trendpreneur

Alternate title: Things I Keep Doing That I Know I Shouldn’t (And If You Catch Me Doing Them, Slap Me)

(Yeah, I have a few thoughts on FOWA I want to get down, but a thousand things to do as well; this was written late at night while dahn Souf, so it’s not like it’s effort to post. Right?)

1. It’s all me, me, me.

I know I’m the most important person in the world, but I should really take time out of my busy schedule to ask *you* questions. When you ask me ‘So, what do you do?’ I should reply with something brief, yet informative, and fire the same question back at you. Not only will it help establish myself as a good listener, it’ll help me centre my self-description around what you do and know.

2. When Harry Met Sally (Via Roger)

Not so much an in-person intro, this, but something I’ve been caught up with a couple of times lately. When you refer someone you know to someone else, don’t send them to each other – introduce them. “Hey Bob, how’s it going? Thought you might like to meet Alice.” Not “this is Alice’s email address, say I sent you”. The latter is appropriate in *some* contexts, but not in email and not in person.

3. Let’s get physical

I’m usually carrying a bag. This means if I have to carry a coat as well, or a second bag, or a small child, I’m not going to have a hand easily free without overbalancing and looking even more clumsy than I already am. The alternative is to look really impolite and not shake someone’s hand. I’m not Arrington. Ditch the coat (even if it does act as mobile pockets) and go around empty-handed, girl. Secondly, even though it might be a geek event, stop staring into the distance when talking to someone. You just give the impression something else is far more interesting than they are.

4. Card time

I partly blame this on the aforementioned pockets and bags and things, but it’s not a great excuse. I need to swap cards more. I’m getting pretty good at managing other people’s cards, and remembering why I took them in the first place, but if I don’t give people mine, they’re not going to contact me.

5. Keep in touch

Again something which came up recently; just because *you* think you’re waiting for the other person to call or email, doesn’t mean they think the holdup’s their end. If you haven’t heard from someone in a while, it’s not nagging to drop them a friendly line asking to touch base. It’s much better than finding out months down the line that they thought you were uncontactable and aloof because you were being too polite to nag them about replying to an email.

6. Stop apologising

Sorry.

7. Use small talk wisely

I recently read on the Internets  that making only small talk at a networking event makes you seem like an amateur. It’s not so bad if you’re at an event with unpracticed techies, not smarmy businessspeople, but still; if your entire conversation with someone is about the quality of the soap in the toilets, or the length of the queue you’re in, what point was there for you to talk in the first place? (Unless you’re building up to working a room, of course.)

8. Don’t be afraid to say something

Man, it’s scary being at tech events. People either side of you in a queue, or sitting in a hall, won’t even look at you. It’s as if you’re totally invisible. Don’t let this faze you. Even if you say hi and ask them how the wifi’s holding up, the worst that happens is they totally ignore you. Which they were kinda doing already.

9. Chat with people on stands, but get out quickly

Having worked trade show booths and stands, it can be nice to get people talking – if the area isn’t busy, even if they’re on a tangent, it’s more likely to get other people coming up to you as you appear interesting. Talking to people at stands doesn’t always mean you have to stand there rigid under the influence of a megaton sales pitch. Make it clear you’re there for the free stuff and you don’t think your interests overlap; make it a challenge to find out if they do, or to find out enough about them that you could introduce a contact to them. You keep their lives less dull and gain an ally for future use. A lot of the same people work the same booths at multiple conferences, of course! However, don’t spend ten minutes nodding sagely at a pointless sales pitch. Know when enough is enough, and get the hell out.

10. Make yourself visible – if you want to be

Ask questions in sessions. Talk to the speakers afterwards, Hell, talk to the people who asked questions. Try to remember names and faces and come up to them the next day with something from the previous one. Be active on twitter – interact with others. Ask someone you already know to introduce you to someone interesting. Introduce someone you already know to someone interesting. Buy someone lunch. Get bought lunch. Hang around an attraction and make yourself seem approachable. Stop standing in the corner staring at your feet and getting a headache from writing introspective blog posts about how antisocial you are. Just get out there and be social.

Jennie is currently trying to invent a cloning machine and/or time travel device. If it can do networking too, she thinks she’s on to a winner. She’s also looking for a new blog theme, if you know a good ‘un…

I love it when other people do work so I don’t have to. This week’s fluffy pink kudos goes to StartupCafe, for their weekly ‘menu’ of startup events in Edinburgh – something I’ve been half-heartedly meaning to get compiling myself, and never quite got around to.

This week’s events can be found here.

There’s one thing entrepreneurs have, and have to manage with the utmost precision: time.

It’s all too easy to get beguiled by the promise of events, networking, pitching, business development, seminars, courses, lectures, speakers, dinners, lunches, breakfasts, workshops, clinics and one-to-ones.

But it’s also easy to end up running around from one reasonably-pointless event to another, without spending time on the important stuff, like actually running the business. It’s the classic problem, it feels like work, but it isn’t.

The important thing is to learn to say no – and initially, it’s hard to figure out which are the opportunities you should be saying no to. After all, isn’t that what entrepreneurship is all about? Seizing opportunities? Well, yes.

So how do you balance? How do you deal with the fact that even at the most useless of events, you’ll probably meet someone useful? How do you weigh the constant need for networking and creating awareness of your business with the need to code, to sell, to design?

Sadly, there isn’t a perfect answer. If there was, I’d be rich. But the easiest thing is to practice – to carry out post-mortems, figure out why event X was good and event Y disappointing, keep track of who’s going to which events, send others on your behalf, watch online, take notes, do a cost/benefit analysis (in your head!) of travelling and time out.

Recognise when things are more important than free events, no matter how much your internal voice says “free! It must be good!”.

But also recognise that if you work in a darkened room for months on end, without learning, socialising, mingling, spreading, selling, getting feedback, asking for help… you’re setting yourself up for failure before you’ve even started. There’s a balance for each of us – and each of us has to find it ourselves.

(This doesn’t just apply to events, of course. Even opportunities, odd jobs, guest-speaking, article-writing, etc, etc, can sap time and energy away from the core of business. However, it’s easier to get flattered into, or oversold on, free events that turn out to be a waste of time.)

I’ve run across several young entrepreneurs lately who are starting up businesses in Scotland (well, Edinburgh specifically). I keep mentioning the same resources to them, so it’s about time I put it all in one place.

• EPIS at the University of Edinburgh is a great opportunity to get started with a safety net. A loan from Scottish Enterprise, office space and hosting within the University, access to academic resources and mentoring, and tons of help and advice to boot. The programme won’t be accepting new applications for much longer, so get in fast.
• Scottish Enterprise is a fairly hard nut to crack. There’s a lot of support available and I, at least, found it hard to research online. The easiest way to get a rundown of the grants, co-investment and support (mostly financial) available is to get in touch with a human being; you might need to go through Business Gateway, who are dubiously helpful.
• PSYBT, if you’re under 25, is a nice source of very practical advice (eg. a bookkeeping course) as well as grants and loans.
• If you’re doing something disruptive with digital media, 4iP could help. They’re worth contacting to hash out ideas as well as to try and get financial backing.
• 38minutes is 4iP’s social network, which is a great one-stop place to find out what events are on and what’s hot in the world of social media. For example, it tells you about…
• …Edinburgh Coffee Morning, every Friday at Centotre. I am notoriously bad at going to this, but if you want to hobnob with social/digital meeja, startups and web devs, it’s the place to be. You might also enjoy…
• TechMeetup, now in both Edinburgh and Glasgow flavours. A monthly hackerfest with the odd spinoff gathering and a mailing list that cool stuff occasionally floats across.
• If you’re interested in more structured events, Informatics Ventures often throw great educational and networking-heavy events, from courses to expos. Recent highlights have included Guy Kawasaki and Doug Richard.
• A shameless plug for a new site started by startup types here: StartupCafe (which, when I visit it, has as its first post a listing somewhat similar to this one!). Any site with a competition to win pancakes is good in my book.
• Related, Edinburgh Uni’s E-club and Launch.ed — both a little dormant now due to the end of the academic year — are good organisations with great people. Events, networking, advice, support, etc.
• And, totally unrelated to the above, Hacker News is an excellent morning read, and applying to Y Combinator’s funding rounds is a very educational process. There are a couple of Edinburgh startup types in its irc channel (#startups on freenode) and others from the UK.

Enjoy, and do let me know if there’s more stuff I’ve missed!

Just a quick note to say I’ll be at Informatics Ventures’ Engage, Invest, Exploit exhibition tomorrow. The fun kicks off at 2.30pm in the Informatics Forum – the shiny new building on Crichton St.

Looks to be a great event, with Guy Kawasaki talking (twice!). Might even be able to tweet the talk a little. See you there!