The Creator gathered all of Creation and said... What Jim Carrey said.

The Creator gathered all of Creation and said;

“I want to hide something from the humans until they are ready for it. It is the realisation that they create their own reality.”

The eagle said, “Give it to me. I will take it to the moon.”

The Creator said, “No. One day they will go there and find it.”

The salmon said, “I will bury it on the bottom of the ocean.”

The Creator said, “No. They will go there, too.”

The buffalo said, “I will bury it on the Great Plains.”

The Creator said, “They will cut into the skin of the earth and find it even there.”

Grandmother Mole, who lives in the breast of Mother Earth, and who has no physical eyes but sees with spiritual eyes, said “Put it inside of them.”

And the Creator said, “It is done.” 

This creation story is from the Hopi Nation, Arizona, North America

Which nicely ties into this from Jim Carey

Click here for the video. 

Which one did you find the more surprising or revealing...? 

We Need More Mid Sized Businesses (MSB’s) – 10 Ways To Build One

A while back a much wiser man than I, someone I can on some levels call a mentor, told me that the real opportunity for business advisers now, will be someone who can help SME's become MSB's. 

For those of you not in the business support industry that means small and medium businesses to and mid sized businesses.

I think Phil Jones, is right, maybe start up and small businesses are not where we should be looking anymore for our country's growth

Maybe they have had plenty of help and the spotlight already.

Maybe the real growth needs to come from, as John Leech, writer of this article and CEO of Winning Pitch, says from the MSB's. 

"From a UK business base of 4.8M companies, 99% employ less than 49 staff. So the current stock of mid sized businesses is less than 50,000. We must not only look at helping existing mid sized companies we also need to address how we fill the pipeline - the next generation."

As he puts it: 

"The need to help and support medium sized businesses (MSB) is very much at the heart of economic policy making at the moment. The missing component of the great work research institutes, accountants and think tanks have come up with is, just how difficult it is to set up and build one?

Having done it with Winning Pitch (and working with a handful of others to do the same) there are so many lessons I would like to share. 

Here are 10 platforms critical to anyone on a MSB journey:

1. Think big – genuine ambition is vital – be clear on your higher purpose.

2.  Be clear on the business model - a detailed plan to execute and operationalize the strategy to scale is crucial.

3. Understand the different funding routes and instruments to fuel growth.

4. A high quality senior team is vital, combine this with a great culture and you have the magic dust - values become more important the more staff you recruit.

5. Consider the role of NEDs – having someone who has already done it sat round the boardroom table offers many advantages. Something that Phil Jones echoed in his talk at VentureFest about including wise owls in your team.

6. Don't be too precious about hanging on to your equity – smart people want a share of the value they bring.

7. Embed tight operational control and strong performance management – remember it comes down to always having enough cash.

8. Establish a clear brand and communicate this with passion – celebrate with fervor what makes you different and why you are the “go to organisation” for what you do.

9. Strong internal (in the office) and external (in the market place) leadership is vital. 

10. Stay one step ahead of your competitors by living in the customer’s world – deliver innovative propositions with an edge. 

Sustaining growth beyond 50 staff is a massive task - this is why so many entrepreneurs sell out before they burn out. 

Beyond 50 staff, business help and guidance becomes more sophisticated - PE/VC, NEDs, headhunters, governance, IPO's, expensive lawyers and financial engineers, corporate finance... trusted support is pivotal to sustained growth. A community of trusted help is vital to the entrepreneurs who are aiming to do something special with their business."

Wise words Mr Leach wise words. Follow on John Leach on Twitter here.

The last point being the best - as many micro businesses - including my own stayed small due to the lack of training and courage of their boards. Perhaps NowTryThat will be different but I doubt it.

However, by using data to help companies with their digital marketing - Now Try That might just be able to help larger businesses take part in the digital revolution that start ups are already part of.

And just as an aside - congrats John for winning the best Chief Executive at the DIBManc #Mancoolian14 awards! Richly deserved - your high growth business is a lesson to us all.

Should being connected to the internet make us happier?

An exclusive Newsbeat poll of 1,015 British teenagers, put together by Comres, indicates that a quarter feel happier online than they do in real life. Is this worrying or just a sign of the times?

This, and a series of other questions, was the posed to me by Darren Adam from Radio Scotland a couple of minutes ago on a live phone in show.

What amazed me from the phone in show was that people were wondering whether the internet was really worth having!

Now remember this is Scotland, just a little north of us all in England, this is not India, a million miles away. The reason I give this comparison is not to shock, or be naughty, but as it is topical, as Internet.org is right now launching a contest to convince Indian farmers, migrant workers, women, and students why the Internet is valuable. The same could be done, it would seem for parts of Scotland.

Money To Get People Online:

This  Innovation Challenge rather famously back by Facebook will award $250,000 prizes to the best app, website, or service that makes the Internet relevant to each of the four different demographic populations of India stated above.

As Techcrunch reports:

“The contest from Facebook-backed Internet accessibility partnership Internet.org could help millions of people recognize the value of the Internet, pursue access, and gain knowledge and opportunities that can help them get better jobs and improve their lives. That could in turn help Internet.org’s flagship sponsor Facebook gain new users that it can connect to the world.”

Now whether Facebook’s motives are pure (i.e. not just for profit) in wanting to connect such people i.e. the developing nations being Facebook’s main growth area, coupled with mobile growth, you cannot argue that they see the point in being connecting to the internet.

But Should We Be Happier Online?

Personally, I feel online is a double edged sword – which through things like Meetup and social media can bring people together. In fact, from the study - a third of 15 to 18-year-olds in the UK have met someone in person they originally met through social media.

Which has to be a win for social media and mental health but the other side of this is the potential to be addicted to social media and to miss out on the real world outside.  As the survey also indicated:

• 25% of teenagers admitted they were addicted to social media but 62% thought their friends were instead
• 25% wished they could give up social media
• 13% said their online friends knew them better than their real-life friends
• 51% of the respondents said they felt it important to check a notification as soon as it came through.

A lot of these stats are worrying and probably affect a person’s happiness, again something that I know personally.

However all the doom and gloom of the phone in show and the questions surrounding it really missed the point. The internet is a tool, nothing more; it is an amazing tool which gives us so much potentially. However, it is how we use it. More and more reports are coming out how Facebook really can make us happier.

But… Facebook is not the only internet. Do we really need to watch more cat videos? Or do workers in India for that matter.

Have you say…

And in case, all these newsbeat facts has got you down, here are 5 Ways To Add Some Happy To Your Online Social Life

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About Internet.org

This is a Facebook partnership with Samsung, Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia, Opera and Qualcomm named Internet.org, aimed at bringing affordable Internet access to the 5 billion people without it.

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About the Author:

Dan is a Digital Marketing Trainer, Speaker and Consultant specializing in Digital, Social and Mobile technologies to help businesses, especially digitally focused businesses, make more money.Dan aligns his passions for marketing and teaching, by being a keynote speaker / business trainer in events around the country for household names like O2 / Telefonica.Dan has over 17 years in all round marketing, specialising in Guerrilla Marketing Tactics,12 in B2C marketing, 10 in B2B marketing, 7 years in Digital and 5 years in Social and Mobile Marketing.

Hear him tweet about marketing @ukmarketinghelp