successful home working
Posts tagged get-together for home workers
A thank you to Jan Minihane, home workers’ Jelly champion
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So this morning it’s yet another case of ‘pass Jelly forward’ as Jan Minihane announces she is passing the reins of UK Jelly to Jim Drew, the host of Norfolk Jelly at The King’s Centre in Norwich.
I’d like to say a big thank you to Jan for all of her tireless work for Jelly, both in Shropshire, which she has made the most vibrant Jelly county in the UK, and also in helping people set up Jellys all over the UK and in France.
The BIG Jelly was Jan’s idea and although as a co-organiser I’m entirely biased, I know I’m not alone in thinking it the most extraordinary business event I’ve ever been to, not only in terms of efficient organisation and high quality content, but in its welcome for every attendee and dedication to giving them a good day.
Jan built the UK Jelly website out of her enthusiasm for Jelly and her determination that every home worker and freelancer in the UK should have a free local coworking group within reach. She has kept the Jelly map up to date with all the new groups setting up, organisers in touch with each other through starting the UK Jelly Linkedin group, and the Jelly message going round the world with the UKJelly Twitter account. All this on a voluntary basis and in her own time while also growing her social media business and looking after her young family.
Many home workers and small business owners have benefited directly from Jan’s efforts, and I’m sure many more will do so now that Jim has taken over. I hope that those who may be wondering about taking on the role of Jelly organiser will recognise how effectively Jelly spreads good PR with no need for selling or self-promotion, and be encouraged to take part!
Home working day out: impressions of the everywoman conference
72 months ago
by Judy
in Events for home workers
It was a 5 am start for me one morning last week when I got the train up to London for the annual everywoman conference, and quite a change to travel amongst newspaper-reading commuters when my normal journey to work is across the hall.
I’ve previously been to the Grand Connaught Rooms, the conference venue, but I’d forgotten how imposing the staircase is, and the grandeur of the huge mirrors and glittering chandeliers in the main room.
During the morning’s panel discussion Emma Elston, of UK Container Maintenance Ltd, gave a very honest and engaging account the growth of the business she started with her husband after he went out to earn extra money on a rubbish collection. Their turnover from refurbishing skips is now £6.5 million a year and Emma was frank about how they had achieved this. For example they lived in a caravan with an outside loo in order to put as much money as possible into the business. Also interesting to hear how anxious she was about making the decision to borrow £100,000 for a big new site when a major opportunity came their way. We are all afraid of failure, but success can present its own challenges too!
Over lunch I met some lovely women from different parts of the UK, including one running a website selling kit for referees, a cake maker and a musician, which is a fair indication of the diversity of the everywoman community. Unfortunately I managed to miss the profiteroles by popping out to make a phone call and grab some fresh air before the afternoon Masterclasses!
Amanda Phillips of An Abundance gave a fascinating presentation about human psychology and how understanding the way we think can help us to grab and keep the attention of visitors to our websites. My site is unrecognisable from when it started over two years ago, and is due for an update, so this was a very timely session for me and I’ll definitely be putting Amanda’s tips into practice.
I had to rush back to Paddington instead of ending the day with a glass of wine and more networking, but my overall impression as I left was of a happy bunch of women, full to the brim with new information and contacts, ready to return to their businesses with renewed vigour.
I’m looking forward to connecting with lots of female business owners in my new role of Ambassador on the recently relaunched everywoman Network. More about that soon!
This post was first published on everywoman.com, the online network for women in business open to challenge and change.
StartUp Secrets for home workers with Emma Jones
23 months ago
by Judy
in Events for home workers
StartUp Secrets was the title of yesterday’s How to Work from Home -The Inside Guide meet-up at Central, and who better to reveal the factors contributing to business success than Emma Jones of Enterprise Nation and StartUp Britain?
Emma grew up in a family that ran restaurants throughout her childhood and expected that she and her brother would play a full part – to the extent of her brother standing on a box to reach the till! Her self-confessed initial slacking at university was turned around by spending a year in Japan and experiencing at first hand the hard-working Japanese culture.
She worked for Arthur Andersen for only five years after university before leaving to start her first business, which attracted a sale within two years. The inspiration for Enterprise Nation came from reading the biography of Martha Stewart, the American home and lifestyle guru. Emma realised that women no longer simply want to create a nice home, they also want to make an income from home. Nobody was providing information on home business so she stepped in to fill the gap in the market.
After the Enterprise Nation website came books and Working 5 to 9 featured startup Claire’s Handmade Cakes, which was two years old and going strong on Wednesday. As you can see from the photo Claire brought along a batch of biscuits beautifully decorated with her logo, most of which had disappeared before we all left!
We covered lots of ground talking about attendees’ experiences and discussing their current challenges, so I’ll be covering some of Emma’s startup tips in future blogs. Look out for posts covering the importance of being a business information sponge, Emma’s top things to avoid when you’re starting a business, and how to use your weaknesses to your advantage.
StartUp Secrets for home workers
63 months ago
by Judy
in Events for home workers
I’m very much looking forward to the next How to Work from Home – The Inside Guide meet-up at Central on Thursday 27 October. Our guest this month is Emma Jones, who founded the website Enterprise Nation from her home in Shrewsbury in 2006 to help people starting and growing a business at home. Enterprise Nation rapidly grew a large community and within a few years Emma was being asked to advise government on small business.
This year she has co-founded StartUp Britain, the campaign by successful entrepreneurs to get more businesses started, and has been travelling round the country in a double-decker bus spreading the startup word far and wide! Emma spoke on the main stage at the recent Conservative Party conference and is in demand as a speaker at leading conferences and events (like The BIG Jelly in March this year!)
We’re deliberately restricting the number of places at the event (so book yours here quickly!) to retain the informal, conversational atmosphere we’ve created at the meet-ups, and so that all attendees get a chance to ask Emma their own questions. She is down-to-earth and open as well as being extremely knowledgeable, so I’m anticipating another fun and inspiring evening like the recent ones with Clare Flynn Levy, James Layfield and San Sharma.
Emma will be talking about her amazing success and the factors she believes have contributed to it, and which you can use too to reach your business goals. I wonder whether she’ll mention the role of family as a launchpad for the successful would-be entrepreneur? I worked with her mum, Fay Easton, on the organisation of The BIG Jelly earlier this year and learnt a huge amount from her in doing so. Fay runs Enterprise HQ, a contemporary workhub stylishly carved out of an old industrial building in Coalport, Shropshire, and works tirelessly for her local business community. Surely having an entrepreneurial parent has got to give you a headstart?
Top 13 tech tools for home workers, part 3
143 months ago
In the final part of her write-up of San Sharma’s Top 10 Tech Tools Francesca Geens of Digital Dragonfly describes San’s bonus, plus a couple of her own favourites:
11. iftt: San’s bonus to the list was completely new to me and a great little service that lets you automate various tasks. If This Then That lets you set triggers and actions. So if you would like to save the photo you take with Instagram to your Dropbox account you can. Simply look at their list of top automations to pick the ones that would save you time.
Personally I only use 4 of the above on a daily basis (Dropbox, Twitter, Buffer and Google Reader) so don’t feel overwhelmed if there are unfamiliar names on the list. Best to use just one effectively than set up accounts with lots and then loose track of what you are storing where!
I am all for keeping thing simple and try to use as little as possible to do what I need to do. The following 2 are essential daily tools for me:
12. Office365: this is how I manage my emails, calendar and contacts. Office365 is a recently launched service from Microsoft which offers Exchange Online to sync all your data across as many devices as you like. I have Outlook on 3 different laptops at home (all different sizes- I am in tech, remember!) and also manage my calendar, contacts and emails on my phone. Sometimes when I am working on the go I will borrow a laptop and access all my data through an Outlook browser app. Unlike everything on San’s list this one will cost you £4+VAT a month and is available for both Mac and PC users.
13. 1Password: another essential for me- password management software so you never need to remember your passwords. Sloppy password management will make you vulnerable to hackers so its important to keep strong and different passwords for everything. Spending some time setting up this software is a great way to protect yourself and save time from having to reset passwords when you can’t remember them! Again not a free one but in this case also worth paying.
I hope this list of 13 tools proves useful in saving you time – if there is anything we’ve left off the list leave a comment and let us know how you use technology to save you time.
Francesca Geens founded Digital Dragonfly to help tiny businesses with their IT and technology. She is especially interested in productivity and the use of technology to improve people’s day-to-day business lives, and is offering one of her unique Best-Practice Consultancy sessions for free every month to support individuals setting up their own businesses. Find out if you are eligible to apply.
Top 13 tech tools for home workers, part 2
74 months ago
Francesca Geens of Digital Dragonfly, non-geeky IT help for one man businesses, continues her summary of Top 10 Tech Tools, the recent How to Work from Home event:
6. Flow / Toodledo: I am a big fan of Getting Things Done by David Allen and ever since reading it use a task list to manage my business and personal to do’s. Personally I use Outlook tasks but both these apps are other great cloud based ways of tracking your tasks.
7. Twitter: We looked at a range of Twitter options from the ‘just’ Twitter’s own app to more complex apps like Tweetdeck and Hootsuite. The latter are great if you need to manage more than one stream, if you want to schedule tweets or get analytics. Overall the preference fell for Hootsuite as being user friendly and having good looking interface. We also briefly discussed apps like Qwitter which let you see who unfollows you (might be best not to find out!) and Tweriod which lets you know when your followers are most likely to be online.
8. Buffer app: still on the subject of Twitter- whilst we all agreed that scheduling tweets needs to be done with care as it’s a good idea not to flood your followers with tweets. So if you are catching up on your reading send tweets to Buffer and let it automatically spread your tweets throughout the day. Since the workshop I have now added this to my Google Reader so I can tweet to Buffer straight from there: time-saving or what!
9. Basecamp: a great project management app from 37signals which has a free option giving your full functionality with a single project. So whether you are managing your wedding (as in San’s case!) or a client project another great way to keep everything organized and in the cloud.
10. Dropbox: Everyone attending the workshop was already using Dropbox though perhaps not to its full potential. This is a great way to work offline, backup to the cloud and get access to your work from any browser or other machine in which you log into your Dropbox account. I personally have saved all my business and personal documents to Dropbox (the free account is large enough for this) and can access them from 3 different computers that I work on, from any browser and from my phone- essential for any mobile worker.
San also had a bonus for us, plus Francesca has some favourites to add, so there’s still more to come soon! Have you tried any of these suggestions? We’d love to know how you got on.
