London Buses

At the weekend, I walked past a gloriously painted London Bus near Trafalgar Sq whilst walking past Edith Cavell’s statue on Charing Cross Rd.

We had fun hunting down the elephants a few years back, so I figured that there are more of them. Doing an internet search, I found that TFL are celebrating the year of the bus. 60 years since the creation of the iconic Routemaster, 75 years since the launch of the RT-Type bus and 100 years since the world’s first mass-produced motor bus.

They have a trail map for you to hunt them all down. Always a little fun when you spot them.

Ghilaine

Edith Cavell

Edith Cavell Memorial, St Martin’s Place, London

“PATRIOTISM IS NOT ENOUGH, I MUST HAVE NO HATRED OR BITTERNESS FOR ANYONE” Edith Cavell.

Important words to live by. I was reminded of them again this week as my daughter visited the statue after learning about this amazing woman at school.

Ghilaine

A marvellous week

Well if you don’t like me banging on about the great people I have met, stop reading now. I hope you are pushing on through and find yourself reading about those other great people out there.

If you haven’t heard, Russ Shaw has created a group called Tech London Advocates, of which I am one. I have taken it on myself to meet or connect with them. With a little trepidation, I have started on my journey. So far, so good.

On Wednesday, I had the pleasure of meeting Monty Munford and I am so glad I had the opportunity. He is a storyteller extraordinaire. The people he knows and events he described, could probably fill many tomes. He also fully embraces networking, he is generous and fun, with no hidden agenda. If ever you get the opportunity to meet this lovely gentleman, take it with both hands, I can’t imagine you will feel disappointed.

At Scale Up Britain, I had the opportunity to ask the panel a question with some extremely helpful answers, you can check out the agenda here. I met Rafael the founder of Room In the Moon who is helping students and young professionals find a home, learn about a city and make friends, before making the move.

From the luck of sitting in the right place, I had the privilege of meeting a lovely lady,  Adele McLay who works with entrepreneurs so they become high performing, world class and financially successful. She also values generosity and trust as an under-rated business growth tool

Later in the week. and after narrowly missing him at #ScaleUpBritain, I had coffee with Ben Fletcher. He is doing his part for helping companies grow, not only by being on the panel at #ScaleUpBritain, but also by founding the Fast Growth Forum. In its 3rd year and growing strong. He has been kind enough to allow me to share a 15% discount code with you. Just use the code TTFST15.

He really wants to share his knowledge to help younger companies avoid mistakes that he has seen or experienced himself and thinks that there is little support for those companies. It will be very interesting to see what comes out of his creative plans.

Watch this space, the next frontier is not start up but scale and growth….

Ghilaine

@LadyGhilaine

Pictures of Soho

On my way to The Union last week, I walked past the Cross Rail works at Tottenham Court Road and noticed that they have managed to put some art on the hoardings, which doesn’t necessarily make everything better, but at least you get a mini art show when you walk round. On a cold rainy day, this picture brightened I up. Freshness and sun in Berwick Market.

Ghilaine

Can you use Physics to help with Productivity?

You would have thought not, but I read a great article that uses the 3 laws of motion and applies them to getting things done.

If you read my previous post on working out what is important, you will know that I am a sucker for a task list. When I am reading through interesting articles/books recommended to me, if they have some productivity hints and tips, I will give them a chance. If you did read my previous post, you notice that I was trying out a new podcast to help me: get it done guy. If you like a podcast to be more advert than content, you may like this. Me, not so much.

Anyway, back to Physics. James Clear gives great examples for each of Newton’s Law of Motion in his article – http://jamesclear.com/physics-productivity. What I love about this is that it is clear how to apply his tips, making them easy to remember every time you are tempted to procrastinate. For me, getting started was the one I will use most often, especially for my writing: not my strong suit! The other is certainly eliminating those things that are getting in the way. I think many people find it hard to say no and take on too much. Going back to my previous post on determining what is important, the key is to identify your priorities. I thoroughly recommend you read it.

I read a completely different post that ‘helps’ you identify ways to become more productive on your daily commute. Some were quite useful, if a little obvious: Carrying tablet or laptop on the train, listening to audiobooks or podcasts. Others were terrifying. It recommended doing conference calls or catching up on voice mails whilst driving. I really believe this is multi-tasking to a fatal end. I have been on the other end of calls when someone is driving. The person in question is not concentrating on either properly, meaning the call will likely have to happen again or worse, the driver won’t be around to make another call.

I am all for squeezing a lot out of a day, but is work ever that important? I like the suggestion of carpooling and planning your time well. These are great suggestions and benefit, not only you, but your colleagues and/or the environment. Planning your time is simple, yet effective. I come from the ‘I love planning’ school of thought, so this comes easily to me. If it is not so easy for you, I would suggest getting a rhythm to your week and keeping to it. I found this article useful – I Followed My Own Productivity Advice For A Week by Drake Baer. It is all very well spouting advice, but do you live by it yourself.

My only advice is to make a habit of anything you are trying to change about your routine. It then makes it second nature and you don’t have to think about it. There are many articles on habit forming, essentially you need to do something for at least 3 weeks to have a chance of it becoming habit. So whatever you want to change, you better want it enough for 3 weeks at least!

Ghilaine
@LadyGhilaine

 

Building Global Relationships

Last week we had our first Global Conversations dinner and it was a real success. One of our members, Sofie Sandell, is an amazing leader who helped us to generate thought provoking solutions and ask crucial questions to help us determine the best ways to build and maintain global relationships.

We had 21 brilliant people with us and we gave them the opportunity to share their thoughts!
I’m not going to say much about it as you can check yourself on our Bambuser Channel https://bambuser.com/channel/GlobalLDN

Hope you enjoy it and on the next opportunity join us!

Analice

@analicemina

How do you work out what is important?

I have a very long to do list, that incorporates my work, family and personal chores. Not so amazingly, the stuff I enjoy doing never gets on that list, it just gets done. What a shocker! 😉

Sometimes, what are seemingly mundane tasks get done in a jiffy when I am in the right mood. Mostly, these aren’t always the important tasks, they are the ones that are short and get ticked off easily.

I am a very task driven person, so it used to be that if it was on the list and needed to be done, it would get done. More recently, not so much and, I have tried to pin point why.

I have read books and articles that highlight what you can do to increase productivity. Everything from Getting Things Done, to assessing your body rhythm in order to focus the activity to the natural state of your body. Quite honestly, none of it has really helped. I know when I am best suited to do certain tasks, but it doesn’t necessarily mean I will do them. I have just downloaded a productivity podcast series by the get it done guy, let’s see if that works!

I have even given up caffeine and, I fear, it may have been a mistake. My previous team may have seen me manically getting through my list with as few casualties as possible. Those days seem to be gone, I would quite like them back!

On the upside, I am trying to work out if I feel a little healthier that I can now leave things for another day and not be stressed about it. I have learned over my career that some things will always be there, like shifting sand, you dig a hole only for it to have disappeared the next day.

Equally, I don’t like feeling like I have left jobs half done. It makes me feel like I didn’t put enough effort in or done the task correctly.

I have decided that there is one way to ensure the task gets to the top of the list and gets done. What comes first? Those tasks that make a direct impact on the important people around you. This focusses on spending time with family or friends (co-workers, contacts), making their lives easier or better.

Does the next task on your list do that? If not, move on to one that does.

This, you may say is not what you are paid to do. Have you ever discovered what happens when you help a co-worker get their task done? If not, you should try! You may find that your task list gets shorter or easier as a result.

And there you have it, a direct impact on family or friend! Job well done!

Ghilaine

@LadyGhilaine

How do you know you are in the right place?

You have turned up and found a group of people that you think are like you. How do you know you have met those of like mind? This is a question I often struggle with.

It can sound more difficult that actually is. People are often suspicious of ulterior motives that they project onto me. What does she want back if she is offering help? Is she slightly crazy? So what do you look for when finding your community.

1. I often think the first step is how they greet you.
Does it feel comfortable. Does it mirror how you greet those you already know and admire. If you have just entered the room, does everyone have a look on their face that mirrors how you feel? For me that is a smile. But for someone like my brother it will be a scrutinising look.

2. If you are not sure, just sit and watch, this is the best way to get a feel for the people around you. 
When it comes to connections, the best way is to go back to the basics and exercise your instinct.  More often than not, the human animal is very good at reading body language and voice intonation. You can get a feel for open or closed conversations.

3. As always it pays to listen.
If you are meeting 1:1, this is an important rule. Finding out about someone is the first way to identify if you have anything in common. To ensure the conversation flows it is important to find the commonality, but if you want to know if these are people you want to see again and again, the commonality needs to be something you want to enjoy not for example, that you both found off milk in the fridge this morning.

4. Finally, be yourself!
If you want to find the group that is right for you, there is no point trying to fit in, you need to be you and identify that they fit with you and you fit with them.

Go on, go outside and see if you can find your community! In January, we hope that we can help you. We will start our new program of Tech Talkfest events, watch out for the subjects that interest you most!

Ghilaine

@LadyGhilaine

“There is no London Food Startup Community” – or is there?

After three years of running a food festival in Scotland, I arrived in London in July and my first curiosity led me to ask, where I could find the food startup community down here. Well, I was a bit surprised, because I spent a good time looking and not much time finding.

There are a few small groups that occasionally flock together because they are jointly part of food startup incubator Kitchenette or foodies in the Escape Tribe, or perhaps in the London Food Startups Collective on Facebook. In general though, there sadly seems to be very little sharing of best practice or helping each other out and supporting, as you would find in other industries, especially in Tech. Instead, every great supplier and mentor remains a well-guarded secret for fear by the ketchup startup that the marshmallow startup might steal the customers. Wow.

This revelation led me to wonder:
Don’t these food startups all want to make it big? Surely
entrepreneurs can achieve more together than by themselves!

I took a few solid weeks to speak to well over 100 food entrepreneurs in London to find out what kind of event would really benefit them and their startups. It turned out they all faced similar challenges that were holding them back from taking their food startup to the next level: Creating a strong brand, design or packaging, scaling up production in line with demand, and social media and digital marketing – and knowing the right people who could connect or help them with experts to tackle these challenges. I knew I was onto something.

Throughout the past weeks and months I’ve tapped into and expanded on my network of industry experts and food & food tech startup founders, food bloggers, food startup enthusiasts and investors. I teamed up with another startup, Monkfeet, and we’ve created the Food StartUp School – a conference-like with line up of speakers and workshops we’re very excited to share with the London food and food tech entrepreneurs and enthusiasts. To name a few, we have CEO’s, Founders and MD’s of Jimmy’s Iced Coffee, The Grocery Accelerator, Packed Branding, Eat First, Just Eat and EatMyWorld. It’s a real mix of food and food tech, which is one-of-a-kind as far as London’s conferences and workshops go.

The Food Startup School is obviously not just about the speakers or workshops. Most importantly, it’s about the networking we’re facilitating and thereby building that food startup community and making it powerful. With two networking pitch sessions and three generous time slots for extensive networking, entrepreneurs will be able to make the most of an event packed with industry experts, investors, bloggers, journalists, many fellow entrepreneurs and those curious in food startups and thinking about starting their own.

Want to be part of the community? Check out the Food StartUp School – coming up on Dec 8th in Shoreditch.

Victoria Albrecht

Food StartUp School LDN

We are all portraits of our Community

I had the chance to go to the Portrait Gallery yesterday to see the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition. As any good piece of art would do, it generated deep thoughts and a huge appreciation for those photographers that, through their work and effort, allow us (the viewers) to be inspired through their experiences.

Every time I saw a portrait that really caught my attention, I would read about it with more egger, sometimes wishing more could be said about that piece… I wanted to know why the photographer chose that person, the level of connection between them and details about the photo shoot.
The exhibition displayed the work of different photographers around the world, what made it even more interesting was to see the different approaches they had in each one of the portraits.

While I was there, it came to my mind that we are talking about community this week at Tech Talkfest, and how important it is to be part of a community and even better, to choose to be part of one.

Each one of us carries parts of our backgrounds, deceptions, victories, etc. If someone were to make a portrait of you, how would it be? What would it look like? What would be the main point of attention? Probably if we had to choose, we would position ourselves on our best angle, wear the best outfit. Maybe some of us would rather like to be snapped on a normal day, just as you are right now.

This is the power of networking, that none of us have control of how people capture us, if they’d be intrigued and feel inspired or if they would find a “sidekick” to us. So the good advice is when you and I meet new people – just chill and be you! Everyday we have the same chances to be inspired by people. Why does it have to be in an art gallery or at a music concert? Why can’t it be around a table in a coffee bar having a chat?

Another thing that came out from yesterday’s visit to the Portrait Gallery was that we all involuntarily portrait our own communities. Nearly every portrait I saw drove my thoughts to one of my friends, some situation I’ve been in or a place I’ve visited. Even the least sociable person finds their connections somewhere and has someone to share their ideas with, (even if it’s with a cuddly penguin as we see on the latest John Lewis Christmas advert!).

We are all sociable people and isn’t it great that at Tech Talkfest we can be surrounded by great people with an immense capacity of doing good to us?

Analice Mina Collyer

@analicemina