and by being enterprising with passion or talent the sky’s the limit!

According to Enterprise Nation, the home business website, you can be at least £30,000 in pocket by starting a business from home because of an increase in the value of your home and savings on fuel costs and motoring expenses.

It’s good to know that having an office in the house adds an average £28,000 to the value of your home, and avoiding the daily commute leads to travel savings of more than £2,000 each year. So in all the doom and gloom of  rising costs anyone thinking about setting up a business should seriously consider working from home.

Take inspiration from Sarah from Pai, who started making skincare products in her garage and Fraser of SuperJam fame who started making jam in his kitchen and is now selling to the UKs biggest supermarkets. As if that wasn’t enough take a look at Joel Drapper who is only 15 and already running a web business from his bedroom.

The internet has made it much more possible to work flexibly, and wifi means you can choose to work at home, in the garden, on the train or even the beach although the sand may prove a challenge.

For more information, visit www.enterprisenation.com

A few things have caught my eye this week, including:

- a campaign to encourage Coca Cola to fund distribution of medicines in Zambia using its existing distribution network, which took off due to the power of Facebook.

- a student visit to Africa, where they were so moved by the differences between schooling in the UK and Africa that when they had to go home, they left their shoes behind. In Tanzania you can only go to school if you have shoes.

Both stories struck a cord as they really resonate with Enterprise Week’s mission this year, to unleash enterprising ideas and address some of society’s biggest issues. How can we encourage young people in the UK to come up with solutions like these?

- BBC also ran a story about the growth of blogs written by women. A conference in the States recently brought together some of these female bloggers with brands who are keen to tap into their collective knowledge and influence, and not least because of their spending power. I wonder whether we are as far down this road in the UK?

And, as Trevor would say, finally…a look at the survey which claims that Croydon is the ‘chavviest’ town in the UK. Two thoughts on that. Firstly, as mentioned in an earlier blog the word chav comes from the early Romany word for youth so literally speaking Croydon shouldn’t be too upset about being seen as youthful. And secondly, Croydon was also a regional winner in our search to find the most enterprising places in the UK last year. So maybe things aren’t all that bad there after all.

The Morgan Foundation Entrepreneur Awards are designed to find a new generation of role models - whether they are new businesses, young entrepreneurs or social enterprises with vision and drive who are based in North Wales, Merseyside, West Cheshire, Shropshire and the Wolverhampton area . We are also looking for a special person or business that has overcome obstacles and succeeded ‘against the odds’.

In 2008 there is over £150,000 of prizes on offer, made up of professional services and £105,000 cash, split over 5 categories which include

• Best New Business (less than 4 years old)
• Best Business Providing Economic and Social Contribution to the region
• Best Social Enterprise or Charity
• Best Young Entrepreneur (under 25)
• Against All Odds (person or business overcoming the greatest obstacles to succeed)

For more detials and how to enter go to http://www.mf-awards.co.uk/about.html

Any enterprising person should put this in their diary!

The Eastern Region Enterprise Week Meet Up is going to be held on the 17th September 2008!

Where: Ipswich Town Football Club

Time: 10am-2pm (lunch included)

Join us to get fresh ideas and tips on how to participate and get the chance to see what Enterprise Week is all about and how beneficial an enterprise culture can be!

The event is also a great place to network with local companies as well as Make Your Mark ambassadors and champions.

For more information or to book your place please contact beccie on 01502 580977 or email beccie@makeyourmark.org.uk

We look forward to seeing you all there..

Make Your Mark Team - Eastern Region

I’m pleased to announce that the Global Entrepreneurship Week promo film is now finished-finished. It’s a really excellent piece of marketing. The message is inspiring, the content useful and informative, the quality of the film itself is really high, and the voice-over artist sounds so much like Mariella Fostrup that it’s rumoured it actually is Mariella Fostrup.

I visited the London winner for the Enterprsing Britain competiton last week. Wandsworth Youth Enterprise has been going for twenty years this year, so it’s what you’d call a sustainable initiative! The project provides a variety of services to young people, ranging from enterprise workshops, providing a forum in which to air ideas for the first time, through to in depth one to one business counselling, offering guidance through the challenging start up process. The whole initative is client led catering to the individual; the provision of such a bespoke service leads to phenominal success rates, with 85% of individuals who sign up to the programme going on to set up their own business.

We met a variety of youung people who are still based in WYEC’s incubation units. Everybody said how instrumental the programme had been in their success and many thought they would have failed without the ongoing support they received. Unfortunately we weren’t able to visit Trident Business Centre a second stage unit run by WYEC for more established businesses but it was pretty clear what an invaluable support the project is to young entrepreneurs.

WYEC have also taken their project model and turned it into an international success. Enterprise Development Worldwide, the international arm, takes the best practice established through the programme and uses it as a basis for setting up and supporting projects all over the world as well as in other parts of the UK. So far enterprise projects have been establsihed in several eastern European countries as well as the Carribean, Africa and Australia.

A young man from Lowestoft has been chosen for the prime minister’s Global Fellowship - having found success during the Make Your Mark Challenge.

19 year-old Richard Miner from Lowestoft, is one of 100 young people chosen for the prime minister’s Global Fellowship - a programme designed to encourage and nurture oustanding talent and enterprise.

Depsite his obvious hard work and talent, Richard credits his success to the Make Your Mark team and his participation in the Make Your Mark Challenge whilst at school. During the challenge,  Richard and a group of friends established ‘UnHeard Entertainment’, a music management and PR company and as a result of their success, went on to attend the Make Your Mark in Music networking event in london, with Richard also becoming a founding member of YELP (Young Enterprising Lowestoft People) - a local network set up with the help of the local Make Your Mark team.

Richard says:  I believe strongly that getting on this chance of a lifetime, is in part due to the huge amount of support you and the whole Make Your Mark collective  gave myself and ‘UnHeard Entertainment’. It certainly allowed us to all become more knowledgeable about the ways of business and helped greatly in building a self-confidence in ourselves. The experiences that I have had due to ‘Unheard’ were priceless and I personally have a lot to owe you for those and the contacts made from Make Your Mark.”

As part of the fellowship programme, Richard is due to spend six weeks in India including two weeks in a school or college working as a language assistant and two weeks as the guest of a global company to get an understand of international business.

In November, Richard and the other fellowship members, will join the prime minister Gordon Brown to take part in ‘Global Entrepreneurship Week’ as part of the Make Your Mark campaign.

The Eastern Region Make Your Mark Team would like to congratulate Richard on this fantastic achievement and highlight how participating in Enterprise Week can really help young people to make their mark!

Plymouth is the Enterprising Britain finalist for the South-West and I joined judge James Capper to find out more about how the area has changed and the ambitious plans for its future.

Plymouth has embraced enterprise as a way to transform a city centre and unite disparate areas of the community. We met people from a number of different projects that have contributed to raising the aspirations of young people in Plymouth, supported new businesses in the area and generated a sense of pride in Plymouth residents.

We heard about the University of Plymouth’s vision to turn the university into an enterprise university with enterprise education at its core, permeating all subject areas. The university actively promotes enterprise competitions and Enterprise Week activities and encourages real-life experience of enterprise: A group of young people run the Pilgrim Cafe in the univeristy and Plymouth is in the process of setting up a Young Chamber of Commerce.

Throughout the city centre colourful banners promote Plymouth Summer Festival which has spearheaded a ‘cultural renaissance’ from the Jazz & Blues Festival to Plymouth Flavour Fest, a celebration of food from the region which draws 100,000 people to the city centre. Exploiting Plymouth’s geographical position, one of the most successful events during the Festival is The Artemis Transat boat race. Re-locating the boat race to Plymouth Harbour has had a huge economic impact on the city, attracting visitors from the UK and abroad and encouraging Plymouth residents to come into the city centre to take part in the celebrations.

Plymouth has a real vision for its future and, led by a group of committed, enthusiastic business and community leaders and supporters, I have no doubt they will build on their success and continue to promote the area as a great place to live and work.

What a fantastic visit to Tynedale and their enterprise network last week! An excellent example of how a deprived rural community can be transformed through enterprise. The people were so united, involved and supportive of network and the wide range of enterprise initiatives in the community.

The community brought together through a shared entrepreneurial spirit, overcoming the barriers of a population dispersed over a large geographical area and considerable deprivation (worsened still by Foot and Mouth a few years ago).

The enterprise education in schools was particularly impressive with some very dynamic head teachers working very closely together for mutual benefit and innovative ways of involving businesses in schools and exposing young people to business people and enterprising environments.

The highlight at the end of the day was a visit to a nursery that had been set up by a group of young local entrepreneurs. Jamie Murray Wells (Founder, Glassesdirect and the national judge on the visit) was asked to open the new nursery garden and new water feature for the children to play with… the group of 2yr olds playing in the garden then promptly soaked him in water from head to toe!