GBLOG BCEct Final Report infokit by JISC infoNet

Final Report Reference:

good practice & innovation

University of Glamorgan G Blog: The Listening Blog ‘Getting to know you better’ “Adnabod Chwi Yn Gwell” 12 October 2010 Author(s):

Pam Voisey, Project Leader

Grace Long, Moderator

Main Contact:

Pam Voisey

Department:

CICA, GTi Business Incubation Facility

Revision History

Date

Version

Description

Changed by

July 2010

Draft

October 2010

Final Report

Final Report Reference:

Project Title:

G-‐Blog: The Listening Blog

good practice & innovation

Contents CONTENTS ......................................................................................................................................2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...................................................................................................................3 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ....................................................................................................................3 BACKGROUND ................................................................................................................................4 METHODOLOGY..............................................................................................................................5 IMPLEMENTATION..........................................................................................................................6 OUTPUTS ........................................................................................................................................8 OUTCOMES...................................................................................................................................11 LESSONS LEARNED ........................................................................................................................ 13 CONCLUSIONS .............................................................................................................................. 13 IMPLICATIONS .............................................................................................................................. 13 RECOMMENDATIONS ................................................................................................................... 13 REFERENCES..................................................................................................................................14 APPENDIXES .................................................................................................................................15 APPENDIX A .........................................................................................................................................15

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Acknowledgements The ‘G-‐Blog: The Listening Blog -‐ Getting to know you better’ trial project was funded by JISC under the ‘Facilitating Collaboration’1 stream of the BCE programme2 as part of the ‘Trialling Collaborative Online Tools for BCE’ project3. JISC infoNet4 led the delivery of outputs with support from other JISC Advance Services5. The trial project team would like to thank the following for their hard work and contribution to this trial project as well as the wider BCE agenda: Dr. Lynne Gornall and Alun Cox, University of Glamorgan, who developed the original idea, and ‘pitched’ the project idea Grace Long, Moderator G-‐Blog Tim Long, TiGra Networks (participant SME) for demonstrations of blogging JISC BCECT Project team -‐ thank you for wonderful, well organised events, full of information and support. Each event strengthened the relationships being built with the other trial projects. Dr Jacqueline Dempster, Director, Belanda Consulting for a memorable session on evaluation

Executive Summary The University of Glamorgan applied for funding from JISC under the Business and Community Engagement, Collaborative Tools Programme, to create a mechanism which encouraged informal access to the University for micro businesses and SMEs; and informal, easily achieved access to entrepreneurs for academics. The pilot project, G-‐Blog: the Listening Blog -‐ Getting to know you better’ sought to trial a blog as a mechanism to provide this access. The original partners in the project were the University of Glamorgan’s business incubation facility, GTi and the local authority sponsored RCT (Rhondda Cynon Taf) Business Club. The Learning and Corporate Support Services (LCSS) department of the University provided a Senior Multimedia Developer to assist with the development of the platform and a design. One of the businesses located in the incubator, Grace Long of Live Assistant Business Solutions, was engaged as moderator. The blog was launched at a meeting of the RCT Business Club on 22nd July 2009, and was well received. Subsequently, the interest of the local authority diminished and there was little contact, in all likelihood due to the pressure of other work for RCT officers, for whom the Business Club was just one of their many responsibilities. A number of events were subsequently held to promote and remind businesses and University colleagues of G-‐Blog and its purpose (Appendix). The idea of a blog to promote informal access between small businesses and academics/sources of expertise within the University was always received with enthusiasm. The G-‐Blog moderator, and 1

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/bce/stream2.aspx http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/bce.aspx 3 http://collaborativetools4bce.jiscinvolve.org/ 4 http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk 5 http://www.jiscadvance.ac.uk 2

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the project leader, promoted, encouraged, reminded and demonstrated a number of strategies to increase the number of blogs posted. In practice, however, it was disappointing to see so little actual take-‐up of the facility by both sets of potential ‘bloggers’. The conclusion was that the competition from other blogs/social media sites militated against G-‐Blog reaching critical mass in terms of interesting posts; and that working patterns, high workloads and general uncertainty pervading the Higher Education sector, were enough to discourage academics’ involvement in practice, even though there was interest and enthusiasm in principle. The experience gained by developing and using G-‐Blog has been positive and useful. Having G-‐Blog is currently most valuable as a central repository for ‘all things GTi’, as the incubator is moving to a different location, and all the updates about the move are posted on G-‐Blog. The personal learning journey for the Project Leader has been positive, and the support and events offered by the JISC project team have been really beneficial. The future of G-‐Blog is assured for a further year, until September 2011 at least. It will continue to encourage closer ties with University academics and local businesses, but will build more on the platform of becoming a resource for the GTi business incubator. There have been changes in personnel among the academics and there will be a need to start again in recruiting colleagues to become involved. Use of G-‐Blog by the GTi-‐linked incubating businesses will now become part of the contract of membership, with the creation of a new central Business Directory. The conclusion overall, is that G-‐Blog is taking longer to establish as an integral part of the University’s provision of support to local businesses. However, with changing circumstances and a widening remit, G-‐Blog will deliver its original objectives.

Background The University of Glamorgan applied for funding from JISC under the Business and Community Engagement, Collaborative Tools Programme, to create a mechanism which encouraged informal access to the University for micro businesses and SMEs. The University has a business incubation facility for new businesses -‐ ‘GTi’-‐ and links with the local authority’s RCT Business Club (Rhondda Cynon Taf). The pilot project sought to trail a blog as a mechanism to provide this access. The University’s Learning and Corporate Services (LCSS) department had close links with the GTi project and were interested in participating in the JISC BCECT pilot. It was arranged for Barry Richard, Senior Multimedia Developer, to be assigned to creating and designing the blog, working alongside the Project Leader, Pam Voisey. G-‐Blog took on the slightly changed name, ’The Listening Zone’, to reflect the purpose of encouraging two-‐way listening between academics and entrepreneurs. The logo was designed by Barry Richard, LCSS, and his recommendation was that (Open Source) WordPress was used; the blog was hosted by MediaTemple, of which he had good user experience. The IT Team customised the theme. [WordPress is an open source blogging tool which offers a rich set of features, an intuitive administration interface which anyone can handle with just a few clicks]. The stakeholders are: (i) The University of Glamorgan including the GTi Business Incubator and the IT Development Team: the University of Glamorgan continues to support the aims and objectives of the Business Incubator and its ‘graduated’ and currently registered businesses. The development of additional methods of supporting their business growth and development is important and the G-‐Blog Project is seen as 4 of 20

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benefitting both the incubating businesses and research-‐active colleagues, primarily in the Business School. The IT Development team had been engaged in projects aimed at enhancing the student experience and the G-‐Blog project was an interesting project for them to take on. (ii) Rhondda Cynon Taf Business Club: The local authority, Rhondda Cynon Taf CBC, has a clear agenda for business support in this geographically large local authority area. The development of the RCT Business Club as a strategic platform for regeneration and economic development has been an on-‐going process for some time. Their original involvement in the project was enthusiastic and had the agreement of the Head of Development and Regeneration. (iii) Participant SMEs: There is a historic and current link with businesses that have been part of the GTi Business Incubator over the last 10 years and the University of Glamorgan. The businesses themselves are part of wider SME networks, overlapping with the local authority run Business Club, incorporating the wider SME community locally. It was from this group that the participating businesses were expected to be drawn. To create a forum and channel for businesses to talk to and contact the University Enterprise service, operating in association with a series of ‘Getting to Know You Better’ [‘Antibody Chi Yn Well’] information and networking events run with our regional Business Club partner RCT Business Club.

Aims & Objectives The purpose of the JISC project, as originally purposed by Dr. Lynne Gornall and Alun Cox of the University of Glamorgan’s Commercial Services Office, was to create and trial an online forum for dedicated SME links between companies, the University and the Business Club. To create a ‘listening zone’ for feedback, ideas and partner-‐making – and as a marketplace for business referrals and contacts. The forum – the G-‐Blog or Listening Zone – would be monitored and used by named contacts at the Business Club and University. It would run alongside events whose objective would be to build information, collaboration and dissemination channels to feed into the G-‐Blog community -‐ and from that forum to public and private sector partners more widely. The conversations about the project, with businesses and academic colleagues, centred on providing an easy and informal method of ‘talking’ to the University, accessing information about Centres of Excellence, insights into particular markets, and up-‐skilling. For academics the interest was in making contact with micro-‐businesses, new entrepreneurs and SMEs, which could be used for research into small business issues, a key area of research in the Glamorgan Business School’s Centre for Enterprise G-‐Blog would have the capacity to provide this two-‐way ‘listening zone’.

Methodology In consultation with Barry Richard, Senior Multimedia Developer, LCSS/University of Glamorgan, it was decided that an Open Source solution would be suitable. Discussions about where G-‐Blog would be hosted covered buying a dedicated server, asking for space on the University’s server, or paying a small fee for external hosting, which fitted well with the ‘semi-‐detached’ nature of the business incubation facility. The team decided to undertake a small emailed survey, asking about blogging habits. The decision was made to use WordPress, hosted by MediaTemple based in the US, which mean that if there was downtime, the time difference would work in our favour, unless everyone was blogging 5 of 20

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at night! A logo specifically for the blog was designed, incorporating a listening ear. Not everyone saw the ear! Businesses/entrepreneurs would be invited to use the blog, and become contributors with a username and password, issued by Grace Long, Moderator. G-‐Blog could be accessed and read by anyone, but to contribute or post, a username and password would be needed. On the home page, G-‐Blog has sections where information is posted by both the project team and the businesses. (Appendix B)

Implementation http://g-‐blog.glam.ac.uk g-‐blog@glam.ac.uk G-‐Blog was officially launched with the full co-‐operation with RCT Business Club, at the QED Centre, Trefforest on 22nd July 2009. The breakfast meeting was well attended and Pam Voisey was able to present and promote the aims and objectives of the blog to the mix of local SMEs and GTi incubating businesses attending. We were pleased with the response, but in reality it did not translate into action by the individuals concerned. This was to prove typical. The relationship with RCT Business Club did not re-‐establish to the same degree that it had been pre changes in key personnel in the local authority. The Business Club went very quiet for a number of months and seems to be not as active as it once was. Those who expressed an interest were followed up and issued a username and password so that they could not only access and read the blog but become contributors. The project team used every opportunity to encourage businesses to use G-‐Blog, in network meetings, by emails, in person and by leaflet at all events attended, such as the 3 day New Start Wales Exhibition at the Cardiff International Arena in November 2009. (Appendix C) Enterprise Club events were used to introduce G-‐Blog to entrepreneurial students, mostly postgraduates, and academics from the Glamorgan Business School. Contact was made with the University’s Centres of Excellence: CEREA [Engineering research], CEPE [Electronic Product Engineering], AIDC [Data capture, bar-‐coding, radio tracking] -‐ all departments which have a track record of working with small and incubating businesses. Amendments and improvements were made to the look and organisation of G-‐Blog to make it more user friendly, as a result of feedback, and finding new categories of information to include, such as the GTi Business Directory. This process is on-‐going and further changes are being made at the time of this writing, to make the GTi Business Directory of more commercial, marketing benefit to the businesses.

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A G-‐Blog event on 22nd February 2010 brought academics and colleagues from the University of Glamorgan to meet with ‘G-‐Blog active’ businesses. The aim of this event was to explore the benefits of G-‐Blogging by facilitating face to face meetings with the both University staff and businesses -‐ and to encourage more blogging, as the number of posts was small and contributed by dedicated and enthusiastic supporters. Tim Long of TiGra networks demonstrated a number of ways of posting the same material onto a number of blogs using Windows LiveWriter, as well as monitoring the incoming posts on RSS feed. This too was well received but did not materially affect the number of posts. However, it was observed that the meeting was a great success and contacts were made, but that they continued off-‐line rather than via G-‐Blog. Recently, it has been decided that the GTi business incubation facility will relocate to another building. G-‐Blog has proved a very valuable resource as a central repository for all information relating to the operation of GTi, and is demonstrating that businesses have been reading but not posting. Grace Long, founder of Live Assistant Business Solutions, was appointed moderator of G-‐Blog in March 2009. Her experience with technology and social media networking helped in building, encouraging and disseminating information amongst the participating businesses and academics. The G-‐Blog moderator, Grace Long, offers the following comments: “Encouraging Posts To encourage and promote participation in the blog, the following was implemented: • Usernames and passwords were issued to participants from both the business and academic sectors. • Help was offered to participants who may be technologically challenged about blogging. • “How to” articles were published on the blog to ensure participants are encouraged to post an article on the blog. (i.e. How to Write a Short Blog Post http://g-‐blog.glam.ac.uk/wp-‐ admin/post.php?action=edit&post=101; • Easier and Faster Blogging Tools http://g-‐blog.glam.ac.uk/wp-‐ admin/post.php?action=edit&post=95) • Events are also posted on the blog that are relevant to a business. • Technical, political and specific participant’s interests were also posted on the blog to highlight not only business awareness but also the participant’s human side. • Emails, phone calls and face-‐to-‐face discussions were made to assure participants that assistance is available any time they required it. Overall, the participants were excited by the establishment of the blog. However, the participation we anticipated didn’t materialise as the participants were apparently too “busy” to actually find the time to post their articles, except for a few who were religiously posting their articles to the blog. Of the 19 registered users only 6 users were posting and 3 of these users are administrators of the blog. Moderating Posts Participants in the G-‐Blog project were fully apprised of the rules about posting information and throughout the project there were no problems at all with content or usage, e.g. posting damaging or slanderous information. Everyone observed proper language and decorum required in a business published environment. My role as a silent moderator is to stay in the background blocking offensive material from participants, warning users, defusing confrontation and reacting to abusive or illegal behaviour. However, all materials posted were all very appropriate to each poster’s interests, non-‐ threatening and followed codes of conduct expected of a business person. 7 of 20

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Liaising with Project Leader The project leader was very open to suggestions and recommendations to ensure that the blog was lively with various articles. She is very easy to speak with and we wanted to do all possible to get this blog flying. We held regular meeting and updates by email and face to face.” ___________________________________ WordPress has proved an excellent platform for G-‐Blog, without any technical difficulties. MediaTemple has similarly been consistent, and we have not had any problems that have impacted upon users.

Outputs G-‐Blog has not reached critical mass in the time we thought it would. To date the following activity has been recorded: Statistics 80 Posts 8 Pages 17 Categories

Categories of Posts o

Business Directory for GTI Facility (3)

Customers & Customer Service (10)

Events (20)

G-Blog News (26) 

121 Tags 8 Comments 8 Approved 0 Pending

Blogging Tips (4)

Good Stuff (20)

Light Relief (6)

Regulation (5)

Sales & Marketing (9)

Syndicated (14)

0 Spam



Facebook (7)



LinkedIn (7)



Twitter (5)

Technology (17)

THE MOVE TO TY MENTER (6)

Uncategorized (12)

These are the businesses that registered and included their details in the Participating Companies section:

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•

Bandog Media Ltd. Bandog Media Ltd is an established creative media company, providing solutions for clients throughout Wales and the UK offering a broad range of photographic, new media and film services in-‐house.

•

Blue Stag Studio Blue Stag Studio specialise in web design, software development, graphic design and marketing services

•

GMA Consultants GMA Consultants and its team of highly experienced HR associates provide you with a complete Human Resources Solution across a variety of sectors, irrespective of the size of your business.

•

School of Life School Of Life, an organization dedicated to communicating helpful life principles in humorous ways, was founded by Chris Matthewman. Chris is a comedian, writer and expert at all things to do with love, life and the PSHE curriculum.

•

sCynergy Consulting sCynergy Consulting is a small management consultancy partnership focused on organisational change and personal, team and leadership development & training.

•

Team Metalogic Team Metalogic offer three main services to small and medium enterprises provided in an always professional and personalised manner – New Media / Web Development, IT Consultancy & Support and also communications services.

•

TiGra Networks TiGra Networks specialise in providing computer and IT services to small and medium businesses from one computer up to multi-‐server networks with dozens of users. We are certified by Microsoft and pride ourselves on our depth and breadth of IT knowledge.

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•

Timto Ltd. In October 2009, Timto Ltd will launch a revolutionary online children’s birthday present service, whereby friends and family can contribute to a child’s timto birthday fund and use this fund to source a meaningful gift or donate to a favourite charity.

Despite interest from over 15 businesses at the launch event in 2009, only the companies above posted their business details. Additional businesses were enthusiastic about becoming involved but this too failed to materialise. Academics/colleagues at the University singularly failed to contribute to the blog. The reasons given, after repeated persuasion and cajoling, and events with buffets (food is essential for attendance in our experience), were: the restraints of time, teaching commitments, teaching assignments overseas, threat of redundancy, actual redundancy, and academic research (writing up a PhD). There is also the issue of blogging fatigue as there are so many competing for time and attention -‐ Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn (with its many dedicated interest groups), Ecademy, to name the most talked about in this context.

Sustainability G-‐Blog is seen as a viable project still and will be supported and developed as part of the University’s continuing commitment to working with local businesses. Building relationships with local growing businesses is an important part of the University’s business development strategy to promote the 10 of 20

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opportunities for Knowledge Transfer Partnerships, student and graduate enterprise, consultancy, training and postgraduate recruitment. The GTi business incubation facility is part of the new combined International and Commercial department, CICA, and acts as a signpost to other business support available in South East Wales. G-‐ Blog will be an integral part of this function and as new members are registered for incubation, it will increasingly be the vehicle for access to GTi services, and by extension the University’s. Using Open Source software, and hosting with Media Temple for approximately $200 per annum, means that even in these economically aware times, the ongoing cost is minimal and seen as value for money.

Outcomes From the perspective of the Project leader Pam Voisey was appointed Project Leader. Pam is the Manager of the GTi Business Incubation facility and is responsible for the management of the facility, mentoring and coaching new business start-‐ ups and all related activities, including liaising with publicly funded business support agencies and University of Glamorgan Centres of Excellence/academics. The original idea to partner with RCT Business Club met with approval from all involved. It provided an introduction to larger SMEs, as well as the micro-‐businesses in the incubation facility. The local authority had been a supporter of the incubator since 1999, and we looked forward to a close collaboration on the G-‐Blog pilot. The reality was that as soon as we received the approval for the project every person in the local authority who had been involved with the incubation facility and the planning/agreement for G-‐Blog was reassigned to different departments and we had to start all over again with new personnel. Even though we had initial co-‐operation and a pleasing launch event at one of their meetings, the relationship did not develop and we were not able to access the Business Club members in a meaningful way. The clear message from the Business Club was that if we were allowed to promote G-‐Blog, then all the businesses involved in the Business Club would demand to promote their businesses too! “G-‐Blog -‐ The Listening Zone” was so named because we felt that this was about academics listening to businesses as well as entrepreneurs seeking advice from ’experts’. We spoke to academics and emailed them, ad invited them to G-‐Blog meetings. The enthusiasm they showed for the concept was genuine and well intentioned, but as time and events overtook many, there has been very little actual participation on the blog, although some have attended events and found it useful. The view of the Project Leader is that there is general agreement that G-‐Blog is a great idea and colleagues/entrepreneurs want to be involved. However, the circumstances of the past few months have been difficult (redundancies and re-‐organisation in the Business School) and this blog hasn’t been sufficiently important in the grand scheme of things to gain the critical mass it might have. We are competing for attention in a crowded ‘social’ marketplace and G-‐Blog needs additional time and input to make it the vibrant blog it could be. At one of the JISC cluster events, we were invited to draw a representation of the Project journey -‐ this is the G-‐Blog journey picture! The narrative is, from left to right: we had a bright idea, costed it and obtained funding, designed and branded G-‐Blog had the launch party where the idea was met with interest and enthusiasm, and then we all fell into a black hole -‐ from which little real activity or blogging emerged!

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It is important to note here that there are other positive outcomes from this project. G-‐Blog now exists and will continue to grow albeit slowly, promoting the original idea of contact with the University for a range of information, contacts, support and marketing opportunities. The community of practice (of entrepreneurs) that GTi has become will benefit from this central resource, and the low cost of maintaining the blog underpins its sustainability in the current difficult financial circumstances. We have secured the support of Dr. Paul Thomas, of BBC1’s ‘Ban the Boss’ fame. On his return to the UK he has agreed to become a regular contributor to G-‐Blog, and his reputation and innovative approach to management will generate interest from a new audience. This is due entirely to the proactive action of Grace Long in inviting him to be the guest speaker at the GTi network meeting. Of great benefit too, have been the JISC cluster and update meetings. We were able to make new relationships with colleagues from other institutions; we learned a lot and had fun too. I was particularly pleased to learn about the Flip camera and used it to make a short video to include in the G-‐Blog presentation at the JISC Showcase event in York. The whole project has been a learning curve in many ways. Blogging, using a small video camera, understanding more about RSS feeds, LiveWriter and other blogging tools, has been interesting and stimulating, and had a marked effect on my use and understanding of social media and networking, which is an integral part of the modern marketing mix -‐ something about which I need to be up to date for my role as business mentor/advisor. The G-‐Blog Moderator, Grace Long, has also benefitted from attending JISC and G-‐Blog events, namely: • • • •

• • •

JISC Project Start-‐up Meeting held on 18-‐19 March: Trialling of Online Collaborative Tools for BCE held at Aston University. JISC G-‐Blog Project Stakeholder Coordination Meeting held on 15th May 2009 at the University of Glamorgan CSO Boardroom G-‐Blog Launch Event with the RCT Business Club held on 22nd July 2009 at the QED Centre. A Meet the Entrepreneur::Meet the Academic::G-‐Blog Find your perfect partner. GTi based Workshop held on 22nd February 2010 – an event to enable business participants and academic participants to meet face-‐to-‐face to encourage participation on the blog A Cluster Meeting regarding Evaluation methods held at Birmingham on 22nd April 2010. JISC Meeting in Newcastle, 2010 JISC Showcase event, York, September 2010

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Lessons Learned The principle lesson learned from our experience with G-‐Blog is that there is only so much blogging that can be fitted in, and G-‐Blog did not become significant quickly enough to retain and generate sufficient interest to create posts which would have perpetuated involvement. A shop with no stock can only keep even the most loyal of customers for so long, until there is little point to going there. There has been an increase in the number of people reading the posts as there is now more mission critical (related to the GTi business incubator move) information available. This gives renewed enthusiasm to promote G-‐Blog and continue to build on this small achievement. It was a surprise on the one hand to find a high level of enthusiasm from academic colleagues, which then translated into no action at all. The expectation was that there would be moderate interest and a slowly growing set of relationships. Some of this has happened, but offline, and as a result of the face to face meetings. The low level of contact with the local authority demonstrates how important are the individual relationships built up within organisations. The project would have had more impetus with the original set of people, because they had bought into the idea from the beginning, and were enthused. It was unrealistic and unfair to expect another person in the local authority to have the same level of commitment when tackling new responsibilities, particularly taking on the challenge of RCT Business Club. All credit to Lorna Reed of RCT for the help she provided with the launch, especially as there was no one else in the organisation (RCT) who understood or had any interest in G-‐Blog.

Conclusions The JISC BCECT programme has provided the project team with an opportunity to build a resource they have needed for some time. The secondary function [a central resource for information relating to the core mission of incubation, and the operational management of GTi] has for the time being become the primary function. As time progresses it will be possible to recruit academic colleagues from the University to participate fully in the blog. This process has already started. Then the balance may change, and G-‐Blog fulfil its original function as a meeting platform and information exchange for SMEs, micro-‐businesses and the University that stands for knowledge and innovation in the local business community.

Implications Promoting G-‐Blog as an idea is relatively easy, and there’s no great resistance to overcome. However, it is clear that there is much competition for time and attention in the limited time that can be devoted to social media, blogging, networking online. G-‐Blog will have to build its brand on the quality of the interaction with academics with something new and useful/controversial/usable. Time is an issue for the project team, as much as it is for new businesses and academics, and G-‐Blog needs to be an integral part of the GTi business proposition to gain critical mass quickly. It remains to be seen whether making participation mandatory -‐ even for finding basic instructions about GTi operations -‐ will be effective in squeezing time from the businesses’ use of other social media.

Recommendations The opinion is that using a blog as an easy way for people not in the same networks to come together for mutual benefit is still an excellent platform to build upon. The very low cost of the technology -‐ WordPress and Media Temple worked very well. 13 of 20

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It should be noted that sufficient guarantees of involvement were impossible to obtain, and given the stressful times that many colleagues are dealing with, it was difficult to make sure that they really did post on the site.

References The material supplied on Communities of Practice was particularly useful. JISC resources have been much appreciated.

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Appendixes Appendix A Simple Survey of Blogging habits among the target group. The questionnaire was emailed to GTi businesses and local SMEs via the RCT business Club. Questionnaire This survey is to help us understand how small businesses can link to Higher Education institutions for access to information, support, and expertise to support business development, growth and survival, particularly small businesses. We have a number of ideas about how we could do this, but first of all we would like your input as you may be invited to take part in a trial of the service. 1 of 14 Do you currently use any blogs? 1) Yes, I read blogs 2) Yes, I read and post comments on blogs 3) No, I don't use blogs 4) No, I don't know what blogs are 2 of 14 Do you have your own blog? Yes No 3 of 14 Do you read blogs or post comments on blogs for any of the following reasons? 1) Promoting your business/networking 2) Getting information related to running your business e.g. problem solving 3) Personal interests 4 of 14 Do you have your own blog? 1) Yes, personal 2) Yes, business 3) No 5 of 14 Do you use any of the following social networking sites? LinkedIn Ecademy

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Facebook MySpace Meetup Friends Reunited Other No, I do not use social networking sites 6 of 14 If you use other social networking sites apart from those named above please name them 7 of 14 If you use social networking sites, do you use them for any of the following? 1) Promoting your business/networking 2) Getting information related to running your business e.g. problem solving 3) Personal interests 8 of 14 Do you see your local university(ies) as a source of advice and expertise which could help you to: resolve business issues; develop new products and services; or, improve your management skills? Yes No 9 of 14 Would you like easy access to university expertise, knowledge, events or business related services? Yes No 10 of 14 The University of Glamorgan is trialling a new method of allowing easy and user friendly access to knowledge and expertise within the university. Small businesses will also be able to use the service to communicate with each other and the university to promote their services. If you are interested in taking part in this trial, please enter your email address below and we will contact you. 11 of 14 To help us please could you provide the following information. Type of business: Business services Construction/engineering Finance

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Social care Professional services (legal/accounting) Manufacturing Other 12 of 14 Size of business: Sole trader 2-‐5 6-‐10 11-‐20 21+ 13 of 14 What is your age group? Below 30 31-‐45 46-‐60 60+ 14 of 14 If you have any comments related to this subject please enter them below.

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Appendix B -‐ Front page section links -‐ information for G-‐Blog users About Us o

About

Who we are

Joining G-‐Blog

How to use G-‐Blog

Useful Websites (University of Glamorgan)

Useful Websites (General)

Participating Companies

Business Directory for GTI Facility (3)

Customers & Customer Service (10)

Events (20)

G-‐Blog News (26)