SXSW Diary

A picture tells a thousand words, right? So here's the last week in pictures:

picture credits where not the author: @fosforus and @wmmarc

Juggler Stories #2: Espree Devora

I’ve been so lucky in enjoying support from a great bunch of people who read my book 'Juggle!'. 12 months ago at South By South West 2009 Espree Devora saw a poster advertising the book; she got in touch with me just as I was leaving town, so we never actually met up. I was really pleased to hear the book resonated with her - so much so she sent 20 copies to her friends at Zappos - so finally, on Saturday we got to meet up, talk and hang out at SXSW 2010. LA-based Espree is founder of an action sports business Zex Sports and a classic entrepreneur, full of energy, ideas and ability. She is a great connector, adept at putting people together and making introductions. She invited me as her guest on board Tony Hsieh's 'Delivering Happiness' Bus later that evening and introduced me to a whole bunch of great people. Before we did that, I shot this video of her talking about juggling:


*if you can't see the video above, watch it on YouTube here

Giving Your Small Business An Edge

I’ve just started writing some posts for BNET, ‘the go to place for management’. So if you like my blog posts here you might enjoy the series for BNET with advice to give small business an edge in fast changing markets. My first post ‘Rip Up Your Five Year Plan’ has just gone live.

Do you have a ‘WYT?’ person in your business or work life?

Many of us are working more autonomous than ever as one-person businesses, consultants, freelancers, work-at-homers. There is a whole new generation of workers used to being self sufficient in everything; juggling a sales role with doing the accounts. But however talented you are, and however well-tuned your instinct is, it’s essential to have someone else to bounce ideas off, to provide a reality check, or just to look over a proposal or important document.

I call them my ‘WYT?’-  ‘What d’You Think?’ - people. And I have a few of them: people who have good ideas, others who will provide a fresh perspective on a problem, my wife to be really honest with me about whether something is good enough or not. I have a WYT relationship with my friend/ associate Richard – he calls it a buddy system (and blogged about it here). But whatever you call it, make sure you identify people in your life who you can call upon as mentors, sounding boards or just a fresh pair of eyes and ears.

You may be adept at being multi-dimensional, but you can still benefit from a completely fresh perspective.

BBC Radio Cambridgeshire Interview

Last night I was a guest on Sue Marchant’s show on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire talking about rethinking your approach to business and ‘Unplanning’. You can hear the interview again via the  BBC iPlayer HERE (link only works for 7 days). The interview starts at around 16:40 and lasts 10 minutes.

Unplan Your Business

In these turbulent economic times, the wise among us question every business certainty. Business-as-usual hasn’t served individuals, businesses or governments well. Traditional long-term strategy retains its place but, with web based tools revolutionising the speed at which we can launch and test ideas, I think the future requires we bust the myth that we can plan/guess the future and, that we need to UNPLAN OUR BUSINESSES instead. 

“How To Unplan Your Business” is my latest project; a collaboration with a friend and former colleague David Sloly.

In my research I have gathered various contributions from entrepreneurs and management thinkers including Tom Peters, Kevin Roberts (Worldwide CEO, Saatchi & Saatchi), Tony Hsieh (CEO, Zappos), David Hieatt (ex CEO Howies), Gary Vaynerchuk, Michael Schrage (prototyping guru) and Alan Webber (founding editor of Fast Company) - all of whom, for different reasons, support the idea.

WEB you can see these contributions at the Unplan blog here.

READ there’s a free ebook, that you can download here.

LIVE if you’re going to be at SXSW Interactive, join us at 5pm on Saturday March 13^th in Room E at the Hilton for a Big Conversation

VIDEO there’s a short video here

AUDIO and a short audio trailer here

Andy Hudson: Taking A New Idea To Market

Here’s a short video interview with Andy Hudson. I first met Andy in 1988 when I was doing work experience at a television production company. When I returned to the company in a full-time role in 1990 I worked with him on the music series ‘Friday At The Dome’ for Channel 4 and a number of other music and arts shows. We then worked together at his music events start-up Sol Entertainment and then at The Unique Broadcasting Company. Especially in the early part of my career Andy was a real mentor and encouraged me to think ‘plural’; that I could apply my skills to more than one area. It’s great to see how he’s reinvented himself from music and events to be founder of a technology business as he’s now COO of The Broadband Computer Company. The company has just launched ‘alex’, which offers safe, secure and easy computing especially for inexperienced users. I met Andy at the London launch last month and talked to him about how he’s developed the business from idea to market.

if the video does not display above, watch it on YouTube here