Category Archives: Social Enterprise

Have You Got The Skills?

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Ever since I left college, I’ve been working on my own skills. Strange isn’t it, that once you leave school, college or university you actually start to think about what you will be doing and what skills you need to do that job you want or need. I taught myself computer skills, never ever went on a course to learn how to switch on a computer or operate Microsoft office or even switch to Apple in 2010 (other software suppliers/manufacturers are available).

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flikr | L.K. umbrellapro
computer

I am proud to say that I did it all myself. Training in the organisations I worked in, was very slim and most of the time non-existent. And this was because I worked in manufacturing where there just wasn’t the funds for expensive training and yet I managed to work myself up to become a board director in a number of these organisations.

So when I attended a conference in Birmingham on skills for the next generation, I was astounded to hear about all the efforts that are being put in place for young learners to get them digitally trained.

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flickr | @stayingaliveuk
birmingham

There are now thousands of courses available on line for millions of people if they have the hunger to learn.

They are called MOOCS, massive open online courses, which are exploding with great online courses and most of these are FREE.

Coursera is such a site and this is what they say on their website.

Choose from 300+ courses in over 20 categories created by 62 Universities from 16 countries.

Udemy is another one and this is what they say;

Expert instructors have taught over 500,000 students on Udemy, helping them learn everything from programming to photography to design to yoga and more.

flickr | ben110 teacher

flickr | ben110
teacher

Udacity say this, by making high-quality classes affordable and accessible for students across the globe: Udacity is democratizing education.

And then there is Khan Academy and this is what they say;

With a library of over 4,000 videos on everything from arithmetic to physics, finance, and history and hundreds of skills to practice, we’re on a mission to help you learn what you want, when you want, at your own pace.

There’s TED Education, YouTube Education and I’m sure there are many more that exist and will exist in the future.

There has never ever, never ever, never EVER, EVER, EVER been a better time to learn skills!!

There should be no excuse for learners, teachers, business, and employers everywhere to skill up and get ready for work or develop whilst in work or whilst working on your own.

In the past 3 years, I’ve not paid for any course, have had to reinvent my business skills and I’ve done it all online.

Come on everyone get skilled up, you are responsible for your own education, don’t expect others to do it for you, you have to create your own luck, but you’ll have a better chance of creating it whilst learning new skills and taking responsibility for your own learning.

Wishing you success with your own learning!

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flickr | krugazor
teacher perspective
[the future of 'virtual' empty classrooms']

Are You Collaborating yet?

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Tech companies are investing heavily in ’Social’. You have to ask yourself one major question; Why?

You like most of us are already wired into ’Social’. And Tech companies know that the next big thing for corporates is ’Social Collaboration’. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_collaboration

After TQM, Six Sigma, Lean and many other management process improvement practices, they have all tried to achieve one thing; ’Social Collaboration’ and never really succeeded, because they created too many meetings and actually reduced productivity, the very opposite of why these practices were actually invented.

Now that you and I are wired into Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and many more social networks, corporates are delighted that those networks have managed to train you and me in the art of being virtually social. You and I have become comfortable in using these networks, happy to share personal and professional information publicly, plus sharing what we learn in our day to day lives, including recommendations for goods and services.

So now that we have been trained to do this, the natural extension of this is to bring ’Social’ into the organisation. Some have already started with patchy success, but the smarter executives realise that in order to capture the knowledge contained in employees heads and get true collaboration started, they will have to, without fail, invest in a corporate social network. By the way women understand this instinctively and men have to work at it much harder.

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A Corporate Social Network, doesn’t only connect employees with each other across departments, countries and continents, it will save them billions in travel costs, training programs and on-boarding (induction).

Corporates are a bit slow in the execution of this, because all they have been focussed on was things like, ’if we open Facebook and Twitter to employees, then no work will get done’, instead of saying how can we get those type of networks replicated inside of our business?

So major global tech companies, like Microsoft, IBM, Google etc., have all invested in social network start-ups to add to their portfolio of products allowing corporates to implement these networks seamlessly with existing software.

You might be a small business reading this and thinking, that’s great for larger corporates, but what about me as a start-up, a home office or a group of entrepreneurs, how do we do this?

Well the time has come for small business to collaborate with others. In order to compete with the larger corporates it’s absolutely essential that we embrace ’social’ as well.

You are already ’wired-in’ to LinkedIn, so now it’s time for you to maximise your activity there and start collaborating in order to grow your business footprint.

Ask me how and I will be delighted to collaborate on something with you.

Success!

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Has your 17-year old got ‘Working Knowledge’?

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Working Knowledge is a brilliant Social Enterprise, who invited me to join their ‘Splash’ event in Bromsgrove on the 15th March 2012.

My role?  An Expert!

I have never been an ’Expert’ before, so it was a real treat.

I was an Expert from the business community together with other business experts, who were all there to support 17 / 18 year olds from Northeast Worcestershire College, to become enlightened about business through the vehicle of a one-day experiential event, allowing them to innovate, create and visualise their own entrepreneurial spirit.

I had never done anything like it before and so did not know what to expect.

What was it like?  In one word…OUTSTANDING!

Basically the event is a cross between Dragons Den and the Apprentice and as a local business I played the role of ‘expert’ advising students from the local College on their new business ideas.  Working Knowledge is a Social Enterprise and Nationally Award Winning educational training company founded by Dr James Lott.

The events Working Knowledge run have been shown to have a profound impact on the students and tutors in colleges throughout UK, bridging the gap between education and the workplace.  As a business expert volunteer I played an integral role in the success of the event and thereby raise the aspirations of young people in my region.

Here’s my testimonial MindMap and Video, which was the best way for me to articulate what I thought of the whole day.

And why does Working Knowledge exist?

They believe that for the UK economy to grow and for communities to thrive, young people need to be inspired by, and better prepared for, the world of work. We need young people that are more confident, purposeful and responsible and can therefore provide a sustained flow of talent and energy into the local economy. Their vision cannot be achieved by educators alone, the business community HAS to be involved in the education process.

What a great vision!

There is a website http://www.workingknowledge.org.uk/business-experts/overview/ where you can find out more about the expert role.  If you are interested in becoming involved then please register here http://events.workingknowledge.org.uk/profile/new?type=expert and Working Knowledge will contact you when a suitable event comes up in
your area.

If you have any questions then contact Ollie Collard on 0117 304 8000 or email
ollie.collard@workingknowledge.org.uk

I hope you do take up the opportunity.  It really is one worth doing.

Success!

#wfsota Wyre Forest Question Time – Kidderminster Town Hall – 7th March 2012

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Ready for an ethical planet?

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You may have noticed recently that autocratic and dishonest behaviour is being rewarded by resentment and demands for justice. And everyone on the planet is involved. The human drama continues to unfold in front of our eyes on a daily basis. And what has grabbed the news headlines for over 12 months are the battles, whether physical in terms of fighting or verbal against the regimes, journalists, police, banks, senior individuals in charge and many more institutions and individuals that have been allowed to get away with thinking of just themselves and their own personal interest.

Actually we are selfish race, we don’t really like other fellow human beings unless they are our own off-spring and then even we struggle to get on with them.

We are all aware of the family feuds that happen between siblings and not to speak of the arguments during family gatherings.

So why can’t we be more unselfish and decide to support others? Why can’t we put the importance of our own happiness and satisfaction on hold for a bit and instead think of others?

‘But we do!’ I hear you say, we support charities, we give money to them every time there is an appeal and true the UK are one of the most charitable nations in the world. But we do this out of guilt, because we feel we may not have done enough during the past 12 months, so giving some money to ‘children in need’ or comic relief’ or one of the other ‘telethons’ makes us feel better, like we have given something and that means we have done our ‘bit’.

Genuinely do you feel better or does your conscious actually know that you only did something because you have a condition, which I like to call ‘spontaneous guilt’?

So how do we change our behaviour to become more ethical, more community focussed, more charitable, display more integrity, be less greedy, supporting of our fellow human beings, inspired to volunteer?

I don’t intend to answer this question for you, it’s for you to answer this for yourself.

I challenge you to look into your soul and decide whether you are doing enough for your fellow human.

Oh and I nearly forgot happy Valentine’s day!

Success!

Volunteering

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I have recently become an Ambassador for Kemp Hospice in Kidderminster, a great charity who add ‘quality to life’ for people that may have an illness that reduces their quality of life. They are a great bunch of people running it and an even greater bunch of people volunteering. I spent a few hours getting introduced to their warehouse, where they sort through all their donations and decide what’s suitable for the shops or not.

It’s been a real eye opener, as I have always wondered about the workings behind the scenes in charity shops. And although we have seen Mary Portas doing her magic on a famous charity chain of shops in the UK, it is still a real revelation to see and hear what happens.

One thing is for sure, they need more volunteers, as there is lots of sorting to be done. So I wanted to share a few learnings from my time in the warehouse.

Separate clothes between really good and really bad, assume something that looks worn is in the really bad category. Kemp only wish to sell really good quality clothing and something that either looks badly worn or is soiled goes to rags. Now here is the great news, there is money to be made out of rags and this is a great reason to send all your clothes into charities. But to help them, please sort your clothing into ‘really good’ and ‘really bad’. That way the volunteers do not have to do as much sorting. They still need to check it but it makes the job a lot easier.

Unless shoes are brand new or hardly worn or vintage, send them all to the shoe bank on refuse sites. There is something not so pleasant about wearing second hand shoes is there? I know some people will and need to but the idea is to get the quality of merchandise as good as possible in charity shops. It means that we can rely on getting some great bargains in charity shops and give the rest of the high street a run for their money.

Kemp have some great ideas for their shops in Kidderminster, Bewdley and Stourport-on-Severn, which means a better look and feel for customers.

Then there is eBay and they will soon, with the help of ‘yours truly’, be selling on eBay too. And after investigating this inside eBay I also learnt that when anyone sells on eBay, they can nominate to make a donation from their sale to their chosen charity and eBay will discount your insertion fee by 50%. Now that’s something to consider, as it’s a win win.

I thoroughly enjoyed my few hours sorting through items for sale and making sure that only the best goes to their shops for those customers keen to look for a bargain.

I am sure I will share more in the months to come.