nearly the end of the week - tdf time!

So it’s nearly the end of the week, and I’m looking forward to the start of the Tour de France, starting this Saturday, and ending as always on the Champs-Élysées in Paris, July 23rd. The tdf is truly one of those great sporting spectacles, full of drama and passion. Somewhat marred by the plethora of accusations and counter-defences about drugs and doping.

The cycling news is full of names, new and old, from false accusations like Lance Armstrong (7 times winner of the tdf), David Millar (admitted charges and back after 2 years) to Manolo Saiz, the cycling team director at the centre of a doping storm in Spain, who has decided to quit. And the latest, just this morning, that Ullrich (this years possible tour winner) is now out. Yet it’s an old story, with new twists. Being of an age where I can remember the shock of finding out that Ben Johnson (US athlete) cheated to win the 100m olympics; I’m always disappointed about those who try and lie and cheat their way out – drug-taking may be one thing, lying about it is another thing entirely. So we’ve seen the crocodile tears of team and individuals, yet I can’t help feeling for Tyler Hamilton, a renowned cyclist, who answers his accusers direct on his website (see links).

I have absolutely no idea about the science of the accusations, the fact is that all his appeals have fallen on deaf ears, and he won’t be competing at this years tdf. The trouble with Tyler is that I, for all my human frailties, really believe him. He just plain walks talks and sounds honest and truthful. I’ve never met the guy and like people on the TV you see in the street – ooh don’t they look different, much taller, shorter etc – I have no real idea. But I do have an instinct, that he’s just downright honest, and for those of us who watched him cycle on during the tdf with a shattered collar bone (and ive had one - let me tell you I couldn’t walk much less cycle up mountains like he did), I’m in awe. I would really like to hear black and white argument that the cheats are, and the rest aren’t, and accusations are just that until proven. With poor old Tyler he’s being trashed in public. I just believe in Tyler and think there’s been a mistake. Trouble is we don’t really know. But a common dose of humanity suggests we try and believe in our sporting heroes, and for that reason I will still be around watching the TV and enjoying the TDF for the next 3 weeks. And Tyler and Jan (Ullrich), I’m real sorry you are not there.

Networking Event

I attended the first networking event of the UK’s most popular online business support community (UK Business Forums), held just outside the dynamic new city of Milton Keynes. Organised and hosted by Richard Osborne, it gave this “virtual” community a chance to meet up for the first time and to generally “network”. The day before the event we received the list of attendees, an interesting mix, from accountants to web designers, from business support organisations, consultants, charities, toy and joke shops to an eclectic range of professional services including supercar hire, and what I think must reflect the international nature of online communities, someone from “Bulgaria Next Big Thing”.

On attending (well signposted organisers!) we had corridor interaction, messing around with badges and trying to find people to talk to. Then ushered into the dining area we sat down at tables and Richard did a brief introduction. Surprisingly there were far more people from outside of the online community, so I’m not sure what that says about the UKBF community, maybe just that being online, distances don’t matter, whereas for actual meetings it does. A nice touch was that we were asked to move around the tables during the meal changeovers, which did provide us the opportunity to really network – as it was not co-ordinated we sometimes ended up with people we had just met with, but generally that worked well. Even better at each table there was a facilitator to move things along, this was a good approach, although some facilitators clearly had more experience and were more adept at this activity than others.

We had a good guide to “networking for novices” by Michael Markham, from Stanair, I found it really entertaining and useful. Michael made it interactive and gave some time for the “elevator pitch” from selected participants, and he did it all without running overheads or powerpoints. The man just stood, and talked (well, he moved around quite a lot as well), great show, thanks Michael. He provided time for us to rush around collecting as many business cards as possible (the winner got one of the elevator pitches) and lots of brilliant tips on how to network. A really thought provoking one for me was to ask “how can I know if someone I’m talking to would be a good prospect for you?” . Learn to ask that, learn how to answer that, and I think your networking performance will increase wonderfully. For that alone it was worth attending. And as we left people were buzzing and swapping business cards and chatting so all in all a good event, thanks Richard and Michael. And thanks to the UKBF, more @ http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/f

carbon copy all

Its interesting to view the response from the recent networking event i took part in last friday. It was aimed at a bunch of us interactive types so youd think we'd be quite good at following up - after all it was about NETWORKING.

First, no-one hurriedly got on their PDA and tipped us an email (well maybe they did but didnt include me) late friday. Some enterprising sorts actually did some stuff over the weekend, well done them, but then I wasnt around to get it til Monday, when my inbox was pretty full anyway!


No, most managed to get thro' the weekend and start thinking about it Monday - as did I.
I sent the same missive with a few variations one by one. Thats polite isnt it? Replies varied from a mass email response (great to meet you whoever you where) to a "proper" reply. Nice one you know who you are!

By Tuesday things got desperate with the late-comers either mass mailing us - who wants to see loads of email addresses in the "To" list. Besides which, I dont want people seeing my email mass mailed around. At least learn bcc guys! Worse still by this time we were getting the corporate war & peace (this from small business people) with endless attached pdf's (yeh right im gonna download and read that, thanks) and assorted messages with attached jpg's png's and doc and pdf's - any more three letter acronyms available people? Now its eased off, still waiting for a mega unique tailored offer email. But then maybe I should look at my own. Off i go.

Getting Started

Given that even the BBC are doing blogs, albeit it about the world cup, it must be time for this particular marketing animal to develop his own blog sphere, so here it is.

Oh No, writer's block! More Later.