11 minute read
Inform
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Navigating the early days of your startup’s journey and commercialising your idea requires substantial amounts of time and commitment. Overnight you need to develop and deploy a broad set of hard and soft skills, not least relationship building, confidence and perseverance. Understanding business and finance will also stand you in good stead when working with incubators, accelerators, tax advisors, lawyers, banks, investors and other finance providers. Our “That Light Bulb Moment” series will guide you through the key stages of setting up and scaling your business. It will signpost headline commercial and practical considerations, explain and analyse fundamental start-up topics, help you to avoid common start-up pitfalls and enable you to identify and react to threats and opportunities efficiently. Our first article in the series focuses on the steps you need to take to launch your start-up business and, importantly, lists the questions you need to ask now which will help you to get investors on board in the future. Go to www.greenwoodsgrm.co.uk and search for ‘light bulb’ to read more and to get in touch with our start-up expert, Ollie Flowers. Ollie Flowers - Start-up & Early-stage Business Lead
As the anniversary of the first national lockdown approaches – what have employers learned from the professional pressures of the pandemic? Almost 12 months ago, working from home was unfamiliar to many, and furlough was a term most had not heard of. However, despite the challenges, many businesses have embraced a new way of working which has led to more flexibility on their part – says Peterborough-based Anne Corder Recruitment. This has resulted in flexible working being the big winner of the pandemic; giving greater scope and opportunity for increased productivity to employers. Anne Corder explains: “The approaching anniversary of the first national lockdown in itself gives little cause for celebration. “However, there are a number of positives that have certainly been gained. Businesses that believed they would only be effective with workplace-based positions have learned that remotely based teams can, and do, function well. As well as seeing an increase in productivity, some organisations have also reported a fall in absence due to sickness. “While pre-pandemic, a vast number of employers were reluctant to allow their staff to work remotely, and / or for long periods of time, they now understand the huge benefits of casting the recruitment net further afield to find the very best person for the job.” Latest figures from the Office for National Statistics reveal that as of October 2020, almost a quarter of the UK workforce were working exclusively from home. This, says Anne, means that location is no long as important a criteria. “Flexible and remote working solutions can be seen as added value to an employer brand or proposition. There are rich streams of as yet untapped talent that have been restricted by ‘traditional’ working boundaries. “Pre-pandemic, commuting into the office was sometimes seen as a stumbling block for employer and employee; with the uncertainly of public transport, adverse weather conditions and general travelling distance playing a part in the decisionmaking process. “This no longer matters for roles that can be accommodated remotely. Candidates themselves are now in the driving seat; and we expect to see more of this as the job market re-opens. At interview stage, one of the key questions is around employers’ attitudes to working from home. Location is no longer an obstacle – staff have proved they can reliably get the job done away from the office environment.” Anne added: “Recruitment teams and their partners can now increase their reach, using a vast UK talent pool, to support their clients’ new recruitment approach. Job boards need to recognise and adjust their geographic fields to allow recruiters (internal and consultancy) to get the role content in front of the right candidates.”
HOW TO HIT THE HEADLINES WITH THE PERFECT PRESS RELEASE
Much of the news we deliver and digest can start life as a press release – but how can you ensure that yours attracts meaningful coverage and doesn’t end up in the recycling folder? With social media changing the way many people receive their news, getting your story across in the right way has never been more important in the crowded online world. With the popular #throwbackthursday cropping up on our weekly feeds, it is certainly acceptable to be a little ‘old school’ when it comes to delivering both traditional and digital PR – with newspapers and magazines still playing an important role in community life. Former newspaper journalist and PR manager at Media Matters, PR and digital marketing specialists in Peterborough, Cetti Long said: “Having worked in newsrooms for many years before joining the PR side, it was interesting to draw comparisons on good and bad press releases. “One of the main criteria to getting your business story used is to avoid blatant sales tactics – journalists will see straight through them. Referencing your business more subtly is the better approach.” Cetti has some tips to perfecting and pitching a story you are passionate about: • Powerful and emotive, funny and ridiculous, shocking or sad: whatever the headline, make sure it grabs you or the reader in some way. Make it catchy and to the point. • Think about your audience. What’s the story – how would you tell it to a friend? How are you going to get your message across? • Don’t overwrite! Keep it short and put the most important
information at the top. Journalists won’t hesitate to cut your copy to make it fit their space. Add in background information further down the release. • Include a quote wherever you can – it helps to bring the story alive – whether it is from the company boss launching a new brand, a grateful charity you have donated to or a satisfied customer. • Attach a photo where possible, together with a caption, even if this is just a head and shoulders image of the person quoted or something linked to your brand.
Newsrooms cry out for imagery. • Where appropriate, add a call to action; eg telephone number or website link. Getting a link back to your website is a great result; better still, a direct call! • In the notes to editors include your own contact details.
Journalists may require additional information or will want to arrange an interview
with your client - help them make that connection. • Check your copy for any errors. • Research your media contacts to ensure it reaches the right person. Sending a property story to a sports correspondent is a waste of time. If in doubt, opt for the newsdesk. • Pitch in your idea. Contact the journalist directly with a short synopsis of your story and all the relevant attachments – it is your chance to ‘get in front of them’. • The hard work has been done – sit back and wait for the coverage! Set up a free Google alert with relevant search terms, check your media feed online, buy a local newspaper or enlist the services of a media monitoring agency.
Business photo created by kaboompics - www.freepik.com
Chamber membership provides access to key information, expert advice and legal protection, enabling you to stay informed, legally compliant and free to focus on what you do best – building your business.
HOME LEARNING AND THE FUTURE OF DIGITAL EDUCATION
While home-working has been quietly on the rise for several years, the pandemicdriven shift to home-learning for students of all ages has been sudden and dramatic. Overnight, desks and classrooms became tablets and kitchen tables, creating new barriers and challenges nobody could have ever imagined or planned for. This has been incredibly tough for everyone – students, parents and teachers alike – with the stresses on all sides being shared widely in the news and on social media. A key reason for this is because the tools being used for home-schooling today weren’t ever meant to be used by the entire school roll all at the same time – nor as a replacement for in-person learning. As a result, teachers are spending their valuable time juggling IT troubleshooting and battling against buffering, revealing a gaping divide between the haves and have nots when it comes to quality connectivity and ownership of school work-friendly devices. Learning at home using new and engaging digital tools should be an opportunity everyone can enjoy. Indeed, teacher groups have suggested that a blended approach combining at-home and classroom-based learning could be here to stay. But is it fair that some areas have better connectivity and online experiences than others? If we’ve learned anything over the past year, it’s that broadband is as important as water and electricity to our everyday lives, and that we need to level up access if all our learners are to benefit from the next-generation of educational tools. This is why CityFibre is building a city-wide full fibre network that will bring almost every property in Peterborough within reach of the fastest, most reliable and highest capacity connectivity available. By doing so, local students accessing full fibre services can be assured of a seamless online learning experience.
Future of education
Besides connectivity, a second reason why many students have had a mixed experience of home-based learning is that they haven’t yet had the opportunity to try out more of the digital tools that are now emerging, and find one that suits them. We all learn differently, and in the classroom it is much easier for the teacher to adapt to different students’ needs. But, from home, a one-size-fits-all approach can exclude a lot of people. The good news is that digital technology has become a platform for the development of new approaches to learning that make it possible to personalise it to the students’ needs, capabilities and learning styles. This is why ‘EdTech’ has really taken off in the UK, with innovators seeing the pandemic as an opportunity to accelerate this unprecedented shift in the way we learn for good. Recent reports measure its growth at 72 per cent during 2020 in the UK alone, citing augmented reality and digital classrooms as being the key areas of development. Of course, the success of innovations like these depend wholly on the infrastructure that supports them. Like charge points for electric cars and connected navigation systems for autonomous taxis, digital connectivity is a crucial enabler of these
technological leaps in remote education and training.
Immersive Learning
Going back to personalised learning, the best and easiest way to achieve this is by creating immersive learning experiences. Can you imagine being able to put on a headset and experiencing the sights and sounds of the Colosseum at the touch of a button, rather than just reading about Rome in a textbook? With technologies like Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR), this is all a real possibility – at all levels of education. VR simulators, for example, are already being used to train the armed forces and even surgeons. Importantly, AR and VR aren’t bound by the laws of physics, making it possible for learners to experience unfamiliar or even dangerous environments from a safe distance. Already, there are programmes that allow users to dive beneath the sea to study the wreckage of the Titanic or walk on the surface of Mars – so the only limits to ways they can enhance education is the imagination of developers and educators. In addition, because most VR experiences can be enjoyed independently, students can go at their own pace, skipping parts that they’re already proficient at while spending more time on areas where they want to improve. Already, researchers have found significant benefits to these methods. Studies show that VR and AR technology can boost overall performance by as much as 40 per cent by enabling learning through doing, which is known to double children’s ability to retain information.
A strong connection
Ultimately, if remote learning methods and new technologies like digital classrooms, VR and AR are to become accessible to all and more widely used, it’s essential that all homes are supported by digital infrastructure that won’t let learners down. Just as Peterborough needs roads that can handle every day commuter traffic, homelearning requires digital infrastructure that can support today’s always-on digital lives. Unfortunately, this is simply not the case with much of our existing communications infrastructure, which was built to carry telephone signals, not data. Currently, less than 20 per cent of UK premises have access to full fibre, with the majority still restricted by ageing infrastructure which is no longer fit-for-purpose. This is why CityFibre is giving Peterborough a boost by building a new full fibre network that’s not only up to the job today, but futureproofed for the needs of tomorrow. Designed specifically for the digital age, full fibre networks use 100 per cent full fibre technology to carry data at light speed all the way from the home to the point of connection – think of a pristine open highway with no bumps in sight. This gives users consistently faster speeds - for upload and download, near limitless bandwidth (i.e. everyone in your house can work, study, stream or game simultaneously), and connectivity you can depend on. With full fibre, you’ll never need to worry about you or your child missing a lesson at home ever again! With much of the city already able to connect to the new full fibre network, and more homes coming on line throughout the year, CityFibre is making a real difference to the lives of many residents in Peterborough. To check availability, and keep an eye on which ISP services are live in your street, visit: https://www.cityfibre.com/ residential/
