Exploring a new (to me) social network Taking IT Global.

Based in Toronto they’ve got the usual global presence but with a more social awareness and personal activism angle. Interesting to see how this develops and the relative attention spent between all the different networking stuff going on.

The revolving doors of senior executives are just as active at Young Enterprise companies as at Fortune 500 ones.

In something of a shock move last week, StylEco decided to unseat one of their MD’s. Written warnings had been given, the HR policy had been followed and despite some dissenting voices the motion was carried. All a bit traumatic, made the more so when I discovered that the reason that MD wasn’t present was because she was at a family funeral, just after Christmas.

As their Business Advisor I was aware that some rumblings were afoot in the ranks but this is a very energetic group and getting to consensus and decision in a 1 hour meeting sometimes means calling a halt to discussion. Which can make you unpopular.

This week she appealed the decision and was voted back in with an overwhelming vote of confidence. Some things you have to nip in the bud, others are best left to play themselves out. The vote of confidence will also help both MDs re-imposed their control over the meeting and company.

As part of the learning that the mini-crisis caused, a new seating plan was enforced that helped to break up some of the noisier clusters.

The other big news on the agenda was the Valentines Trade fair in Bristol Galleries (Wed, 6 Feb if you’re in the centre of Bristol). Along with making sure they would have enough stock of their best selling eco-friendly bags and purses, they are planning on introducing two new lines - cushions and sets of fridge-magnet letter tiles made from old PC and laptop keyboards.

Quite a bit of time was spent discussing uniforms and logos (seems to be a recurring theme this year) and the meeting finally concluded with a reasonable plan in place.

I’m always staggered by the amount of research that Sam’s doing. This has always been on her CV but never very public.

So I’ve finally persuaded her to put some of the more recent links up here.

As well as published work, we’re going to try and keep a running track of articles, posters and presentations that are in draft or submitted but not yet accepted. Obviously we won’t be able to go into full details before publication but hopefully there will be something that will give a flavour of what she gets up to.

Should we ever get around to some joint research or non-clinical stuff there will be more to talk about openly.

Enjoy.

Research is always fun to do. Part of that is figuring out how to actually accomplish what you want to do. However the bit which all bosses want are the outputs. After a considerable amount of trawling through medical notes, patient interviews, postal surveys and then data analysis, I and several doctors have written and submitted five abstracts to the British Association of Oral and Maxiollfacial Surgeons annual conference.

Of course submission does not equal acceptance. So now we have the waiting game. To fill this time we are concentrating on producing articles for publication in peer review journals. Watch this space to find out our success rate and where the abstracts and subsequent articles can be read.

We put a submission in but were unsuccessful so well done to everyone.

There’s an interesting mix of ideas. Personally I can’t wait to see what HMC and Aardman come up with on Ani-mates. Harmonize sounds like a hyped-up Treasure Hunt or Challenge Annika and I’m sure that Power-to-the-People has been done several times before including the chap that lets you control his Christmas lights in aid of Celiac, amongst others. I like the idea of Happy Packages, so long as it doesn’t degenerate into Facebook poking everywhere, all the time; but then maybe that’s what makes most people most happy most of the time…

I’m not quite sure what Swarm and Happy Town are out to achieve but I’m sure it’ll be interesting. Full list on the Media Sandbox site.

More news to follow, plus each project has it’s own project blog / journal to watch.