Souter Consulting Limited

SCL supports The Difference Engine

Justin Souter — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 12:32:00 +0000

Introduction

A post about the role Souter Consulting Limited has played to help The Difference Engine recently.

Demo Day

You might have seen the case study of how Souter Consulting helped launched The Difference Engine at the turn of 2009. In that context, it was fantastic to be part of the team (led by Caroline Theobald of The Bridge Club) at the business end, helping the Jon & the teams pitch to London-based investors this Monday past.

The Demo Days were split between Tyneside and London – the Tyneside version taking place on the Tuesday before Thinking Digital. I was lucky enough to see them as part of Thinking Digital University, and (come to think of it) in a fairly raw state at Superventures.

Video

You might want to check out The Difference Engine TV

The Story of the Difference Engine: Spring 2010 from The Difference Engine on Vimeo.

SCL’s role

In this instance, I attended the demo day & sat at the back of the auditorium at Microsoft’s London office in Victoria Street, giving the Twitterati blow-by-blow updates and helping generate buzz around The Difference Engine programme itself.

Twitterstream

The widget below hopefully shows the interchange of tweets during the session, and how things progressed. Otherwise, check out What the Hashtag directly.

We could have done this as a live-blog, but I think it worked quite well just using Twitter. Something for the future!

I’m presenting at Nicola Cook’s “Business Building Bootcamp”

Justin Souter — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 14:43:52 +0000

Introduction

You may be aware that Nicola and I form a tremendous double-act, and deliver social media strategy workshops. Nicola has asked me to present to her upcoming business building bootcamp (more details below). Draft title is “Learning how to integrate Digital & Social Media into your lead generation strategy”.

Flyer information

“Do you need to improve your sales? Are you frustrated that your business results do not reflect your potential?

If so, then please take 2minutes to click on the link below and find out more about our upcoming Business Building Bootcamp.

Jam packed with the latest sales & marketing strategy, including Digitial Media Strategy, Pipeline Development, Persuasive Presentations, including lots lots more. You and a colleague could benefit from 2 days intensive training combined with 2 tailored consultancy sessions and all for less than the price of a summer holiday!

Register Now!

To find out more either click on the Register Now link to view our dedicated webpage or call us on +44 (0) 191 478 8377

Finally, thank you for taking the time to review this information and I look forward to welcoming you to our Bootcamp in a few weeks time.

Sincerely,

Nicola Cook

Aurora Consulting”

Course outline

More details in this PDF:

Business Building Bootcamp

Follow this link to register & hope to see you there!

I’ve got a couple of weeks to put the presentation, but Colin Kendall is 7 Presentations is helping out, so hoping to minimise the text, and maximise the accessibility of the talk! :-)

Preso: The importance of cloud computing and related market opportunity

Justin Souter — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 16:31:20 +0000

Introduction

Last week I attended an internal workshop with Onyx Group, to help them discuss the next steps for their cloud offering.

My slot was wedged between a fascinating talk about online backup from Alexander and Saaher from Securstore, and Steve Caughey of Arjuna Technologies Ltd (fyi this useful video re Arjuna’s Agility product).

My job was to give the 30k foot view of the wider trends and business context which make cloud computing a computing trend to watch.

Gartner take

The following quote and hype cycle graphic are taken from Gartner’s press release

Cloud Computing. As enterprises seek to consume their IT services in the most cost-effective way, interest is growing in drawing a broad range of services (for example, computational power, storage and business applications) from the “cloud,” rather than from on-premises equipment. The levels of hype around cloud computing in the IT industry are deafening, with every vendor expounding its cloud strategy and variations, such as private cloud computing and hybrid approaches, compounding the hype.

I think the ‘overall’ Hype Cycle usually comes out in August, so it’ll be interesting to see this years… :-)

Slides

Having suggested I publish my slides online, one of the audience wondered whether they would be in the Cloud: good point (the slides on Slideshare)! We’re [well certainly I am] beginning to take being able to publish things online cost-effectively for granted…

Onyx cloud & business opportunities deck v0.6

View more presentations from justingsouter.

My take

As you can see from my slides, I largely agree with Nick Carr in The Big Switch: Rewiring the World from Edison to Google that the Cloud is going to have, as yet unknown effects on the IT industry – mostly to the good. And now is a good time to be doing something about it!

Appendix: Hype Cycle re social software

Gartner Hype Cycle report also contains some interesting statements re software which services social media needs:

The following have tipped just past the Peak of Inflated Expectations:

Social Software Suites. Awareness of social technology is high because of the popularity of related consumer social software and Web 2.0 services. Within businesses, there is strong and rapidly growing evidence of experimentation and early production deployments. The movement from point tools to integrated suites has brought broader adoption but also high expectations. Disillusionment is beginning based on the realization that, even with a suite, much work must be done to build an effective social software deployment. [JGS emphasis]

Microblogging. Microblogging, in general, and Twitter, in particular, have exploded in popularity during 2009 to the extent that the inevitable disillusionment around “channel pollution” is beginning. As microblogging becomes a standard feature in enterprise social software platforms, it is earning its place alongside other channels (for example, e-mail, blogging and wikis), enabling new kinds of fast, witty, easy-to-assimilate exchanges.

Technology to support innovation

Justin Souter — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 07:46:00 +0000

Intro

A post about my interest in tools to support idea gathering and the innovation process. Part of a growing series [ok, so I'll make it part of a series when I do the next post ;-)].

Definition

As ever, Wikipedia provides a decent definition:

Innovation is a change in the thought process for doing something or “new stuff that is made useful”. It may refer to an incremental emergent or radical and revolutionary changes in thinking, products, processes, or organizations.

Following Schumpeter (1934), contributors to the scholarly literature on innovation typically distinguish between invention, an idea made manifest, and innovation, ideas applied successfully in practice.

In many fields, such as the arts, economics and government policy, something new must be substantially different to be innovative. In economics the change must increase value, customer value, or producer value.

The goal of innovation is positive change, to make someone or something better. Innovation leading to increased productivity is the fundamental source of increasing wealth in an economy.

Run up – aka my interest in this area

One of the courses in my second year on the Executive MBA at Cass Business School was corporate strategy. The course introduced me to Knowledge Management, which chimed with a latent interest in ideas.

When I joined Fujitsu Services in 99 (then ICL), it was the height on the dot.com boom, and business incubators were all the rage. I volunteered to work with the guy is FS heading it up, but the bubble burst before anything meaningful happened. :’(

I worked in the Knowledge Management practice for 5 years, and IMHO innovation is the other side of the coin to KM.

I also took part in the internal ‘Innovation Pays’ suggestion scheme, and even managed to get my bit of Fujitsu to agree to adopt the scheme, but unfortunately it got crowded out by other business priorities. The only tools in use were an intranet page, e-mail and a spreadsheet.

I like to think I have ideas of my own, so I guess there is a yearning for the possibilities that new ideas can offer.

Wikinomics

I thought I should tip my hat to this book by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams. Keep concepts it introduced to me:

That Coase’s Law might be breaking down – i.e. the idea that organisations form because they are the most efficient way to share information
Crowdsourcing – using the wisdom of crowds to solve problems etc.
Open innovation – instead of hoarding ideas and patents, share them with others to grow the pie and make money out of ideas you can’t do anything with (more to do with intellectual property)
Ideagoras – getting the crowd to share and build ideas together
Prosumers – work with your customers to create new products

Concept

This emerging space make me think of the impact that CRM had with managing the sales process. I imagine it used to be done mostly on spreadsheets etc., until software came along that helped bring the whole function of sales under control (although the Wikipedia article suggests it’s not always implemented successfully!).

My feeling is that is has been a domain which has been underserved with tools, and hopefully this situation is being addressed. My understanding of innovation management software tools is that they help with:

Idea management – capture ideas
Innovation mgmt – take you through a process to winnow the ideas and bring the ripe ones to fruition
Power of the collective – bring different skills into play

Tools

A growing list that I’ll update as I find others:

Blurb from Spigit’s wikipedia entry

A bit of a cheat, but a useful summary of what they’re up to & which hopefully gives you a feel of how such a tool can be used:

Spigit is a company based in Pleasanton, California that provides a SaaS platform for enterprise innovation management. The company provides three core services:

(i) Internal employee innovation management through collaboration and crowdsourced feedback;

(ii) External customer, partner and citizen ideas management; and

(iii) Prediction markets for internal and external crowdsourced forecasting.

The company’s stated goal is to make organizations better at innovation and business decisions through community, analytics and workflow.

So you get the general idea!

Wash up

I’m putting this post out there, to get the balling rolling. I plan a future post on case studies and consultancies in this area.

Quick write up of ‘Data Reveals Stories’

Justin Souter — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 14:39:46 +0000

Introduction

Yesterday I attended ‘Data Reveals Stories’: Hoult Session # 2 with mySociety – with the blurb describing it as:

Northern Film & Media host mySociety for our second Hoult Session: a one-day seminar in Newcastle on June 16 about how Britain’s new wealth of open data can be harnessed to reveal hidden stories, tell new ones, inspire practical services and provide a new point of research for film and television.

One of the key reasons for attending is that I had blogged this about how Government data could / should be made available, and mySociety is a key player in helping make that happen (and also some pretty creative things with that data).

The following post is about my impressions, but isn’t a record of the day – I’m doing it more because Ewan asked me to type up the flipchart notes I had taken ;-).

Impressions

An early quote from Tom Steinberg was that the mission of mySociety is:

How to use the internet most efficiently to improve lives

It was an interesting session, about how the stories around data have been driven by the access to data enabled by the Internet.

It as also mainly a session about how to use public sector data – in that the Public Sector are either duty-bound and / or able to make available their data. In the private sector, data is often a source of revenue or competitive advantage, so is only available through third parties (like NGOs), as Francis Irving explained.

Tools

Ewan McIntosh has helpfully tagged some notable websites mentioned in his delicious links, but also getting a namecheck were:

After lunch Tom talked about the following clusters:

Google

Using site search syntax like “site:bbc.co.uk”
Also “filetype:xls salmonella site:scotland.co.uk” – to seach for all Excel spreadsheets containing references to salmonella on the Scottish Government’s website

Compiling it yourself

Crack open a new Excel spreadsheet & start typing!
Also, Google Docs, Freebase.com, and Surveymonkey

Screen-scraping

Apparently ScraperWiki is a great resource for this

Crowdsourcing

Scenic or not – a website to harness the wisdom of crowds to rate various parts of the UK in terms of how ‘scenic’ it is :-)

Something that struck me is how many of mySociety’s tools are based on games, making it fun for people to participate and contribute.

Afternoon session – my flipchart notes

I took part in the ‘Tools’ break-out session, and (as above) I said to Ewan McIntosh that I’d type the notes:

Flipchart 1 – tools

There were questions around Data:

Where one could find the datasets that underlie all of the above
Are there search or query tools to drill into the data sources
Are there websites which signpost these datasets
There was mention of Up My Street
There was also a question mark about how to find out about data sets in particular domains

Flipchart 2 – tools #2

Discussion around RSS wondered about how a feed could be re-published and stakeholders could then comment on what they thought about items in this feed.
There were also questions around Geocoding or tagging content with metadata
More questions around where to find crime information / data
We’d be finding out information about retrieval, but there was a question about how to publish data sets and / or where to find a repository for raw data

Flipchart 3 – ‘Data set compendium’

Following on from the thoughts captured in the previous charts, the group brought together a mini-requirement of what would be helpful (i.e. this repository for raw data) – which I called the ‘Data set compendium’, for want of a better name! ;$
One of the group was interested in “What problems are we trying to solve”
The group was looking for a ‘meta-database’ of public data sources
Ideally it would have ratings & reviews of each data source, with the ability to identify the source of the data, and allow users to annotate / describe the source
Another useful field would capture who was using the dataset, and what for?
If the system could allow datasets to be clustered in terms of similar topics, and inter-relationships between datasets established / shown, that was seen as desirable
Francis said that something along these lines was available at Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network:

CKAN is the Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network, a registry of open knowledge packages and projects (and a few closed ones).
CKAN makes it easy to find, share and reuse open content and data, especially in ways that are machine automatable.

Flipchart 4 – Detailed tools

There was a question about where to find actuarial data [perhaps via the ONS, said Francis]
Tools for ‘manipulation’ and / or visualisation
List from Francis:
- He recommended the programming language, Python
- Apparently Many Eyes has an embed feature
- Freebase is useful for cleaning up data
- Excel, Google Docs & MS Access all good
- Yahoo Pipes
- RSS feed into Google maps – e.g. the RSS from Fix my Street & this example I’ve just made for Chester-le-Street w00t!
- EduBase – “The up to date database of educational establishments across England and Wales.”

Flipchart 5 – Upload

Tools / sites for helping process data:

Elance “provides a simple and cost effective way to hire and manage your team online.”
Crowdspring
Mechanical Turk
Journalisted – “Journalisted is an independent, not-for-profit website built to make it easier for you, the public, to find out more about journalists and what they write about.”
Dr Foster – “Dr Foster is the UK’s leading provider of comparative information on health and social care services.”
Crime maps – I googled this and found CrimeMapper

Wash up

Um, that’s about your lot, or else this post will never go live…! ;-)

Photos

Technology Strategy Board – potential sources of funding

Justin Souter — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 08:27:17 +0000

Introduction

Last week I attended a presentation by the Technology Strategy Board about two competitions they are running. It was the morning before Thinking Digital, and included an enjoyable presentation by Ewan McIntosh (more details at Partnering for Innovation: NoTosh helping launch £18m digital fund).

I thought it would be useful to reproduce the related material here, for those of you out there looking for start-up funding etc.

Blurb from Sian Brereton

The following is a copy-and-paste of an e-mail from Sian Brereton – Lead Technologist, Creative Industries – at the Technology Strategy Board (btw I have checked with Sian that it’s ok to publish this info):

Please find attached details of two competitions for grant funding that have just been launched which may be of interest to your organisations:

1) £18m – Collaboration across Digital Industries (Opens 14^th June for fasttrack projects and 12^th July for larger projects)

2) £5m – Metadata: Increasing the Value of Digital Content (Opens 13^th September)

Application is by dedicated application form. Further information on how to apply and guidelines for completing the application form can be found at http://www.innovateuk.org/competitions/.

The Creative Industries KTN is running a series of events to assist with building partnerships and projects associated with these competitions. For more information please go to http://creativeindustriesktn.org/.

Hope this is all helpful! :-)

Documents which have further details

Collaboration across digital industries

Metadata: increasing the value of digital content

Presentation from Cloudcamp Gateshead with slides & video of my talk

Justin Souter — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 12:09:58 +0000

Introduction

A post covering my recent attendance at CloudCamp Gateshead on May 5, 2010.

The organiser, Ross Cooney, asked me to give an introduction to Cloud Computing, and was kind enough to edit the footage taken by Northern Net.

As of the time of writing this post (2nd June 2010), the slides have had 8847 views, so I thought it might be helpful for folk to see the me present the material. :-)

To that end, the post consists of:

The slides
The video
Some background info about Cloudcamp

Slides

Introduction To Cloud Computing Cloudcamp V0.375 Old Ppt For Slideshare

View more presentations from justingsouter.

Video

Only thing I would say is that Ross gave me 5 minutes, and I took 10 – sorry Ross! ;-)

More info on Cloudcamp

I’ve copied the blurb below from the Cloudcamp website, to give you some background:

Mission

CloudCamp was formed to provide a common ground for the introduction and advancement of cloud computing

Through a series of local CloudCamp events, attendees exchange ideas, knowledge and information in a creative and supporting environment, advancing the current state of cloud computing and related technologies. As an informal, member-supported gathering, we rely entirely on volunteers to help with meeting content, speakers, meeting locations, equipment and membership recruitment. We also have corporate sponsors that provide financial assistance with venues, software, books, discounts, and other valuable donations. To become a member, simply register. Anyone may attend a meeting, there are no fees or dues.

Why Cloud Computing ?

The ability to scale your business and infrastructure — on demand with out capital outlay.

The ability to flow over (even if it’s just the coffee ordering system) — on demand without commitment.

Who should attend:

Anyone wishing to further Cloud Computing or just learn what all the fuss is about!

Developers, Architects, Analysts, IT Management and Executives, from App Dev through to Production.

Entrepreneurs, founders and leaders of start-up/early-stage companies, venture capitalists and industry analysts.

Reasons to attend:

Understand how to integrate Cloud Computing Services into your business

Find ways to cut fixed infrastructure costs while increasing reliability and scalability

Learn from from others about their use of Cloud Computing Services

Wash up

Hope you find this useful and please get in touch if you’d like to talk further.

Enterprise 2.0 – so what are your next steps?

Justin Souter — Thu, 20 May 2010 08:02:11 +0000

Introduction

Part 4 in a series about the impact that Web 2.0 could make on the organisation / business.

In this post, I’ll attempt to synthesise some ideas about what is going on, and what it all means for you.

Ok, so here it goes re my thoughts

I think there is an upcoming and disruptive challenge for organisations where the management style is top-down and hierarchical.
1. This sounds clichéd, but if you are giving your frontline the power to interact with stakeholders in real-time, then that familiar sense of control is going to fade.
2. Back in 2005, John Hagel and John Seely Brown published a paper called “From Push to Pull”. My recall of this article is that in future, organisations of all types will have less power to control stakeholder behaviour – instead of an advert in the local papers driving customers to your store, they are searching online and arrive briefed with details of your competitors’ offers, alternative products. The are pulling whereas before you were pushing…
3. How can you shape stakeholder behaviour now that you can’t so easily influence it?
Real-time interaction means that long-term strategic planning is more difficult.
1. According to Henry Mintzberg (as reported by Wikipedia), he: “made a distinction between deliberate strategy and emergent strategy. Emergent strategy originates not in the mind of the strategist, but in the interaction of the organization with its environment”
2. Surely that is more true today than it ever was?
3. Web 2.0 tools can be disruptive, but they can also help manage the impact, viz this article from the New York Times regarding the BP oil spill.
Consumer technologies have changed expectations of your workforce, and those of your stakeholders
1. On the plus side, sharing information and knowledge is getting easier, because you can use collaborative tools to help bid teams, customer service, PR etc. to communicate.
2. Also, your teams will probably already know how to use these tools, although there may be a digital divide in the workplace between generations – not just technological, but also in terms of mindset.
3. If you’re not playing in this space, your stakeholders might begin to wonder why.
That said, Enterprise 2.0 is not for everyone / every organisation
1. Every technology goes through its own version of the Gartner hype cycle, and I expect Enterprise 2.0 to go through its own boom and bust
2. Once the dust has settled from this process, then adoption will become more widespread
3. Mainstream adoption will necessarily follow only after robust case studies of concrete business benefits are widely available and acknowledged.
4. Some organisations will only use Web 2.0 technologies for corresponding with the outside world
5. Others will only use it in particular business functions
6. Some organisations / industries will still feel it appropriate to treat knowledge as power, so there will be tension to be managed where sharing meets not-sharing
7. Even in organisations which have embraced these new tools and mindsets, the take-up by individuals will understandably vary.
Enterprise 2.0 meshes with a wider change in business, as described in the forthcoming book from Hagel, Seely Brown, and Lang Davison called “The Power of Pull”, echoes what I’ve recently read in The Economist’s survey “A special report on innovation in emerging markets”

John Hagel and John Seely Brown, who run Deloitte’s Centre for Edge Innovation, argue that Western companies have spent the past century perfecting “push” models of production that allocate resources to areas of expected demand. But in emerging markets, particularly those where the Chinese have a strong influence, a very different “pull” model often prevails, designed to help companies mobilise resources when the need arises. Hong Kong’s Li & Fung or China’s Chingquing Lifan Group can use their huge supply chains to produce fashion items or motorcycles in response to demand. Taiwan’s Quanta and Compel can produce cheap computers and digital cameras for a fashion-conscious digital marketplace.

These pull models fundamentally change the nature of companies. Instead of fixed armies looking for opportunities, firms become loose networks that are forever reconfiguring themselves in response to a rapidly shifting landscape. Such models are not peculiar to emerging markets: Dell builds computers to its Western customers’ specifications, and Western management gurus have been advocating networks for decades. But according to Messrs Hagel and Seely Brown they are far more widespread in emerging countries.

What you might consider doing

The mindset that is evolving could prove to be quite disruptive to those used to existing power structures and will take some getting used to.
1. Perhaps get your managers to think about the implications at your next away-day
2. Dip into some of the articles and books I suggested in my earlier post
3. Ask those involved in your emerging social media effort how they think things will play out and what it could all mean
Try not to ignore all this, as IMHO it’s here to stay.
1. How about running some pilot / proof of concept efforts to prepare for things if it all takes off?
Agility
1. If push does indeed turn into pull, then your organisation is going to need to be quick on its feet.
2. I’m not an expert on organisation forms, having studied on a limited amount on Organisational Design on my MBA, but this article on the agile enterprise pertains.
Tech to support this
1. Use what you’ve got: e.g. if you’re using Windows SharePoint Services, or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server there are tools like blogs, wikis, RSS feeds and MySite that you can capitalise on to share information.
2. What about putting a Web Services wrapper on your existing applications so data in them can be more easily integrated with other internal, and external, applications and data sources?
3. Instead of creating / writing applications, consider using a mashup tool like JackBe or Serena
4. Open up your applications using tools like those from Mashery (e.g. The Guardian)
5. Use Innovation management tools to help capture ideas and bring them to reality (the topic of a future post or two).
6. Consider what benefits using Cloud computing can bring.
Keep doing what you’re doing, and augment it with emerging technologies & mindsets
1. I.e. existing corporate structures and cultures have evolved over a long period of time, and there are good reasons not to chuck the baby out with the bathwater, as it were.
2. A big bang approach would be risky, and gradual change through widespread engagement is more likely to stick.
Training and culture both for frontline & management
1. Be proactive and prepare yourselves and your staff for this emerging world, and ready yourself to make the most of it. :-D

Wash up / feedback

This is clearly not the whole story, more a snapshot and a stab in an ongoing analysis of the Enterprise 2.0 situation.

Always happy to debate, amend, and add as appropriate. Let me know what you think in the comments.

Meet my mentees – Asad and Emilie

Justin Souter — Wed, 19 May 2010 20:17:44 +0000

Introduction

I’ve been doing some informal mentoring with a couple of students at Newcastle University, so here’s a bit more information about them.

The post is in the form of bullet points, as I’m rather rushed at the mo’.

Asad Imam

Asad is originally from India – more in fo about him on his LinkedIn profile. He’s @imamasad on Twitter.
He’s recently completed MSc at Newcastle University – MSc E-Business and Information Systems, and now working locally for an international financial group
I met him at a couple of Cloudcamp events – one in Newcastle, and the the second time in Edinburgh
Has been developing a Facebook application with a couple of friends / fellow students
I’ve been helping him with his original app concept and thinking whether it’s a goer, and what social media approach they might take
Also now encouraging him to follow his interest in the FB application development route

Emilie Hampton

Emilie is a 3rd year student at Newcastle University – Media, Communication and Cultural Studies I believe
I was introduced to her by Pete Watson of People Boutique
Helping her in conjunction with Declan Metcalfe of Better Brand
Building a Digital Footprint is her blog
http://twitter.com/emilie88 is her Twitter account
She’s been doing her dissertation for her final exams, and her survey about how businesses use social media seemed to get a terrific number of responses
Blog post excerpt re her dissertation:

Special thanks go to Serge Gladkoff, President of Logrus International Cooperation and administrator of Localization Professionals group on Linkedin, for his advice in the final stages of my dissertation. Thanks to Serge, my research has been used as one of the reference research materials for Localization World Berlin 2010 panel on using Social Media for language industry.

[…]

With an extensive literature review and a survey of 360 companies, my research found that despite being a recent phenomenon, those who have adopted a social media strategy have recognised tangible benefits, providing a compelling reason for others to also adopt social media for marketing and business development purposes.

Social media has without a doubt put the ‘social’ back into business. By being a vocal activist and joining conversations, companies are increasing their brand exposure, positive reputation and building relationships with a large, relevant consumer base.

See for yourself below :-)

Latest news in her post, “The Big Wide World” is that Emilie has a number of offers to work in the social media space, and is exploring an opportunity of a summer placement.

Emilie’s dissertation

Living Through a Revolution: The Impact and Value of Social Media for Marketing and Business Development

Wash up

I’ve enjoyed working with Asad and Emilie, and they have been patient enough to put up with my ramblings, but hopefully I’ve given them some constructive advice :-)

And there we have it!

Social Media lecture to Newcastle Uni MSc students

Justin Souter — Wed, 19 May 2010 10:29:00 +0000

Background

I had been asked by Katie Wray, Curriculum Development Officer in the Careers Service at Newcastle University to present to the MSc Renewable Energy, Enterprise & Management course, which I did yesterday.

I think only one person feel asleep, which I hope was reasonable indication of success! ;-)

There seemed to be a wide range of backgrounds, employers, nationalities etc., so an interesting class.

Course description

First delivered in 2008, the MSc in Renewable Energy, Enterprise and Management (REEM) provides fully integrated renewable energy management and enterprise training in order to deliver a broad view of the renewable energy industry. It is designed to be highly flexible, allowing postgraduate students to study renewable energy and business enterprise subjects either full-time or part-time, and to study whilst remaining in full-time employment. Students on this programme will learn how to start up and develop a business in the Renewable Energy sector, with the opportunity to trade.

MSc, Postgraduate Diploma and Postgraduate Certificate may be achieved, and all modules are available as stand alone Continuing Professional Development (CPD) modules. The modules are delivered by a range of Schools within the Faculty of Science Agriculture & Engineering, together with the Careers Service and external industrial experts.

Each module is delivered by a combination of distance learning materials (available on a web-based IT system) and short intensive schools. It is possible to join this programme at several points throughout the year.

Thinking behind slides

In previous presentations, I’ve gone into too much detail, but this one was more about communicating that social media has hit the mainstream, and is an affordable and effective tool for businesses of all sizes.

So, I cut out the detail, went for more ‘high level’, business stuff and I think / hope was more successful as a result. :-)

Presentation

Here we go!

Slides re social media to newcastle uni m sc renewable energy, enterprise & management class 2010

As ever, please leave any feedback in the comments. :-)