New Directions: Day 2

It's probably about time I got on with this entry!

The first activity of day two was right up my street. The challenge was to build a tower using only paper. The fewer sheets we used, the more profit, the quicker we built it, the more profit and the higher we built it, the more profit. We had some time to prototype our tower and then we had to build it. I was part of the design/building team while some of the other team members calculated how much profit we were going to make. Our tower, although only reaching 2 ft (ish), contained very few sheets and was fast to build. Consequently, we came third. I think the main lesson learn here was that you don't always have to come up with the biggest idea, just a good one. Great things come in small packages and all that!

The main part of the day followed from Monday's brainstorming session. We had to come up with a product that would help people reduce the amount of energy they use. At the end of the day, we would then be pitching our ideas to a panel of judges made up of entrepreneurs. 
It felt a little bit like The Apprentice again, but this time I was determined not to be competitive and we came up with a great idea and we worked really well as a team.

When it was time to pitch, we ended up going last but this did however mean that we could look at other people's pitches and see what we were up against. One thing that I did realise was how much my public speaking had developed since coming to university. We have to present our work on a regular basis so talking to large groups of people no longer fazes me in the way it used to. As well as not being nervous, I know how to make a presentation. This was something I took for granted but I saw that there were some groups that didn't present as well as the other. It was really interesting to see and a bit of a motivator.
Our turn soon came along and although we didn't win, I felt that we performed really well as a group and we did a good presentation. Everyone got involved with speaking and making sure that we told the panel all the information about our product which left time for some more in depth questions which we also managed to answer really well to back up our idea. 

Overall, it was a really good couple of days and as well as giving me the chance to network and chat to other people like me, I think it's also given me the confidence to go ahead and take the next step as a small business: registering. This is something that I will be doing when I get back to Manchester, where I can get support and advice from Innospace and the Business School. It may not be a new direction but this workshop definitely gave me a push in the right one.

New Directions: Day 1

Earlier this week, I took part in an enterprise development program organised by Manchester Metropolitan University. The event lasted two days and give me skills to help me set up and run a business.

9am Monday morning:
The day, naturally, started with registration and coffee. I was given various forms to fill in and sign and a name tag with an image of the Monopoly top hat counter. Having being told to sit at the 'Top Hat' table, I proceeded over there and sat down with those who would be my team mates for the duration of the program. There was a Monopoly theme for the entire event and each table was named after a different playing piece (although I don't remember there being a cat or robot in the game!) 45 minutes of introductions and small talk later and we were raring to go and start the first task.

Task 1:
After a summary of the day and introductions from important people from the university, the first task began. We had been given scrapbooks in which we had to record the day. We were also given an envelope that contained questions that each person had to answer and then these would be written in our books. The questions were just to get to know our team and get talking.

After an inspiring talk about social enterprise from Melanie Bryan OBE, we got stuck into the first real group activity of the day. The brief was to create an event to be held at Heaton Park, just north of Manchester city centre. We had  an item that we could use: ours was donated clothing.

If anything, this task taught me that I should really cut down on the amount of The Apprentice I watch. For a small task like this, I feel I got extremely competitive and was definitely one of the more vocal members of the team (which for me really is something!). I was trying to think (possibly a bit too hard) of all the options and the outcome of what we were planning, which I guess can't be a bad thing. We eventually opted for a craft/vintage fair and a community sports day event and encourage fashion and other students to take part in the event. Part of my input was my knowledge of craft fairs and how they can work to make money - although it felt really bizarre trying to explain the concept to other team members. As one of the creative students on the team, I also got the task of designing the poster to sell our proposal. I only wish that we had more time in order to finish it - it looked very empty when on the wall next to all the other posters.

After a great lunch, it was back into teams for more talks about goals and motivation (with a side of interaction to wake us up after lunch!) and marketing and market research from John Keiller of Common Good. We were asked what drives us and keeps us going when the going gets tough. In all honesty, for this part of the day, I wasn't thinking about Made by Emma, I was thinking about my degree. And I've learnt that what keeps me going is to stop. It sounds counter productive but taking the day off allowed me to get stuck back in with a fresh head. We were asked to think about our 'oomph kit', something that we can turn to when everything's gone down the pan.

After the marketing talk, we were given a task to brainstorm ideas for a product that could help users reduce the amount of energy they used. This task had 'To be continued . . . . ' written all over it.