One small leap for business...

As someone who doesn't 'do' heights the prospect of leaping off a balloon 24 miles above the cold and rather solid ground isn't my idea of fun.  In fact sometimes I think the reason I never made the 6 foot tall mark was the sheer determination of my inner self not to be heigh up rather than my genes.

So when Felix Baumgartner stood on the platform and lept I wasn't envious.  Or at least I shouldn't have been....

What Felix did in stunning hd action was something that everyone who has ever started a business has done.  You stood on the platform and lept.

I think that's why I was strangely drawn to that platform.  It brought to life the 'leap', that moment that separates the players from the wannanbees.  The moment that someone considers the risks and decides it's time to take the chance.

Speaking regularly with clients, friends, family and many many enterprising people I'm amazed at just how significant this 'leap' is.  Certainly not in an arrogant way, what I mean is that 'the leap' is what bonds fellow entrepreneurs together, that tacit understanding that means we don't need to speak about 'the leap'...we get on talking about everything else.  Yet for those who haven't taken 'the leap' it often takes on a huge amount more significance.

"You're so brave, I could never take the leap"
"I'd love to work for myself, but I just get scared of the leap" 
"I'm just not ready to take the leap just yet"

Just a couple of the lines that have been said to me in recent conversations.  Don't get me wrong, the little boost of self-esteem that I get whenever I hear these kind of lines is fantastic.  As it should be for all those brave souls that have taken the leap and set up businesses of all shapes and sizes.  The tacit understanding between us 'leapers' means we don't give ourselves the credit for just how significant such a step is.

And that is just the start of the business journey, which can feel like you've stepped off a 24 mile high balloon....Travelling at breakneck speed, not quite sure if you're heading in the right direction, not able to see or hear your instruments, you're visor misting up so you can't even enjoy the view or know when to push your shoot and hopefully the relief of making it to your goal in one piece.

But sometimes, even though the conditions aren't quite perfect, there comes a time you've just got to leap.

Coffee Shops and Full Stops

Coffee shop etiquette.

Just how long is too long? 

I mean the current trend for transposing your whole office to a coffee shop, taking advantage of free wifi and the good old British politeness to drink less cups of coffee than you'd probably manage to get through at the office...whilst taking up a full table of course.

How long can you manage before guilt drives you back to the counter to replace that un-naturally stone cold cup? Would you avoid a coffee shop that didn't have free wifi or restricted the use by time?

I'm going to ponder that question myself...over a brew






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A Memory; 15th April 1989

15th April 1989

I'm not always the best at remembering times, dates and places.  When people talk about 'JFK' moments I sometimes wonder how they possibly remember such detail.  But I do remember the circumstances 23 years ago.  I was at a football match.

10 years old, and 8 months into my first season with a proper season ticket I was with my dad at the game.  Oldham v Sunderland, a game that finished.  It finished 2-2, and I now know carried very little significance for either side, but for the 10 year old me every game was a huge event.

I sat in my seat in the Martins Stand, a stand that no longer exists at Boundary Park, the stand I spent so many hours of my formative football supporting years.  Gazing down on the hallowed plastic turf, it was the sounds and smells of those years that I still hold to this day.  The heady mix of pastry, mixed with 5,000 musty coats, bovril and a cloud of cigarette, cigar and pipe smoke.

Pushing through the tight corridor that ran below the stand, Waggon Wheel (which was huge in those days) and spearmint tab chewing gum in hand I'd turn to my left and head up towards the light at the top of the concrete staircase.  That small staircase seemed to be soundproofed, the buzz of noise hitting me as emerged from the gloom.

I was always aware of the mass of blue metal that surrounded the terraces.  Indeed, I doubt I'm alone in having many fond memories of the cages and barriers at games, especially for those of a similar age.  Many a time the back overhang of the perimeter fence made a fantastic climbing frame in my early days stood on the Chaddy End.  To me, the mass of metal at a football ground was a playground, not a potential death trap.

Even in the relatively small crowds at Oldham I'd stood on the same terrace in previous seasons and felt the surge of the crowd as one of our hero's on the pitch fired a shot fizzing into the net.  Allied to the joy of a goal, the surge of the crowd was an exhilarating experience.

Still I stood that day in the relative comfort of the upper tier of the Martins Stand, looking down on the home terrace, the Chaddy End and on the fans massing together.  I made my way up to my solid, squeaking seat.  Shortly after, the game with Sunderland started.

Less than 10 mins into the game I noticed for the first time my dad speaking with the gents around us.  I heard something, "Liverpool and Forest", I knew it was the FA Cup semi-final that day...had someone scored dad?  An incident on our pitch took my attention.  What was going on?  The click and buzz of transistor radios seemed to be louder than I'd ever heard during a game before.  Normally that was a sound saved for half-time. 

Back to the game, a chance, a tackle I was in the moment.  More strange conversations, phrases like "has a wall collapsed?", "on the pitch", "fans injured" caught my attention again.  What's happened dad?  Nobody really knew, a mass of half conversations becoming rumour and crackly transistor signals couldn't convey a clear story.  My dad wasn't sure what to tell me, too many differing stories.

Something had gone wrong, we both knew that much for sure.

At some point an announcement came over the PA system with some news from the FA Cup Semi-Final match.  There'd been a crowd incident, people were dead and injured.  I could hear the tone of the conversations change around me.

None of us truly knew what had happened, but we immediately knew that 30 miles away, at a football match just like ours, some people wouldn't be walking away from Hillsborough stadium.

96 didn't.

Apprentice Funny Bits Series 8 Episode 3

Matt Edmonson's Funny Bits Apprentice Series 8 Episode 3

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00qrnwd

A Saucy Little Number; Apprentice Series 8 Episode 3

Clichés aplenty time, after all it was condiment making week.  So who cut the mustard?  Who needs to ketchup?  Who needs to pepp-r up their performance?  I’ll move on!

At last Katie revealed herself to the Jedi, taking on her true role as Emperor...sorry I mean project manager.  Leading the remainder of the boys team with all the skill of a silent assassin. (no I still don’t know what that means either).  Whatever it was, it didn’t work out anyway.  Another loss chalked up on her record, though she once again escaped in a pod with sub-team leader Michael taking the firing.

Michael, probably made one mistake in the entire episode and that was positioning himself in Katie eyeline when selecting someone to lead the sub-team.  Should that team have sold more? Yes for sure.  Were they on a bit of a hiding to nothing? Definitely.

Just how product billed as mass market can be that when production ‘errors’ mean there are so few is a puzzler.  Regular readers will know I enjoy a good saying or two, and here’s another one that came true... “Too many cooks spoil the broth” or in this case a rather sour tasting not quite tomato sauce.  Ricky “The Shark” Martin, possibly distracted by the splashing of nearby bather, failed to get to grips with a fairly straightforward production process.  It left Katie no other choice than to increase the trade price to a level as unpalatable as the sauce itself. 

Oh and did I happen to mention the carefully chosen brand name for said sauce, Bellissimo, was also spelt wrongly.  “Bellissimo is spelt wrong”...the first four words out of the mouth of the 1^st trade buyer, not a great start to any pitch.

Not that dynamic Duane and his team did much better.  In fact we almost saw Nick Hewer carrying out CPR on the brave team leader after sampling a rather large mouthful of the first batch of their Pineapple and Chilli Chutney.  To his credit Duane headed to a corner to remove the contents from his gullet, though this did appear less than voluntary.  It was more Duane Dibbly, than The Cat.  If only he was carrying a thermos.

The firing was textbook use of Sith powers from Katie, who at least couldn’t be accused of hiding this week.  Whilst she at least put up a defence that even the Ewoks would’ve admired, Ricky ‘La vida Loca’ Martin revealed his true inner animal...chocolate rabbit.  He melted at the first sign of Lord Sugars’ dragon breath, yet it was Michael who returned to his own self-made kitchen empire. Well you know what they say “ if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen”...as long as that isn’t your own Kitchen business.

Star of the Week: Duane Bryan – By default really this time.  It was a rank bad week for everyone else.

Got Lucky: Ricky “The Shark” Martin. Failed on the production line and that was the one major problem in the whole task.

Heading for a Fall: Jenna Whittingham. You get the feeling she’s one slight slip away from a firing.

For Twitter updates on The Apprentice don't forget to follow me @simonbrooke

The Apprentice Funny Bits Series 8 Episode 2

Matt Edmonson's Funny  Bits from Episode 2 of The Apprentice

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00qgyf9

Splash Down; Apprentice Series 8, Episode 2

You snooze, you lose.  In the tough world of The Apprentice selection sleep is for wimps, losers and obviously purple eyed restaurant owners.

Whether it was a dastardly use of Sith powers by Katie (see last week’s blog) or a badly timed one woman sleep experiment, you got the feeling there was always only going to be one candidates head on the chopping block once ‘Sleepgate’ occurred.  After all, 1^st reply to everything in the boardroom to Maria O'Connor...”well at least I wasn’t asleep”.  Game, set, matchsticks!

It was another loss for the girls in a task they collectively failed to impress on.  From the original idea generation where they pretty much ignored the brief to create a gadget and instead created some kind of plastic waterproof force-field, to the disastrous pitches and a frankly terrible boardroom defence.  There was a lack of any quality in the team, and it wouldn’t have been surprising to have lost more than one of the girls team.  The particularly broad Lancastrian tones of Jenna were as pleasant on the ear as the sound of an angry parent scraping waterproof crayon off the rest of a bath not covered by Splish Splash screen.  (and that’s coming from a proud and broad Lancastrian!)

Fundamentally their product solved a problem that wasn’t even there; in fact they may just have created two more.  Their genius idea was to create a shield to corral children into a corner of the bath whilst distracting them with waterproof crayons.  I’m not sure if the London riots were happening at the time of filming, but that solution may be something worth considering by the Met should anything happen again. 

Of course, the inability of the girls’ team to make an early decision left them with a poor choice of rooms for solving a problem in.  The boys quick choice of kitchen certainly left them the better options, and thanks to Duane the created an ideal kitchen gadget.  Ideal in the sense that it’s one of those “must have for a month” kind of gadgets.  You know the kind, the ones that we all see in the Betterware catalogue, decide you cannot do without and then within 2 months it’s gathering dust at the back of a cupboard (hopefully with crushed cabbage already removed). 

The boys brought home the victory mainly due to the complete disarray of the girls, whose project manager Jane must win the prize for most ambitiously flawed pitch to a buyer ever.  1 million units...only if he’d been drinking that many before the meeting.

The boys also won despite the poor project management of Azhar Siddique.  In another week of animal references Azhar ‘committed’ killer whale went head to head with Ricky ‘The Shark’ Martin.  It was a battle that the producers of Frozen Planet will no doubt be looking to add to the schedules.  That would be if it wasn’t for the fact that neither the shark nor the killer whale resembled anything like their predatory cousins. In fact for those of you that saw the awe-inspiring BBC documentary, both Azhar and Ricky are more akin to the poor seal trapped on the ice flow by the team of Killer Whales.  It really is a matter of ‘if not when’ a wave of reality will smash them off their fragile ice home.

In such tasks the product is key, and getting great ideas initially is the only chance you have of getting a good product. 

Star of the Week: Duane Bryan – He’s the first really star of this year’s series. Saved a dying pitch with a passionate sell of his idea.

Got Lucky: Jenna Whittingham. The Preston girl completely messed up the figures, and only ‘sleepgate’ really saved her.

Heading for a Fall: Katie Wright. Her Sith powers could be fading, named again in the boardroom fight-out.

For Twitter updates on The Apprentice don't forget to follow me @simonbrooke