Gardens Illustrated magazine is celebrating its 30th birthday this year, and to mark the occasion, the team are holding a special evening of conversation hosted by Gardens Illustrated editor Stephanie Mahon.
Steph will be joined by landscape gardener Dan Pearson OBE; Claire Ratinon, author, speaker and radio presenter; and garden designer Tom Massey, as they discuss the ways our gardens and gardening have changed over the past three decades, the most pressing issues we face now, and what the future of horticulture may hold.
The event will be taking place on Thursday 23rd March, at 7pm.
Join in person here: https://bit.ly/GIOMlive
Join online here: https://bit.ly/GIOMonline
Along with being a great place to meet like-minded creatives, We’ll be screening the brilliant short ‘Swiped’ by Luke Collins & hosting guest speaker, Tom Brereton Downs!
This is an exclusive opportunity to:
February’s guest speaker is Screenology‘s Tom Brereton Downs. Tom dares you to take more risks, make more mistakes, do less of what you’re “supposed” to do, and more of what works! All within his purpose-built talk, “Ten Dangerous Ideas for Filmmakers”.
Find out more info and sign up here!
Event: The CMO’s Guide to Customer Acquisition
Microsoft will join a select panel of senior marketing professionals in Bristol this March to discuss how businesses can best drive more online customers through digital marketing.
Hosted by South West performance agency Launch, the breakfast event will be held on March 22nd at the Showcase Cinema de Lux in Bristol from 8:30 – 11am.
The CMO’s Guide to Customer Acquisition will provide a vital opportunity for like-minded marketers and brands to listen and debate with other CMOs about their successes, challenges and their strategies around data, conversion optimisation and paid media.
Marion Gould, Client Partner Lead at Microsoft, will be speaking on ‘Marketing with purpose: how to create a strong brand in digital marketing.’ Also on the schedule is the managing director of Launch, Jaye Cowle, who will chair a panel debate with senior marketing leaders to open the event, discussing the evolution of performance marketing.
Jaye Cowle says: “This is set to be a really insightful event for marketers, brands, and business owners. Together with our brilliant guests, and media partner Microsoft, you can learn how brands like yours are getting the most from their performance marketing activity.”
In addition to Microsoft, there will be panel discussion with Barney Bell, Head of Marketing for David Salisbury; Piers Tincknell from Atomic Smash and Harriet Barter, Account Director at Launch, on ‘Why channel diversification is key to converting and finding new audiences.’
Data Strategist, Michael Patten, will discuss the countdown to GA4 in ‘Leverage your data to target new customers.’ In addition, Launch’s Conversion Director Joe Johnston will be joined by Account Manager Josh Marinaro to discuss the customer experience: ‘How incremental website changes can bring big results.’
Find out more about the schedule and book a place at this event
Picture: Marion Gould, Client Partner Lead at Microsoft, will be speaking on Marketing with Purpose.
The Grand Appeal is gearing up for another fortnight of streaming fun in partnership with Jingle Jam, the world’s biggest charity gaming event.
From the 1st – 14th December, Bristol-based gaming company, Yogscast host Jingle Jam on Twitch – the popular gaming streaming platform – to raise funds for The Grand Appeal and other charitable causes. The event attracts more than 250,000 unique views annually for the live 14-day programme of Christmas festivities.
This is the sixth consecutive year The Grand Appeal and Jingle Jam have partnered up for the festive fundraising appeal, raising £1.4m to date, and this year there are multiple ways the public can support The Grand Appeal, the dedicated charity for Bristol Children’s Hospital.
Supporters of the charity can purchase the now iconic Jingle Jam Games Collection.
This year’s Jingle Jam Games Collection is the biggest yet: with almost 90 games worth over £1,000 and is available to anyone who donates over £35 (about $42).
People can also support The Grand Appeal by tuning into live streams and donating. There are many live streams happening during Jingle Jam 2022. But highlights include a live model making session, with Aardman veteran Jim Parkyn on Friday 9 December. Joining Jingle Jam streamers, Briony, Osie and Boba, Jim will present a live Christmas crafts stream where they’ll re-create some of Yogscast’s iconic characters.
This year, fundraisers can also run their own live streams, but it doesn’t have to be related to gaming.
Fundraisers can stream anything they like. It could be painting, a sing-along, cooking, baking or even a quiz. Anything you love, or have a talent for, can be turned into a stream, and for those needing a little help to get one started, can do so with the support of The Grand Appeal and Jingle Jam.
Fundraising for The Grand Appeal through Jingle Jam will fund the creation of a unique facility in the city. With the help of the incredible Jingle Jam community, The Grand Appeal plan to build Jingle Jam Building. This ground-breaking project will allow patients who require long-term rehabilitation and therapy, following an accident or major surgery, and who are not quite yet ready to go home, to stay free of charge and receive the further rehabilitation they need while being able to stay with their family. Jingle Jam Building will be the first of its kind in the UK.
“Choosing to support The Grand Appeal through Jingle Jam helps build a better future for sick children from across the South West”, says Sarah McBride, Head of Philanthropy, at The Grand Appeal.
“Many families from outside Bristol arrive at the children’s hospital with nowhere to stay in an unfamiliar city. Some stay for days, but many stay for weeks or even months while their child receives specialist care. This proposed facility will mean parents can be together with their child during the last steps of their recovery.”
“Whether you tune into a stream, start one of your own, or just pick up the Jingle Jam Games Collection, it all goes to support the young patients of Bristol Children’s Hospital and their families.”
Lewis Brindley, co-founder, The Yogscast and Jingle Jam Trustee said: “Once again, we are humbled by the generosity and passion of the global games industry. Jingle Jam is always the highlight of the year for us here, and with this collection of games we’re confident we’ll top last year’s enormous figure.
“This year’s charities span a range of diverse, important issues – we urge you to find out more about each and every one of them. We know times are tough right now for a lot of people, so if you are not in a position to donate this year, please don’t worry about it, come and watch the live streams online and join in the fun. But if you are in a position to donate and can find it in your heart to donate generously, you’ll be raising funds for some hugely important causes.”
Since 1995, The Grand Appeal has raised over £70m to ensure that the young patients and their families at the children’s hospital receive the very best care by funding life-saving medical equipment, specialist staff, accommodation for families, and a programme of art, music and play therapies.
To join the official Jingle Jam live streams from Thursday 1 December on Twitch visit www.twitch.tv/yogscast and to donate and or purchase the games bundle visit jinglejam.co.uk.
For more information about The Grand Appeal and JingleJam visit www.grandappeal.org.uk/jinglejam
This article first appeared on LinkedIn.
As Elon Musk, Twitter’s new owner slashes thousands of intelligent, hard-working, committed and highly-rewarded employees from its payroll in order to save losses reported to be $4 million per day, now might be a sensible time to ask yourself what you would do if something similar happened at your organisation? In reality, most employees don’t have a Plan B.
From his book Vital Lies, Simple Truths: The Psychology of Self-Deception” Daniel Goleman writes: “..people seem to anaesthetise themselves as though the danger was too vast to arouse concern.”
With a global recession looming, what is currently happening at Twitter, is perhaps an early warning sign that we can (or even ‘should’) expect far more mass redundancies in 2023 and beyond.
UPDATE: Just a few days after this article was first published on LinkedIn, BBC BREAKING NEWS: “Facebook-owner Meta to cut 13% of its workforce… In total 11,000 employees are to be laid off from its worldwide headcount of 87,000 people.
Yes. Dust off your CV. Give it a polish. But in a global downturn, what if decent jobs simply don’t exist for a while? And as we’ve all discovered from the pandemic, if you can work from home – so can every other highly-educated and equally experienced applicant. In whatever country they live in.
Setting up your own business, or running a ‘side-hustle’ alongside your existing job is an option worth considering. And so is ‘freelancing’. That’s the area in which I have most experience.
I’ve been a full-time freelancer since 1978 – my entire working life (except for a 4 year period when I was under contract to the BBC as an announcer – but even then, I had my own ‘side-hustle’ as a voice-over and corporate video presenter). I’ve been self-employed through two recessions. To describe those times as ‘challenging’ would be a gross under-statement.
In the mid-90s a freelance journalist wrote an article in the Sunday Times about a seminar I delivered to help freelancers generate more business.
As a direct result of that article, I received more than 3,000 letters (it was before email) from struggling freelancers asking for help. Since then, the ‘gig’ economy has exploded. And it’s highly likely to expand even further. After delivering countless freelancer seminars, way back in 1998, I commissioned some detailed research about freelancing – this was part of the introduction to the report:
“The majority continue to dismiss or under-estimate the impact the changing employment market is having and will have. Self-employment, and freelance self-employment is likely to play an increasing role in the new employment landscape. For a society dominated by the employee mind-set, this raises profound questions, and a deal of apprehension. When the freelance experience is viewed through corporate eyes and with an employee mind-set, a different picture emerges from the one which unfolded during the survey.”
You can download the original report here.
At 90+ pages, you might not want to read every page – but even from light skimming, you’ll see that some aspects of freelancing could have been written last week, not 24 years ago.
Because it was the first research of its type, it was referenced in the House of Commons at that time. No government action was taken. However, I was invited to submit a proposal to provide up-to-date, practical training for freelancers to be offered by a government agency. I presented what I thought was a strong business case; freelancers can be well paid, so if you help them generate more business, they earn more and ultimately contribute more tax. This would therefore self-fund the government supported training. Sadly nothing came of it. I was later informed by someone within government procurement, that you have to be a company, not ‘just’ a freelancer to be accepted as a supplier to UK government. Oh, the irony!
As someone who has since trained thousands of freelancers face-to-face and online, they learn how to structure their businesses in such a way that they can have MORE job security than a mere employee – who, if you think about it in this way, have only one ‘client’. The most savvy, forward-thinking b2b freelancers consciously decide to work with a variety of clients in different industry sectors which operate at different stages in the economic cycle. Developing this type of ‘work-portfolio’ is not fool proof. But it beats crossing your fingers and hoping for the best.
I’m holding a free evening seminar for Bristol freelancers at the Square Club on 15th November – for pre-registered attendees only. Register here.
Successful freelancers know that you dig a well BEFORE you’re thirsty.
Now is the time for employees and the self-employed alike to pick up a shovel and start digging for new clients and opportunities.
Design a work future that gives you more options. Only you can do that. Don’t expect your employer or your government to bail you out. They will have bigger problems to deal with.
And if one morning you discover, as happened to those thousands of unfortunate workers at Twitter that you’ve been locked out of your laptop or your pass key doesn’t work anymore, please don’t say “This came out of nowhere. We had no idea.”
Every worker (employed or self-employed) really does need a Plan B.
I’m a semi-retired veteran freelancer who produces and presents professional online TV shows and facilitates/emcees large-scale international congresses. I’m also the founder of the FreelancerSupport.Online community.
Our creative and digital industries are facing a critical shortage of developer skills right now, particularly when it comes to Web3 developers, with Web3 developers only representing 1% of worldwide devs. Yet there’s so much potential for positive, disruptive change. Collectively we need to up-skill our teams to realise that huge potential.
But WTF is Web3 and why should we care?
Simpleweb is hosting a month-long virtual festival throughout October to help to demystify Web3 and see past the nonsense. The goal is to onboard the next generation of Web3 talent across the UK. Similar to a hackathon format, they’ll be helping agencies, developers and UX teams learn the fundamentals and begin their Web3 journey, using a range of Web3 tools and best choice blockchains.
Participants will learn about Web3 and its benefits to help build expertise and extend product & service offerings, and agencies can enter individuals or teams who will be able to work together and bring their collective knowledge back to share with others. They’ll also receive an NFT certificate of completion, as well as get the chance to win a number of prizes across different categories. It’s free to join, and could contribute to agencies’ CPD efforts as well as innovation endeavours.
Another opportunity for us to pull together to put Bristol on the map, supporting our creative and tech talent and building an even stronger community. Why wouldn’t you?
https://www.meetup.com/simpleweb/events/287735158/
Founded in 1990, The Square is Bristol’s Private Members Club for the creative industries, located on Berkeley Square. Members of The Square are part of a unique community of like-minded creative professionals. The Square provides an arena of original thought and discussion, and members enjoy a range of personal and professional benefits.
Along with a vibrant events programme and an award-winning restaurant, The Square provides a dynamic social environment and a flexible workspace. Equipped with a boutique lounge, the Square Kitchen restaurant, the Lower Deck Cocktail Bar and hidden city-centre Terrace, The Square is ideal for working, socialising, holding events and meeting new people.
The Square Club connects creatives across the world, and has reciprocal arrangements with clubs in the following locations:
BCI members can apply for discounted membership at a rate of £60 per quarter. This not only gives members access to The Square Club, but to all of the reciprocal venues around the world.
For an additional fee, membership can be upgraded to include access to Square Works, The Square’s high-end, part and full time serviced offices and co-working space.
Square Member Benefits include:
To apply for discounted membership, please email [email protected].
Would you and your team benefit from learning about and committing to experimenting with new ways of working? If so, join my online course in July – BCI members receive a 10% discount 🤗
In a nutshell, we’ll focus on the common challenges and tensions felt by teams (the perfect inspiration for your experiments); what Harvard, MIT and Google research tells us about great teams; healthy meeting structures; helpful mindsets; power; encouraging a culture of feedback; and techniques for better decision-making.
I love delivering this course. The first seven have been full houses, the feedback has been fantastic, and I can’t wait to go again!
100% of participants “feel more comfortable experimenting with new ways of working” & “would recommend the course to colleagues” 💯
The course objectives are for you to enjoy your job more and to be an even better member of your team. You’ll learn collaboration and leadership skills, how to facilitate meetings that don’t feel like a chore, and how to make better decisions by quickly seeking and integrating the wisdom of the group. You’ll learn how to give ‘brain-friendly’ feedback, recognise what’s getting in the way of being a great team (tensions), and understand the mindset and power dynamics that help or hinder change.
To do this we’ll borrow from the best sources. These include agile, self-management, organisational psychology, and the most progressive companies on the planet. There’s more detail below in the ‘Course overview’ section of the course page, including who’s been attending, eligibility, and course feedback scores.
– By far one of the most useful, practical, engaging, interesting courses I’ve been on. Hats off to you, super well thought out, from a practical, mental and emotional perspective.
– The experimenting methodology gives me the opportunity to not only “take a course” but actually practising in the “real world”.
– The benefits to the business have been tangible and resulted in me thinking about work in a very different way.
– I loved having another colleague on the course and would totally recommend others try to do the same… I loved the organisation of the course, it all felt incredibly “slick.” … I loved Marks humble approach, he listened to us all intently and was patient with us when we needed more time on certain things.
– The experiments each week really helped me grow my comfort towards experimenting further. They gave me the perspective of how much needs to be a done, and an eye for what might be ‘bite-size’.
– I loved Marks generosity, he clearly spends a lot of time preparing and introduced me to very cool tools that we are now using in the organisation.
– The depth of experience and further research Mark has done to curate bite sized resource for us to cover weekly, in a number of mediums, was incredibly satisfying to absorb and kept me engaged over the 5 weeks.
– As a facilitator, you do add quite a bit of magic sauce to holding the space, and your curation of materials is unbeatable.
Your New Ways of Working journey will be more impactful if you have colleagues along for the ride, so you are advised (and incentivised) to bring one or two along.
To secure your place please double-check the eligibility criteria on the course page then send a note to confirm ([email protected]) and that’s it, you’re enrolled!
Rita will talk about how she has found brand thinking not just fundamental to successful businesses of all shapes, sizes and stages, but also how you can apply it to yourself to ensure that you are as valued and influential as you can be. She will:
Tickets are priced at £50+VAT for BCI members and £75+VAT for non-members which includes a buffet lunch so there’ll be plenty of opportunity to catch up with old friends and make some new connections too.
If you’d like to join the BCI network, read all about becoming a BCI member here.
As a high-profile business leader, acclaimed brand guru and sustainability champion, Rita is able to inspire organisations of all kinds to find new ways to succeed in an uncertain world.
She has been called ‘Brand guru’ by the Financial Times and ‘The doyenne of branding’ by Campaign magazine. Retail Week commented that she is ‘A fabulous ambassador for business’. Alongside her board chairing and non-executive roles, Rita is a writer, keynote speaker, conference chair & practitioner on all aspects of brands, branding and business leadership.
Her career has included being a Vice Chair and Strategy Director at Saatchi & Saatchi, as London CEO and Chair at the global brand consultancy Interbrand and as co-founder of BrandCap. She is now a portfolio chair and non-executive director on the board of businesses including John Lewis Partnership, Nationwide Building Society and Ascential plc. Previous boards have included ASOS, Dixons Retail plc, Emap, Bupa and Populus Group. Her non-profit boards have included WWF (Worldwide Fund for Nature), the UK Sustainable Development Commission and Green Alliance. She was recently appointed Chair at Forum for the Future, the leading international sustainability organisation. In the 2014 New Year’s Honours List, Rita was awarded a CBE for services to the creative industries.
Rita is a regular columnist and media commentator, as well as author of ‘The Future of Brands’ and two editions of The Economist book ‘Brands and Branding’. Her new book on leadership ‘Love your imposter’ was launched by Kogan Page in September 2020.
Join award-winning paid media agency Launch, alongside Google and Microsoft, at an event designed to inform, educate and reassure businesses that a cookieless future doesn’t mean the end of in-depth insights.
The two breakfast events will be held on 11th May at the Engine Shed in Bristol, and 19th May at the Hotel du Vin in Exeter (8:30 – 10:30am). They will provide a vital opportunity for South West businesses to understand the changes to data capture, as consumers are given more control of their online presence, with potential financial fines for non-compliance.
Jaye Cowle, Managing Director at Launch, says: “This is an extremely important workshop for business owners and marketers. Google and Microsoft will be in the room presenting on the changes that have happened, and how to adjust your marketing as a result. It is imperative that marketing departments understand how to responsibly track and engage with your customers in the future.”
In addition to representatives from Google and Microsoft, there will be presentations from Launch’s Data Strategist Michael Patten, and Noisy Little Monkey’s Technical Director Jon Payne. They will cover some alternative routes businesses can take as user permission and data visibility in digital marketing become increasingly important and sensitive topics.
Places are limited, so register your attendance in either Bristol or Exeter today.
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