I was recently asked to give a talk to a group of small business owners and entrepreneurs on the subject of mentoring. As anyone who has been asked to give a talk will know – the preparation is usually started with a quick session on Google. So here were my results….

I found a good definition – “Mentoring is to support and encourage people to manage their own learning in order that they maximise their potential, develop their skills, improve their performance and become the person they want to be.”. Quite inspiring…

I also found out via Wikipedia that Mentor was a person in Greek mythology – and I found another definition “someone who imparts wisdom to and shares knowledge with less experienced colleagues. It also brought back to me the word “protégé” – which seems to have slipped from common use. This is someone who is being mentored (a mentee in common speak these days).

I have been lucky enough to have had some brilliant mentors in my journey firstly as a photographer and then as an entrepreneur. Latterly, I have also taken on this role for other people – including an aristocrat, a professional sportsman and a property developer.

These days, increasingly there is access to professional mentors/psychologists/life coaches – and I think they serve a purpose. However, at its purest the relationship of a mentor/mentee is a partnership. There has to be a chemistry – a meeting of energies that motivate both sides to really work. It’s not a pure paternal relationship (although age difference might make it feel that way) – both sides have to gain.

I love the quote (although I cannot find the source) that “people come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime.” A mentoring relationship can be any of these. Certainly I have experienced all the versions.

For example, in the 90s, my business changed when the Getty family and Bill Gates moved in to the “cottage industry” of the photography world. I have two mentors who helped me through. You can read more about that experience here – but in essence I had a mentor, Chad Murrin of 3i, who introduced me to the world of corporate finance and venture capital (he remains a friend today). At the same time, I had a short term mentor in the form of Tom Kirby of Games Workshop – he helped me understand strategy (which drives all my thinking today). Both had an illuminating effect on my life for reasons, seasons and lifetimes.

Since the sale of my business, I have tried to use my experience to help others. I have found the relationships two-way. I believe I have managed to learn more, find different views and hone some of my skills – while sharing my experience. I am very clear on what I can offer to people. It’s a passion to get individuals to lift their heads from their daily grind and consciously decide where they are going. This is coupled with my desire to get people to look around and find solutions away from the narrow path they often tread. “Head up – mind open” is always my mentoring message.

Going back to the original definition I found – we all have a drive to “become the person we want to be.” I believe that you cannot do this by sitting on your own reading self-help books and making plans. John Lennon had it right “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” You need to get out and live life – and that means meeting people. You will know when the chemistry is right and you have met someone that you can be a mentor to – or ask to be mentored by. Avoid the professional life coaches, unless you have a very specific issue to deal with – get out and meet a mentor today! Two final quotes (you can tell that I love them).

“You are the same today as you’ll be in five years except for two things, the books you read and the people you meet.” ~ Charlie “Tremendous” Jones

“…often it is strangers who help us make sense of where we are going and who we will become.” ~ Herminia Ibarra “Working Identity”

I love Wow projects – and am always happy to chat over a coffee in Bath. I’m currently working as co-founder of a startup business Climbing Fish (inspired, of course, by a quote “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid” ~ Albert Einstein

Observing the world at the moment is like watching a multi-car motorway pile up. It all seems to happen so slowly – but it’s inevitable that when the brakes are applied by some and directions changed by others that a big crash will happen.

My background is in print media and photography. I’ve written in the “project and tales” section of the site about some of my experiences at the cutting edge of digital photography in the early 90s. Less than 20 years on, I’ve just witnessed the inevitable crash of a big juggernaut as Kodak filed for bankruptcy.

Everyone could see it coming. No matter how brakes were applied, a new course steered or the attempts to accelerate away from danger – it crashed.

Much discussion has been had about the demise of newspapers. The focus has been on the outdated business models – and how only on-line paywalls can hope to sustain excellent journalism. The crashes have already started to occur in the US regional newspapers – and was well illustrated in the excellent docufilm – “Page One – Inside The New York Times”. In the UK, there has yet to be a major crash. Although many would connect the closure of the News of the World as much with economics as Murdoch’s empire trying to distance itself from phone hacking.

The bigger crash I can see is the inevitable demise of the whole print industry. It’s a supertanker powering towards a reef. If I’d have said this 5 years ago, you would have thought I was mad. But now, it seems to add up. Will the printing presses be running in 10 years time? I don’t think so – except as a “side show” like black and white photography darkrooms.

I used one of the first digital cameras in 1994 at the Lillehammer Olympics. I was part of a select few to use these prototype models at the games. At that Olympics, professional photographers alone shot 700,000 rolls of film. The images were carefully selected – and a number of them used in newspapers, magazines and books. In the 18 years since that first breakthrough, more pictures are used because of so many digital platforms being available. There will be 5-20 pictures shown on newspaper websites to back up the 1-2 pictures used in print. No mainstream photography is created using film – and printing is limited to when a picture needs framing at home. I’ve seen it happen in one great industry – and the printing presses invented by Johannes Gutenberg in the 15th century are next on the crash list.

I am typing this sitting on a train heading through Switzerland. Around me, I cannot see a newspaper – but plenty of people tapping and viewing content on iPhones and Androids. I’ve just been through the airport – and Kindles/iPads outnumbered book readers (and it’s early days for these reading devices). I still love reading a book in print. I’ll never stop loving it (much like the desire to process a film, put the negative in the enlarger and create a print through trays of chemicals). All that nostalgia will pass though, and I am sure the screen will win.

There is no doubt that Steve Jobs led the revolution on devices to consume content. However, when we look back in history – the real destroyer of Gutenberg’s legacy will be seen as Mark Zuckerberg. He brought hundreds of millions of people from around the world to their screens to engage with friends and consume content on Facebook. Make no mistake, many media companies engage on-line – but Zuckerberg’s Facebook has made screen consumption – at the desk or on the move – mainstream.

I had a brief email exchange with Jon Ferrara of Nimble the other day. He’s quite a visionary. I’d forwarded an article from Chris Brogan saying to get things done it helps to write out 3×5 index cards and put on your desk. Jon’s view was that this was “too old school”. I think he’s right – although I don’t know if I can ever give up scribbling my to-do list and musings in my Moleskin notebook (I have tried many, many to-do list software solutions). Jon’s company, Nimble, is redefining how individuals do business – and it’s on-screen.

Last week, I went to a board meeting at home in Bath. There were nearly 50 pages to print – so I took my iPad with PDFs loaded. It worked well, I “saved a tree” – and got nearer than I’ve ever been to the old ideal of the “paperless office”. I also read that at this year’s meeting of GE’s top executives, presentation materials will be available only via iPads.

I’m sure those of my age and older have heard these arguments before. It happened when television came on the scene. Newspapers were definitely going to die.

It’s different this time. This new wave will not just take out newspapers in their printed format – it will leave in its wake bookshops, magazine stands, printing presses, ink makers and paper suppliers. I am sure Gutenberg would be delighted. His solution was built for no other purpose than to spread “the word”. Gutenberg was the 20th Century’s greatest inventor – this millennium has started with Mark Zuckerberg in pole position. Like it or not (and there are some elements I certainly don’t like) Zuckerberg is spreading the word (and it’s not with ink on paper). There’s a new “Berg” on the block!

Bath Digital Festival is hosting a debate “Digital has killed the print industry and infantilised us in the process” at The Pump Rooms on Monday 19th March at 8pm. Tickets are £8. For more information click here…

It’s been interesting to read the comment pieces by Greg Ingham and David Maher Roberts in the Bath Chronicle over the past month.

Bath = old people, or Bath = a cool place to do business?

‘Bath can be England’s tech capital’

Bath’s ‘tourist toytown’ image hits growth

For my part, I am an entrepreneur who moved to Bath earlier in the year – and I thought my “fresh eyes” might be able to offer a slightly different view.

Greg and David are both right – the economy of Bath will gain greatly by the growth of creative and technology businesses.  However, I believe that the late Steve Jobs had it right – and that the biggest opportunity is at the intersection of liberal arts (creativity) and technology.  

It’s important that these Bath communities work in concert to develop world class businesses together – not in isolation.  This seems to already be in action with organisations like Bath Spark and Creative Bath working together – but it needs to generate new ventures.

I am not convinced that creation of technology or creative hubs by the council is the answer. Property is crucial – but it’s leadership that really matters.  I see young entrepreneurs like David Kelly at Storm building a business, finding property and leading the charge.  The very best model that I have seen is The Dispensary – which is run by Peter Whitehead of the creative agency, Radio. He has made a real personal commitment to one of Bath’s historical buildings – and shares if with many other creative businesses big and small.  This is the sort of model that should be supported with tax breaks, rates relief, etc. That should be the supporting role of local government – catalysing, not doing.

The theme of crossing over and intersecting could equally be applied to Greg’s piece last week entitled “Bath = old people, or Bath = a cool place to do business?”.  I’m very grateful for the older generation who come to Bath as visitors and spend their hard earned cash with our tourist trade.  It helps to make the city such a beautiful place to live and work – and supports so many services that we would not have without them.  I am sure that is the “old people” that Jeremy Paxman had in mind when Greg spoke to him.

What Greg misses is that there are many older Bath residents who through their experience could help many of our growing businesses. 

The city has a fantastic history – and seems to have pioneered this arts and technology intersection with organisations like the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution (which a contact recently referred to as having a “seemingly octogenarian audience”).  I’ve lived through a generation which has successfully dispensed with racism and sexism – but sadly agism is a trait we have not yet cast off.  I’m in my late 40s – and consider it a great age that gives the right balance between youthful enthusiasm and historical experience.  My point is that bringing young and old together will benefit development of business. Young entrepreneurs want to gain experience – and older folk want to still be in touch with new ideas.  The interchange of enthusiasm and experience is essential to grow meaningful businesses.

Let’s not try to polarise that we have to chose between Old or Cool – much like Creativity and Technology, the “sweet spot” is when they meet!

Friday 11/11/11 will go down as one of the most surreal of my life. The day started with a look through my twitter feed on Flipboard. Lo and behold, I discovered the ideal Christmas present my Angry Birds addicted wife – “The Angry Boobs Bra: For Ultimate Angry Birds Fans”. The site that was selling it had a very funny sales line “If you are brave enough to pit one boob against the other, but all means, buy this hand-painted Angry Birds bra.” How do people think of these things – Angry Birds … and the bra?

Actually, later on in the day I attended the Power of One Conference at Battersea Power Station. Part of this Angry Bird’s question was answered.

For those of you have not been – Battersea Power Station is currently a shell. It’s a listed building (protected as an historic monument) – but there are just the chimneys, walls … and no roof. The conference is held in a large marquee at the centre of the building. We were told that this would be the last conference held on the site before it was redeveloped. By a twist of fate, the only other time I had been there was the very first conference held by Sun Microsystem in the mid-90s.

The significance of the day was not lost – 11/11/11. At 11 o’clock, along with the rest of the UK we observed 2 minutes to honour those who had lost their lives in defence of our country. Seemed strange being stood in a conference hall underneath those great towers. Low point was shared by a delegate who reported on Twitter “Cannot believe that I was just asked if the two minute silence observed at #p1event was to remember Steve Jobs.”

Back to Angry Birds.. One of the speakers, Jason Calacanis, shared that Rovio (Angry Bird’s creator) had 51 unsuccessful games before they hit on Angry Birds. So how do they think of these things? By lots of trial and many errors.

Error, failure and especially perseverance became a bit of a theme of the conference. This was brought home by the after lunch speaker – Yosi Taguri from Israel. He’s probably the best conference speaker I have seen – rivalling any of the great Jewish comedians (with a raft of bad language thrown in!).

Josi’s headline to the presentation was how he had spent his life F###ing things up. However, through perseverance he had managed to find success. I’m hoping the presentation will be available on-line soon – but there is a good write up on The New Web (TNW).

His story was peppered with failures and near-miss successes. These culminated in him creating a very simple game app called Pah! It’s such a simple video game. Space ship moves and shoot things. The twist is that you move the space ship up an down by saying AHHHH! and fire the rockets by shouting PAH!. You can see a couple of videos below – one of it being reviewed:

… and the other of a Chinese mum playing the game.

There are many more YouTube videos of the game in action. Here’s another one showing a violinist playing the game through the noise of her instrument.

Do support Josi and buy Pah!, it’s only 69p. It’s a great social game – breaks down barriers.

In the evening, I headed of for a “date” with a 16 year old! Well not quite. My friend’s daughter, Polly, who is 16 had to take a “business person” to a Black Tie guest night at her school. Her brief had said the person should be over 25. I think she had misread and thought the person had to be double 25! I was honoured – but it felt slightly strange picking up Polly and taking her out for the night.

The idea of the evening was to get the sixth formers used to the world of work. At the end of the night, we had an inspirational talk from a pathologist. Another quirk at the end of a long day!

Anwyay, it was great. Dr Suzy Lishman was not just any old pathologist – she can be found on Twitter @ilovepathology. She was an inspiring role model for the youngsters in the room. Again, she told a tale of perseverance – this time in pursuit of saving lives and understanding the cause of disease. One part struck home with me – and provided a link for the day’s experiences.

She talked about her long medical training – and then the selection of pathology as her speciality. She’d chosen to give pathology a chance after her boyfriend of the time said it was interesting. She then undertook intensive training for a 12 month period on the subject. She explained that the first 6 months were awful – and she wanted to give up and chose another discipline. She described the course being dominated by looking through a microscope at slides of human tissue being moved around (which made her feel queasy) and with the only colours being red and blue (the dies used to differentiate cells). She didn’t “get it” – and felt dizzy with spots in front of her eyes.

However, it suddenly came together for her after 6 months – and she got what pathology was all about. She understood “the game” and realised she was like a detective investigating. She was looking for clues – the needle in the haystack. As her skills developed, she unlocked levels, doors opened and she could make a real difference to people’s lives by finding the causes of an illness and suggesting medical solutions.

So, what have all these got in common? I think the message of perseverance is clear. It’s pushing through those times of failure, feeling that you’ll never get your head around a topic or you’ll never reach the next level.

I’ve written before about the power of gamification – the ideas put forward by people like Jane McGonigal, Daniel Pink and Clay Shirkey that there is a “cognitive surplus” being used in games that could be used for a greater good. What Dr. Lishman spoke about with such enthusiasm was how pathology became her addiction, her passion, her love.

Interestingly, Dr. Lishman described her 6 month experience training as a pathologist in the way my wife tells me about getting frustrated getting through a difficult level in Angry Birds. Lots of multi coloured dots moving around – and not being able to make sense of them. Dr Lishman talked about how she role plays as a “detective” – and that’s what makes pathology exciting for her. That sounds like game play too.

In our education for future work, we can (and should) learn a lot from how game makers enthuse through levels, role play, achievement and invoking passion. It brings out the persevering side of us – and that’s a skill we need in order to power through those failures (Yosi’s F### ups) and achieve success.

[My thanks go to Chris “Bookmeister” Book for organising such an excellent conference; Chris Day and Mark Power for their images with pencil and camera of the conference; Yosi Taguri for such a brilliant presentation; Dr Suzy Lishman for enthusing me about Pathology (want to come along to one of her Virtual Autopsies) – and, of course, my “date” – Polly, you were great company

P.S. Just for clarification – there is absolutely no way my better half would be impressed by a novelty bra! I’ll be getting her something much nicer for Christmas]

This week I went to a networking evening in Bristol called South West Founders. I’ve been meaning to go for ages – since moving to Bath earlier in the year. I finally got around to it because I’d planned to meet with a friend, John Lynch, for a few beers – and we decided a trip to Bristol might work.

If you have read the blog before – you have probably seen my post “I HATE Networking”. That reports on a networking event in Bath that I attended – and hated. Interestingly enough, two guys spoke at that event who I have now become friends with (Mike Ellis and Dave Kelly).

I thought that tagging along with a pal might help with my dislike of networking events – and it did. John was great company – and filled in nicely during those initial “wallflower” minutes.

I’m known for being a little too flippant – it’s the “scouser” blood in me. When we arrived, we were given a couple of stickers to write our names on – and with a box to simply say why you are attending. In a rush, I decided my best/wittiest response was “I’m Driving John Home”.

This allowed me to make some anecdotal observations on the “networkers” at the event:-

BADGE SCANNERS – there were many people who would walk slowly around the room and scan badges. I watched a few of these – and when they read why I was there – promptly moved on without chatting (they assumed I was John’s chauffeur and just bumming a free drink).

WHAT DO YOU DO TYPES – there were some who engaged in conversation, but ignored me when they read the badge and focussed on chatting with John. Again, did say hello – but assumed I was not worth chatting to as I was just John’s driver

I’LL SPEAK TO ANYONE – there were many fun, open people too. They chatted about a variety of subjects, took an interest – and ignored the badge. If I’d had green hair – they would have been the same. My sort of people.

I did some preparation for the event. It was arranged via the MeetUp site – and all the attendees had a profile and contact details. There was no-one who specifically sprung out as a “must see” contact – but I did follow a few people on Twitter.

Interestingly, one of the guys who I followed on Twitter I didn’t get the chance to meet. However, we’ve since followed up/met on-line and are getting together early next week for a bite to eat and swap ideas.

Lessons learnt?

… for me … don’t be too flippant, it might put off people talking to you

… for others … never judge a book by its cover (or a guy by his name badge)

… and finally … off-line networking and on-line networking mix. The people who attend the same event probably have something in common. Don’t work the room, it’s a long term game – and you might be as likely to make that connection on-line. Do prep – and read the attendees list.

As for “Driving John Home”. I got badly lost in Bristol, couldn’t properly partake in the free drinks (kindly sponsored by the nice guys at local VC Eden Ventures) and then lost my car park ticket (had to pay an extortionate amount for a full day!). We’ll be taking the train next time – and I will be more sensible with what I write on my badge.

I’ve just been listening to the last part of a series called “Tony Bennett Presents The Great American Songbook” on BBC Radio 2. The show is available on iPlayer (only until next Sunday – 16th October 2011).

There is some great music – but one particular section (around 50 minutes in) got me turning up the volume. Tony Bennett talked about how he met Bob Hope when he was in the United States Army as a soldier in WWII (Tony Bennett was born in 1926!). He said that Bob had given him one of the best tips on being an entertainer – “If you love the audience, they’re going to love you. If you don’t care about the audience, they’re not going to care for you.” It’s a passion that Tony Bennett still has at 85 years old – and it’s a lesson to anyone in business who serves customers.

Tony also had his own thoughts. “I always admired my audience, most performers think they are superior to their audience, but they’re not.” Substitute audience for customers – and it gets you thinking??

Tony is passionate about making making people happy. He said: “The general public are powerful…. I’m an optimist…. I’ll go for what the public wants. I think the greatest lesson we can learn is to listen to what the public wants.”

Many people talk about following your passion. I agree. But don’t forget to “love your audience” too.

I hope you manage to read this post and listen to the BBC iPlayer before it’s not available. The quotes surround an intro to one of Tony Bennett’s favourite artists and songs. If you’ve missed the radio show, just finish this post by listening to Louis Armstrong and “Wonderful World”. Tony said that audiences identify with this song!

I’m not sure if it’s only a term used in the UK – but “I’d like to see the manager” is a very British way of saying that I have a complaint. Anyone who knows a Brit will know that we’re not great at making a complaint – we tend to just moan after the event! So, when it escalates to the manager – things have gone wrong.

Our Western Culture seems to have dealt with sidestepping this quite well. The development of retail chains and food franchises means that we’re unlikely to get to look a real decision maker in the eye when the time to complain comes. The result being that our issues is “absorbed”, steam is let off – and life moves on. It’s usually an unsatisfactory “21st Century” experience.

I’ve recently moved home – and for just under 2 weeks have been a resident of Bath. One of the things that has struck me is that there is a sense of real community – a connection with people. As I’ve been walking around the city (it’s so compact – I no longer use a car to get around … yippee), I’ve realised that there are very few large businesses, franchises and chain stores – but many small local businesses.

The city also has a couple of great magazines that come out on a fortnightly basis – Bath Life and The Bath Magazine. I’ve been reading them since we decided to move the family to Bath over 6 months ago – and the local faces are becoming familiar just from flicking the pages.

What’s making me feel so good about this City? Well, I think it’s that it lacks layers. What do i mean by that? Well, what you see is what you get. The new deli in Bath, Sam’s Kitchen, is a case in point. I can read a little about the new venture in the magazine, give it a try (nice Fennel & Rocket soup!) – and guess who I can feed back to? Yes, Sam!

It’s a great community because I am only one-degree of separation from the people who want to give me service and make Bath tick. That goes both ways. If I don’t smile, if I’m rude, if I am always complaining – that’s on show too. It’s a city where one-to-one relationships – on a weak or strong level – can develop.

I feel very welcome in my new home. Relationships at one-degree work for me. It’s great to know who the boss is by looking at the name over the door or the person grafting hard behind the counter every day. I’m very happy that “I’d like to see the Manager” will not have to be in my vocabulary! I know who he or she is….

In my exploration of Personal Networks, I’ve come to the conclusion that the process starts with a fair degree of self awareness. I’ve always been a “self help” addict – and many years ago I became interested in psychometric testing after undertaking a Myers-Briggs MBTI test. Since then, I have worked with a business psychologist in a number of ventures – and it’s added terrific value. Interestingly, the most pleasing thing with psychometric testing is the synergy between the individual gaining self awareness, the team involved having a shared “score” to communicate around – and the organisation seeing the economic benefit of building long lasting teams with complimentary skill sets.

I recently stumbled upon a start up called Identifii, based in Singapore. It’s an interesting business that focusses on a young audience to make sure they start on the right career path. The key to this is helping with self awareness through psychometric testing.

I chatted with Identifii’s founder Usman Sheikh about his new business. First off, he gave me his vision for Identifii: “The right people in the right jobs results in a better world.” That’s a big idea – I like that!

Usman has recognised an issue – and wants to solve it. “The primary problem we aim to solve is one of incorrect career path selection. I graduated from college nearly 5 years ago and when I catch up with old friends, I estimate that over 70% of them, are not entirely happy with what they do on a daily basis. However, they are at a point in their lives, where change has become an extremely difficult option and the decision to ‘just to live with it’, is how they resolve the issue. Many of them selected career paths at graduation, paths which were not always suited for who they were, but rather paths chosen and based upon other factors, such as employer brand or monetary compensation.”

Identifii is focussed on Gen Y – the 16-25 year old college graduate, Facebook generation. In fact, after applying to be part of their Alpha test group, the only way to log-in to the system is via Facebook. So I dusted by FB ID off (an old git like me only uses it to keep an eye on the kids) – and gave the service a try. Five minutes and 20 questions later, I had my psychometric test done – and guess what, they had got me 100% right. See the analysis below!

I’ve been called many things in my life – but I think that I like “Colourful Storyteller” the best! From Identifii’s dashboard, I found out that famous people of my “type” – ENFP (Extrovert/iNtuitive/Feeling/Perceiving) – include Charles Dickens, Robin Williams, Sandra Bullock & Meg Ryan. Cool!! Top three career paths were Journalism, Public Relations and Entrepreneurship. I shared the comments with a couple of friends – and they chuckled at the weaknesses … “Lack of discipline in following through on important detail”, “propensity to focus on what’s achievable rather than what’s doable” and “tendency to become bored or side tracked after creative process is done”. How they laughed – got me in one!

I thought back to when I was leaving school and had a difficult time choosing between a career as a civil engineer, social worker or photo-journalist. Luckily, back then I somehow selected the right career path – with Identifii it would have been so much easier!

I asked Usman why he had created Identifii. “I was at University finishing my Economics degree and thought that I would become an investment banker. Luckily, I did an internship before I graduated and realised it was not for me. I went off to Cambridge University (England) and got my qualification as a certified psychometric consultant. It let me explore how people made choices.”

“I then build a relationship with Psytech – a vendor of psychometric tests – and in 2007 they granted me a license for their products in Pakistan. One of the opportunities I had in Pakistan was to work with 200 graduating MBA students. These graduates felt destined to work at the big multi-national companies (MNCs) like Unilever, P&G, Standard Chartered, etc. I understood the attraction of the large brand and the paycheck – but realised that for 60/65% this was not a good long-term fit.”

Usman could see the opportunity – but felt it was not the time to pursue. He headed back to Singapore and worked with friends developing Hatch Media in to the leading Youth Marketing Agency in the country. He discovered a lot about the 16-25 demographic from his experience there – the Generation Y.

When he saw the exponential growth in Facebook in 2009-10, Usman realised that the time was right to bring Identifii to market. He knew his idea needed major distribution – and FB was the channel.

As with all start-ups, it’s not been plain sailing. He explained how joining the Founders Institute in Singapore was a turning point. He made connections, found mentors to help refine his ideas – and was able to secure the funding needed to start things rolling.

Usman’s perception of Singapore, South East Asia and the surrounding areas was compelling listening for me. “LinkedIn awareness in Singapore with the youth audience is close to 0%. People here are still choosing careers based on traditional pressures like parents wishes, brands and the paycheck size. I believe that there is an opportunity for SMEs (Small & Medium sized Enterprises) to stop the traditional flow of talent to MNCs. We aim with Identifii to job match young talent with more satisfying jobs in the SME sector.”

I was surprised that the Identifii platform only allows access via a Facebook log-in. Usman explained: “We chose Facebook as a way to filter who came in to the site. LinkedIn also has very little take up in the region. However, in the future we will offer a straight forward log-in process and customer validation with Twitter and LinkedIn.”

Usman has a very intuitive feel of the youth audience. “Graduates have typically 6-800 friends on Facebook – it’s a new personal asset that this generation just takes for granted. It’s ‘just there!’. These links through their lifetime will be the links that will create partnerships, job offers and other opportunities.”

Identifii is currently in Alpha testing. He’s opened it up to about 150 people who he knows – or in my case have registered interest. It’s already seen a viral effect with 2,000 folk now using the service. I must admit at the end of the psychometric test when you say “you’ve got me dead right” – it does make you want to get your pals to give it a try. Quite infectious marketing.

Usman’s target audience is a graduate 2 years out of university or college who has just realised they have taken the wrong career path. Identifii will be there to help them get back on course.

As well as the many job sites on the web, Identifii faces competition from newcomers like Roundpegg, OneDayOneJob and BranchOut. I think Usman’s focus in English speaking Asia is a good strategy – and we might well see it transfer around the world too. As he identifies though: “The biggest challenge is building our relationships with employers to provide jobs for Identifii’s users. We currently have 25 businesses involved – and are aiming for 200 employers by summer. It’s essential we can prove we can match the new found awareness with a suitable job.”

Usman is intending to roll out a whole range of self-assessment/psychometric tests for Identifii. He wants to “democratise” this sort of testing by making them free or low price. He also intends to make them fun – so that people enjoy taking part.

I really like Identifii – and Usman’s vision of making the world a better place by getting Gen Y in to the jobs that match them! Do give Identifii and their psychometric test a try. Please do come back here and tell me what “sort of person you are”!

Well, it’s been a great experience pulling together this three part series. I hope that in reading it, you have found some insight in to your Personal Network – I certainly have in writing it.

I’ve reviewed three new products/service – from MyWebCareer, Connected and Nimble. I have also had the privilege to interview the founders of each business.

The first step with each of these solutions is going off to the “cloud” and pulling together personal information from the likes of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google. However, each solution has a different angle on aggregating this information.

I started this series of posts by asking a series of questions? They were:-

* What impression am I making?
* Who do I know?
* What do I know about them?

My exploration of the value of Personal Networks constantly throws up questions – and these are only three of many.

What impression am I making?

MyWebCareer, undoubtedly answers this question. Although, like everything in life – it’s only an opinion.

If you are developing and cultivating your Personal Network – you should be concerned about your “brand” and how you are perceived by your network. I don’t see any reason for not giving it a try – and using its clever scoring system to bench mark your Personal Brand and on-line presence. I’d also recommended this service to Personal Brand consultants (like Beth Campbell Duke) – it’s a simple way to get clients thinking about how they shape up … and how they can improve. I will certainly diary time each month for a brief review of which direction my MyWebCareer score is moving – and why.

So, this is the easy bit of the post – if you want this question answering .. then just log in to MyWebCareer.

Who do I know? What to I know about them?

This is a tough one. The undoubted, sure fire winner of the commercial race is Nimble! It’s driven by an inspirational founder, Jon Ferrara – with the conventional CRM customer base waiting with open arms for a Social CRM solution. It will work for SMEs (Small & Medium Enterprises) at all levels from management to sales staff to customers.

However, my interest is in Personal Networks. As regular readers will know, my favourite quote is from Mick Cope, who wrote the FT book, “Personal Networking”:-

“By professional networking I mean a set of close contacts or associates who will help deliver my value to market. The key thing is that these are people who will ‘help’ you in the market, THEY ARE NOT THE MARKET. Sorry for the full-on letters, but my definition of a network is ‘people who will help amplify my personal capital in the market’, not a bunch of friends and colleagues to whom I try to sell under the guise of giving them a great opportunity. Active management of these people is not networking; it is client relationship management, a whole different ball game…”

This is the third time I’ve quoted this in my blog – it sums up the idea of a Personal Network for me. Mick will be charging me royalties soon….

During the interview with Sachin Rekhi, the founder of Connected, we discussed who was his customer. He said: “We looked at delivering this products to companies – chasing the VP of Sales. However, we decided that Connected is a more personal product – and we’re committed to take the harder track of acquiring customers one at a time.”

So, for someone with the long-term/life-long strategic goal of cultivating and developing their Personal Network – I think Sachin has set the best strategy. Unfortunately, this does not make it a sure fire commercial winner like Nimble! Getting people to stand back, take stock, work out where they are going – and recognising that their Personal Network is the key to long-term development will be a challenge.

While writing this series of posts, trying out the software and interviewing the founders, I’ve started to get a much better feel for the support needed for a Personal Network to function. The “Who do I know? What to I know about them?” is a fundamental building block in this.

I’ve also taken a look back my blog post “Personal Networks, Soloware and ‘The Individual is the new Group'”. In summary, that post makes the argument that the power of the individual through “Soloware” is much greater than that of the Enterprise through “Groupware”.

From all this deliberation, I am starting to understand that the Linchpin society put forward by Seth Godin in his book (indispensable, unique people are the future) – means that enterprise driven CRM systems are not the solutions required for the social media connected 21st century.

I always believe that when I am getting to grips with a complex issue, if I can visualise it (or in my case create a block diagram) that I am getting near a solution. Here’s my first iteration:-

Here the individual has their Personal Network, gathered from the “cloud” – which we see in solutions like Connected and Nimble. However, the significant difference that I envisage is that the enterprises we engage with as “Linchpins” to deliver projects will need to give access to their corporate information in the same cloud based way.

This will demand a whole new level of trust between individuals and enterprise – and a shift of power. In our new world – The Personal Network is king!

Thank you to Nip, Sachin and Jon – I’ve really enjoyed connecting with you … and wish you and your ventures every success.

I’ve enjoyed writing this series of posts. It’s been a privilege to “be in the room” with some inspirational startup founders/entrepreneurs.

Let’s get the hard bit out of the way first. Despite my promise at the end of Part 2, this post – reporting back on Nimble and interviewing their founder Jon Ferrara – will not include my summary. I’ll do that tomorrow… Think of it as a 3 part post and summary… I know, I know, how can you ever trust me again! Sorry.

Jon, as I mentioned in the post last week, was the founder of Goldmine – a ground breaking CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tool from 20 years ago (in fact it probably defined CRM!). He’s a busy guy – and I really appreciated that he was prepared to give me an hour out of his busy schedule to do a Skype video call.

We seemed to hit it off from the start. After Jon telling me how warm it was in Santa Monica (and showing me he was in short sleeves and shorts) I turned around my camera and showed him the sunset view of the Alps from my chalet in Switzerland. We chatted for a while about the pleasure we had shared in selling our businesses – and then taking time-out to spend with our young families growing up.

Then Jon kicked in to telling me about his new venture, Nimble – and I knew straight away he was focussed on success. Earlier in the year, I wrote a post about how I was struggling to find my way and whether I could bring a team together and achieve a second entrepreneurial success. My post was base on an analogy around Pink Floyd and the success of their Dark Side of the Moon album. Well – I might have pulled back from thoughts of startup for now (hence the concentration on daily blogging) – but Jon’s undoubtedly got an idea for a platinum album that’s going to top the charts (again) for a long time. He’s a visionary….

His starting point this time is very, very different than his days as co-founder of Goldmine. Jon says: “I started Goldmine with $3,000 and an idea. It was the days of pink ‘while you were out’ slips and little black books called Daytimers. We had no loans and no venture capital.”

He continued: “We had absolutely no money for advertising, so I made friends with people who were writing about the space. The writers told me ‘we want to have stories about people using the products’ – so that’s what I gave them. Goldmine’s name got more column inches than anyone else.”

There was a strange Déjà vu feeling about all this. Back in the late 1990s, my business chose Goldmine – and we did the case study working with their solution partner. It’s still on Goldmine’s site (the company was acquired by Frontline in 1999 for tens of millions of dollars). Today, he’s taking time to chat and give time to a start-up blogger… Sound familiar.

Jon speaks at a 100 miles per hour. He warned me about this before he launched in to a presentation about Nimble and a walk through of the system. He talks so fast he could have a second career as a rapper!

Nimble is much more than a PRM (Personal Relationship Management), CRM or sCRM (Social CRM). In fact, Jon says: “I don’t like acronyms.” However, he does recognise that a world with social media creates new challenges. He says: “I want to help Nimble clients swim in the social river. Social Media is akin to the industrial revolution. If people and business don’t understand that it’s the place to manage relationships, listen and communicate – they are going to get killed.”

Jon’s reinvented himself, but with the same passion for helping people build relationships with customers (and colleagues). He’s cynical about the CRM business that he helped to build with Goldmine. He says: “You look at these systems with a screen laid out with 50 fields. That’s grandpa’s CRM system!” He also describes these systems as “stodgy and old school.”

I’d been given access to the Private Beta and had a play. I can imagine that for anyone coming from the structure of Goldmine or other enterprise CRM – this is the ideal transition to “swimming in the social river”. Jon showed me through some of the updates in the pipeline, He’s intent on making the interface even more visual. For example, losing the names and links and putting pen portraits anywhere he can. He’s building the system to be able to do absolutely everything a person/enterprise will need to make sales and build relationships. There are already a raft of integrations with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Gmail, Imap, Google Calendar – and he sees no limit to the role Nimble will take in unification.

I asked Jon about how this would work in practice. I seem to remember the Goldmine salesman 15 years ago flashing me through screens at the speed of light – and I was convinced it could do everything I could ever dream of. Jon said: “I realise that with all these systems the 10% that people definitely use is contact management. The challenge is to get the 10% for relationships used. With Nimble, we are going to give the contact management away – that’s the free part. The rest will be the important bit – getting in to the conversation and building relationships.”

We talked about the “battle for the tabs”. As Jon shared his screen during the demo, I took a look at the tabs he had open in Google Chrome. It was a similar mix to mine – the usual suspects of GMail, Google Calendar, Hootsuite, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, etc. For systems like Nimble to become THE contact/relationship/personal network service – they need to get on the tabs – and then push the others out (in my opinion). Jon said: “I want to get a space on there – and happy for the others to stay. However, Nimble will connect the dots in your life – we’ll help nurture those relationships, communicate and listen.”

Jon is preparing to market Nimble through his well worn path of “classic CRM resellers.” This is a very familiar strategy to how he built Goldmine. He sees the “sweet spot” as the “SME business users who are mostly ignored.” He defines these as anything from a single user to a typical 10-25 seat sale. He’s also keen to bring in individuals – and his proposed free contacts only service reflects this.

Jon has set up Nimble with a clear strategy in this new area of social media. He’s using tried and trusted methods to get to market – skills he learned building Goldmine. He’s also got the financial resources and clout to get what he needs done (some of the LinkedIn integration he showed me in beta was groundbreaking). Jon will find a shoal of “Grandpa’s CRM” users coming to swim with him in the “Social River.”

I’ll finish this post slightly flipantly, with a “British” twist on brand names. Nimble has a very fond place in the memories of my youth (I am showing my age). Nimble was a household name through British TV ads about a special bread to keep an eye on your weight/figure. Take a look at these ads – brought to you by the wonders of YouTube. One even features a very young Joanna Lumley. It will bring back memories for my older UK audience…

Jon’s Nimble is no lightweight – but it’s certainly going to fly! Do take the time and register for the Private Beta.

Back tomorrow, with a summary of where I think MyWebCareer, Connected and Nimble sit in the world of Personal Networks.