On the 22nd November, Enterprise Freelance Fair will be celebrating National Freelancers Day – a whole day early – in Manchester.

We’ll be debating the benefits and advantages of freelancers and celebrating their work. We’ve also got some fantastic offers for delegates and of course, we’ll be running our tailored networking sessions in which we match freelancers and potential clients / businesses.

Click for more information – Manchester Freelance Job Fair

Media Modo is close to agreeing the delivery of a business accelerator for digital and knowledge based startup businesses in the North West of England.

Final location is currently under discussion and the accelerator site is available in beta here – idea alive - business accelerator.

The Idea Alive business accelerator will include important invovations in the concept in that Idea Alive is the first business accelerator that will seek solo entrepreneurs with good ideas – and aims to work with the inventors to build brilliant businesses prior to and during the accelerator programme. We can achieve this by engaging the entrepreneur and executive team tool – eTeamTool.

Lastly, the accelerator programme is part-time – hence, there is no need to give up jobs or freelance incomes in order to attend – and therefore, there is no requirement for very early stage funding.

Media Modo’s ground breaking eTeamTool has been trialed at the Springboard Accelerator programme – based in University of Cambridge’s IdeaSpace incubator.

Neil Lewis said “early stage teams undergo huge amounts of stress and hence the eTeamTool can be used to help those teams resolve their talent issues and provide a structured way forward to grow their talent and business in parallel.”

“The results of the assessment is that all teams shifted their focus into resolving the team issues that were holding them back from achieving their potential. For one company, this meant working better together and seeking the outside perspective of an experienced chairman. For a second company the CEO acknowledge the need for leadership coaching and the third team was able to define the kind of Sales and Marketing Founder/ CEO that they are looking for”.

The Brookson Enterprise Freelance Fair will run again on

16th February 2011 in Manchester

16th March 2011 in Liverpool

31st March 2011  in Cheshire / Daresbury.

More information at the Enterprise Freelance Fair – bringing successful entrepreneurs and talented freelancers together.

Following on from the research that is being finalised at Manchester Business School and the success of the Enterprise Freelance Fairs, Media Modo will shortly be launching a tool to help founders and startup entrepreneurs to commercialise their products and services with greater success and less cost.

This new service will help the founder to bring his or her products and services to market in the most efficient way possible, both in terms of cash required but also (if necessary) the amount of equity that needs to be shared.

The Entrepreneur Team tool will help investors and entrepreneurs…

- understand the unique role that the founding entrepreneur plays in their business by identifying their sweet spot and defining any weaknesses and gaps in the business team

- calculate the cost (in cash or equity terms) of filling those gaps and considering alternative strategic options so that we can identify the sweetspot between sharing equity, raising funding and losing control

- recruit any gaps and/ or create a balanced entrepreneurial management team, that will capture the interest of investors and share just enough equity to deliver the cash funding without taking away the motivation of the founder

For more information, please visit eTeamTool.com.

We’ve recently launched the hugely successful Enterprise Freelance Fairs – sponsored by Brookson accountancy services.

Come and find out why we are achieving 100% approval ratings at

Manchester, UK on 9th November 2010, and
Daresbury/ Cheshire on 19th November 2010.

www.EnterpriseFreelanceFair.co.uk

How good is the iPad? And can anyone make money from it?

We’ve had a couple of months now to use the tool and download loads of applications (or mini programs) whilst using it to surf the internet and access email.

So, how good is it? Will it make money – for anyone – and if so, who?

Let’s start with, is the iPad any good?

Well yes, I give it a B+. That is because it liberates digital books, movies and magazines from a desk and moves them onto a easy to watch portable screen where I can ‘enjoy’ reading / listening / watch digital media again.

But, I only give it a B+, and that it because if fails the beach and bath test and only just makes the bed test.

You see, the difference between a real (ie paper) book and a digital book (on a computer) is that the real book can be taken to the Bs – that is beach, bath, bed, bench, bus and, yes, the bog.

Now, the iPad is sufficiently portable to work on the bus – so great for commuters and travellers. The long battery life also supports this usage. I took mine on a 24 hour boat trip and we had fun with the games and luckily I remembered to download the latest editions of The Times and Financial Times to my iPad so I could read these on route.

The 10 hour battery life was more than enough.

The iPad also works well inside the house or office, so can be read on the sofa and, can just about be read in bed – but if you are likely to fall asleep with your nightly read you might prefer a softback book or newspaper to land on your nose.

The iPad can be used outside, especially if you can avoid very bright days, and I used it to navigate myself around Manchester, UK´s city centre using the excellent google maps (not too much risk of a bright day in Manchester).

However, where the iPad doesn’t work is on the beach. The sun is too bright, the sand too course, and whilst you worry about dropping or having it stolen the real risk is the humidity, or heaven forbid, a wave.

At the end of the day, the iPad is a beautifully designed but sensitive instrument. It is remarkably light, but still much heavier than a paperback and weighs more like a hard back.

So, it scores a B+. It is a remarkable leap forward for digital publishers and hence, it rightly creates lots of excitement.

Who will make the money?

However, the iPad is only as good as the software/ content / media / apps which you load onto it. So, the future of the iPad depends on what we fill our iPads with and whether the publishers can turn a profit.

A failure to turn a profit for publishers – or at least generate significant revenues – will turn the iPad into a desert. In otherwords, if publishers of games, books, movies, music, books or information or digital tools can’t make money, they won’t develop and so the things you can do with your beautiful iPad will be nothing.

Okay, so who will make the money? In the first instance Apple – but the success of this new medium and therefore Apple’s long term profitability will depend on users buying all the digital media they can.

Don’t forget, Apple also takes a huge 30% cut on anything sold through its istores. So, let’s take 3 major brands and see if they will make money with the iPad.

Financial Times

The FT has an excellent iPad application which is free until the end of July. When this becomes a paying product, I will subscribe. I love the ability to both see the latest data (ie like a website) but also download the current edition (to read off line, on  a plane, boat or train). The business news and need to know data of the FT makes this a ‘must have’ for business people like myself. Yes, I will pay for this.

The FT iPad edition currently has a single advertiser which it has inserted into each article – so the advertising doesn’t require me to use a horrid navigation style to reach the articles I want. However, how much can the FT sell this space for? Quite a lot – but to just one advertiser?

Well, the ability to sell space to more advertisers depends on page views – do I reach more on the FT iPad than I used to on the FT website? I can’t measure this for sure – but I think the answer is yes.

The Times

The Times also has a clear iPad strategy and they can also put their online content behind a paywall which means I have to pay to read The Times one way or another. I choose to pay the iPad subscription and I’m glad I did. It is much better than an online subscription.

Each day I download that day’s edition and having read /scrolled it, then I am satisfied that I know all the important stories (as well as being able to see that Arsenal still haven’t signed a new goal keeper).

The Times’ navigation works in  a different way, and it tries to force you to scroll through the pages – like flicking through the pages of a magazine – because this allows The Times to add adverts for IBM and Lloyds Bank in between the articles. I find these adverts annoying and I prefer the navigation structure of the FT – albeit that The Times will be able to measure a large increase in page views – because I am flicking through very quickly.

The other major development is that the opinion elements of The Times has taken a much higher profile place on the iPad edition. Some of these commentators are excellent, such as the ex-editor of The Economist, and these unique pieces of content plus the overall editorial selection of The Times will keep me as a subscriber.

I am, though, less confident about The Times’ advertising model.

Rough Guides

I also downloaded the Rough Guide to Spain through Apple’s iBookstore. My advice to you: don’t!

The Rough Guide to Spain is very disappointing. Instead of a 600 page print book, it turns into 1500 pages on the iPad. I am constantly scrolling to find what I want but it all seems to be about Madrid.

I also used the search facility – to find a small spanish pueblo called ‘Cati’ and I had a series of problems. Firstly, the village was not included (but it did feature in my 10 year old Lonely Planet Guide) and secondly, the search brought up every word that included the term ‘cati’ so any page which included the word ‘communication’ was included. I search through all the results and after 10 minutes found that the book didn’t have what I wanted.

Nor did the book contain a single entry on the region of the Maestrazgo region – where I wanted to visit. This region is akin to Northumberland in the England, so is a significant omission.

All the iPad book did in this instance is demonstrate the lack of content and editorial organisation and that my 10 year old Lonely Planet guide was better. If I’d picked it up in a bookshop I would never have bought it.

So, a refund would be in order, right? Oh no, that is against Apple’s policy. So I’m stuck with a useless book that cost 15 GBP and I can’t even give it to someone else or donate to a library. Useless!

Others

Of course, the iPad offers lots of other media activities, free YouTube videos, Doodle Jump games, Checkers/ Draughts etc… and especially useful are the google maps which are massively improved for the ability to zoom and slide in and out of the maps.

So, games will work well on the iPad, but the repeat revenues will belong to the media groups.

So, the iPad winners are

Okay, so who wins? Clearly Apple do. There are enough quality products and variety that every iPad owner will enjoy the machine and keep recommending friends and colleagues to get one too.

Apple also take 30% on sales – so they don’t care who wins – so long as some companies do.

Okay, now the losers. The book publishers. These businesses face a massive increase in costs to rebuild their content to deliver value on the iPad – this is not going to be economically viable for 99% of books. A few key reference books yes – but I don’t see the Rough Guide brand surviving unless it move very quickly.

Now the survivers. The newspapers. These media products have so much to offer, great stories, unique comment, top quality photography that adding video and live feeds is a natural next step. The FT have already done this and The Times is now including video feeds from Sky.

Also, News International (owners of The Times) are plugging the iPad edition massively in their print papers.

Yes, the traffic to The Times online website has dropped 70% since the paywall went up - but that is okay because it wasn’t generating profits anway. Better to have 30 committed readers that advertisers want to reach than 100 that don’t really know why they are on the website.

However, the FT will do better still. The iPad is a natural business information tool and information publishing companies will be looking to deliver their unique content into the iPad.

Of course, the newspapers which close down their free online content and drive the best of their traffic to iPad subscriptions will do well as they will make money whilst also getting rid of the cost burden of maintaining free services online. However, this route works better for larger media groups that also have the news and sports videos to integrate into their iPad editions.

The losers have to be the books. And magazines will fit somewhere in between. Specialist magazines should thrive whilst smaller national newspapers will be bought up and repurposed.

And local newspapers? It will be tough to take these loss making businesses into a successful digital format whilst beating off competitors for the jobs, cars and property advertisers that have already corrupted their business model.

So yes, the iPad does offer media a great opportunity, but it will also massively reform the media landscape.

Rags to Wreckages, the new digital magazine for successful entrepreneurs, has put together a free 7 Point Plan on How to Grow Your Business in 2010.  The 7 Point Plan, which is delivered in seven short and to-the-point online video clips, focuses on how successful entrepreneurs are moving ahead and starting to grow their businesses again, now that the worst of the recession is over but given that we are left with a very different economic environment. 

Successful and would-be successful entrepreneurs can access several video clips containing the first few points of the 7 Point Plan – ‘Accepting today’s business reality’, ‘Rapid product and service innovation’ and ‘Creating a local pool of freelance talent’ – at www.ragstowreckages.com. To access the remaining four points from the plan, they will need to sign up to the free Rags to Wreckages Successful Entrepreneur newsletter. The newsletter delivers a helpful monthly digest of all the latest news and feature articles on the Rags to Wreckages website.

Subsequent video clips will cover business overheads, marketing innovation, business efficiencies and ‘you’.

Digital magazine Rags to Wreckages… to Riches offers business strategy advice to successful and would-be successful entrepreneurs based on the premise that we can learn more from our mistakes than our successes. It offers short, insightful articles on various topics, from business goal setting, to outsourcing, and the benefits of keeping a business lean.

Neil Lewis, publisher of Rags to Wreckages and partner of its parent company MediaModo, says: “As business leaders, we are living in difficult times – we have less cash and fewer resources, but have the same need to grow. Added to that, we know that government cuts to spending are inevitable and will impact at least some of our customers if not our businesses directly.  Surviving is all about flexibility and speed. At Rags to Wreckages we’ve looked at how successful entrepreneurs are preparing to weather the storm and we share these insights in our 7 point plan.”

– Ends –

Notes for editors

About Neil Lewis and MediaModo

Neil Lewis is a media entrepreneur and business leader based in the North West of England. A partner in MediaModo and the driving force behind new digital magazine Rags to Wreckages to Riches, Neil has over 20 years experience in publishing and investment. His specialist skills include business strategy, online publishing and media plus business investment and start-ups.

Neil is soon to publish his first book 100 Rules for Successful Entrepreneurs and also regularly speaks at university and entrepreneurial networking events where he shares what he has learnt from his experiences. MediaModo offers a contract publishing service to businesses and entrepreneurs. They also recently won a North West Development Agency grant to develop a new entrepreneurial accreditation scheme that will revolutionise the way investors and entrepreneurs work together.

For more information on Rags to Wreckages… to Riches, visit: www.ragstowreckages.com

For more information on MediaModo visit: http://www.mediamodo.co.uk/

Media contacts:

Sarah Leatherbarrow
sl@mediamodo.co.uk
MediaModo
Tel. 01865 861717
Mob. 07900 887987

The Times and Sunday Times are taking their first steps to charging for news.

You can register at http://www.timesplus.co.uk/welcome/index.htm to get a ‘preview’ of what is to come  – and yes, it is all about paying, but it is also about paying for the new generation of digital media.

The point here is that we are about to see a new generation of digital media – perhaps partly inspired by the new devices that can carry it – but far more interactive, graphical and video based, than before.

Interesting development.

Alex Connock, CEO of Ten Alps, will be speaking at the Enterprise & Freelance Fair in Warrington. Alex will be explaining why as the co-founder, with Bob Geldof, of Ten Alps plc, he is passionate about building media businesses with freelance talent and how he has used this competitive advantage to grow Ten Alps PLC into one of the fastest growing UK media companies.

Alex has been several times shortlisted as Entrepreneur of the Year. He is currently Entrepreneur in Residence at INSEAD (Fontainebleau), Governor of Manchester Metropolitan University, board member of Salford University School of Media, Northwest Vision and Media and Creative Manchester. He is a NESTA mentor to startup media companies, working with Roughcut TV, a comedy producer.

“I am delighted to be able to speak at this event as I feel that engaging freelancer talent can considerably improve business performance” explained Connock.

The Enterprise & Freelance Fair is a brand new concept and will provide a series of unique forums for local businesses, agencies and freelancers to meet and build relationships, with the ultimate goal of working with each other. The fair includes two parallel workshops that will offer business attendees the opportunity to learn how freelancers can help them gain the competitive advantage needed in today’s difficult economic climate. Then, at the end of a briefing session, freelancers, companies and agencies will be invited to mix, network and develop ways of collaborating and working together.

To find out more about the Enterprise and Freelance Fair you can visit www.enterprisefreelancefair.co.uk.

Ends.

Notes for editors – About Neil Lewis and MediaModo

Neil Lewis is a media entrepreneur and business leader based in the North West of England. A partner in MediaModo and the driving force behind new digital magazine Rags to Wreckages to Riches, Neil has over 20 years experience in publishing and investment. His specialist skills include business strategy, online publishing and media plus business investment and start-ups.

Neil is soon to publish his first book on 100 Rules for Successful Entrepreneurs and also regularly speaks at university and entrepreneurial networking events where he shares what he has learnt from his experiences. Neil and MediaModo offer a contract publishing service to businesses and entrepreneurs. They recently won a North West Development Agency grant to develop a new entrepreneurial accreditation scheme that will revolutionise the way investors and entrepreneurs work together.

For more information on the Enterprise & Freelance Fair, visit: www.enterprisefreelancefair.co.uk

For more information on MediaModo visit: Please contact us

An innovative business fair is being launched by Chester based Entrepreneur Neil Lewis.  Neil has had an eventful business career to date.  He successfully grew his first business to a point where it was worth approximately £12 million in 2007, but the recession has had a massive impact upon its success and it was closed last year.

“I’ve learnt more on the way down than the way up. The experiences you have on the way down are curiously more interesting.  One of the greatest things I learned showed me that had I employed freelancers our vastly increased flexibility would have enabled us to whether the storm,” explained Neil.

Using his experiences he has recognised that entrepreneurs and businesses, whether intermediaries such as agencies or end users, can benefit from the added talent and flexibility that local freelancers can offer to help grow businesses, but entrepreneurs are often unsure where to find them.  In contrast freelancers rarely get the opportunities to put themselves in front of businesses and often lack the experience to help maximize every opportunity.

The Enterprise & Freelance Fair is a place where businesses and agencies will be able to meet and recruit talented local freelancers, whilst freelancers and agencies can win better contract work and start building relationships with local companies.  The fair includes two parallel workshops giving attendees the opportunities to learn how freelancers can help business gain the competitive advantage needed in today’s difficult economic climate.

At the end of the briefing session freelancers, companies and agencies are invited to mix, network and develop ways to collaborate and work together.

“Traditionally, recruiting freelancers has been slow and difficult, and never with the speed that is necessary to fill gaps and meet immediate needs.  To meet our own requirement, we have begun to build extensive pools of highly talented – and local – freelancers. So, the Enterprise & Freelance Fair came about because we saw the need to develop local pools of freelance talent – and we thought if we need this to grow, then so will other entrepreneurs and business leaders – so why not set up a workshop to help more businesses connect with freelancers” said Neil.

This dynamic, information-rich day has three aims. To…

1. Help freelancers win more and better business
2. Show enterprises how local freelance talent can offer low-risk business growth
3. Link freelancers and businesses together in profitable relationships

The goals:

• Freelancers: will get at least three high-quality leads from potential clients
• Entrepreneurs: will meet at least three freelancers they could hire in the next six months

The first two Enterprise and Freelance Fair’s have been confirmed at Village Hotel, Warrington on 6^th October and St David’s Park Hotel, Nr Chester on 7^th October.  For more information you can visit www.EnterpriseFreelanceFair.co.uk.

Ends

Notes for editors – About Neil Lewis and MediaModo

Neil Lewis is a media entrepreneur and business adviser based in the North West of England. A partner in MediaModo and the driving force behind new digital magazine Rags to Wreckages to Riches, Neil has over 20 years experience in publishing and investment. His specialist skills include business strategy, online publishing and media plus business investment and start-ups.

Neil is soon to publish his first book on classic entrepreneurial mistakes and also regularly speaks at university and entrepreneurial networking events where he shares what he has learnt from his experiences. Neil and MediaModo offer a consultancy service to businesses and entrepreneurs. They recently won a North West Development Agency grant to develop a new entrepreneurial accreditation scheme that will revolutionise the way investors and entrepreneurs work together.

For more information on the Enterprise & Freelance Fair, visit: www.enterprisefreelancefair.co.uk

For more information on MediaModo visit: http://www.mediamodo.co.uk/

Media contacts:

Ceridwen Hughes
MediaModo

Email. ch@mediamodo.co.uk
Mob. 07971 983028

Digital Magazine for Successful Entrepreneurs

18th March 2010

 

New Digital Magazine Rags to Wreckages… to Riches Launches

Shows How Successful Entrepreneurs Use Failure to Create Success 

A new, free digital magazine – Rags to Wreckages… to Riches – has just launched, offering entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs valuable, regular business advice based on the concept of ‘been there, done it’. Entrepreneurs who visit the site www.ragstowreckages.com and subscribe to the accompanying newsletter will find regular news, features and opinion pieces designed to help others learn from the mistakes and experience of the driving force behind the site, entrepreneur and business adviser Neil Lewis.

The new digital magazine offers business strategy advice to current, would-be and successful entrepreneurs based on the premise that we can learn more from our mistakes than our successes. It offers short, insightful articles on various topics, from business goal setting, to outsourcing, and the benefits of keeping a business lean. 

Neil Lewis, publisher of Rags to Wreckages and partner of its parent company MediaModo, says: “It’s only by failing and looking at your mistakes that you learn – successful entrepreneurs aren’t necessarily successful the first time round and they don’t know if they can do it again if they’ve not failed. Successful entrepreneurs learn from failure because failure means that we have an opportunity to refine and improve what we are doing – so that we can come back even stronger next time.”

Neil’s advice comes from experience and he continues: “Before the global economy began to turn, many entrepreneurs took unacceptable risks or made bad decisions that didn’t impact on those enterprises UNTIL the economic tide turned. I count myself in that group too.  I saw the business mistakes of the previous five years make my company untenable, so that from a £2k start-up in 2002 to a £12m valuation in 2007, my first business closed its doors in August 2009 and we, the shareholders, walked away with nothing. It was quite a journey – and probably the best real life MBA you could ever get!” 

– Ends –

Notes for editors

About Neil Lewis and MediaModo

Neil Lewis is a media entrepreneur and business adviser based in the North West of England. A partner in MediaModo and the driving force behind new digital magazine Rags to Wreckages to Riches, Neil has over 20 years experience in publishing and investment. His specialist skills include business strategy, online publishing and media plus business investment and start-ups.

Neil is soon to publish his first book on classic entrepreneurial mistakes and also regularly speaks at university and entrepreneurial networking events where he shares what he has learnt from his experiences. Neil and MediaModo offer a consultancy service to businesses and entrepreneurs. They recently won a North West Development Agency grant to develop a new entrepreneurial accreditation scheme that will revolutionise the way investors and entrepreneurs work together.

For more information on Rags to Wreckages… to Riches, visit: www.ragstowreckages.com

For more information on MediaModo visit: http://www.mediamodo.co.uk/

Media contacts:

Sarah Leatherbarrow
MediaModo
Tel. 01865 861717
Mob. 07900 887987

Media Modo wins contract publishing deal to create, launch and deliver a global digital title focused on the International Financial Adviser sector.