Category Archives: News

Meet Up Mondays IoD YDF Informal Networking

All members are invited to attend and can bring up to two guests to any meeting. Any non IoD member should get in touch through LinkedIn to confirm their attendance.

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IoD Young Directors Forum Yorkshire and Humber

Stepping up to the Challenge

2009 has been a great year for the Young Directors Forum, we have had a great turn out to our events and we have run more engaging events for our membership that have provided real value and networking. (more…)

Thoughts on: Survive and Thrive – How to manage your business in tough times

Today I attend an inspiring event hosted by IoD YDF & Business Link Yorkshire at Gandhi Hall, Leeds Met Uni.

Andy Chapman, IoD YDF Committee collaborated with the team at Business Link to put on an informative event. Which aim was to give practical tips for business owners in Leeds about how they can manage their businesses in tough times. (more…)

Blogging and your overall marketing strategy

Last week I attended the IoD Director of the Yearawards in Leeds. Vernon George, Director of Regions and Branches gave a closing speech. The theme of the speech was ‘The Green Shoots of Recovery’ and whether there are signs of things improving or not.

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If I went to a networking event and met someone in the same industry – what would you talk about!?

A while back at a networking event I met someone who was a web company who did SEO and SMM – including blogging and twitter.

We started talking about the approaches to SEO and SMM – and I was amazed that we had such different views.

I take a more holistic approach to search engine optimisation – looking at the technical and content aspects of the site – from CSS layout to query strings to title tags to link titles.

Bolting on a blogging and twitter strategy can boost your SEO campaign & traffic to your site:

Adding a blog is a quick and easy way of adding new content on a frequent basis – which is what Google looks for
Inbound links – commenting on other people’s blogs creates inbound links into your website
Getting your articles reblogged is another great way to get inbound links
Twitter can be a good source of quality traffic to your site – if the campaign is being run effectively

So that was my view……….this chap then continued to say that he pushed the information from his blog to Twitter and LinkedIn account and pushed his tweets to his facebook account. So it was about ensuring the right message and brand values were communicated in which ever social media site people looked at.

That completely missed the point of participating in these sites – as surely it’s about a dialogue and not a monologue. It’s about engaging with others – whether it’s your peers, contemporaries or customers – it’s about engaging with them and having a dialogue. NOT PREACHING your opinions to them.

Needless to say after a short conversation I accepted that we were never going to share the same views on this and moved on to talk to someone who shared the same values and beliefs as me.

More business is being done online – so where are you at?

When you switch on the news or logon to a news website all you hear is the doom and gloom of the recession. There are always winners and opportunities at times like these, and it is making sure you are on the right side of it.

Looking at some statistics always focus’s the mind on the opportunities:

In the UK people spend more time online than in any other European country, averaging 33 hours per month. That’s 8 hours a week, double the time spent reading newspapers and magazines. (comScore World Metrix, Sep 200, JupiterResearch, ‘Media Consumption Patterns: Online Vies with TV As Primary Medium)

30% of consumers are more actively seeking out promotions than they were 12 months ago. (The Retail Bulletin ‘Consumers seek out promotions as economic downturn bites’, Jun 2008)

73% of users find search engines an important resource when researching a product, ahead of personal recommendations (63%). (EIAA Mediascope Europe Study, Nov 2007)

Around 30% of online consumers in the UK, France and Germany post a comment to an online newsgroup or a website during a typical week. (Harris Interactive ‘Digital Influence Index’, Jun 2008)
Social networks now receive one in, every five page impressions in the UK.— Hitwise ‘The Impact of Social Networking in the UK’, Nov 2007

What this means for businesses is that:

More people are spending more time online.
The user of search engines when researching a purchase is key.
More people are searching for discounts and vouchers
People are actively getting involved with online communities and posting comments.

Getting involved in doing business online is key to surviving the rocky road ahead. The slow down will drive the adoption of new technologies and the use of the internet.

Businesses that embrace the new technologies and building business online will grow their competitive advantage. Companies that ignore online marketing, do so at their peril.

Women Tapping on the Glass Ceiling

When I was staying at my parents in November, I was reading the newspaper and breakfast and came across an interesting article that got me thinking.

Women tapping on the glass ceiling talks about the increasing number of women entering the boardrooms of the country’s 100 biggest companies . However, women still account for less than one in 10 of the total number of directors.

I also attended in November an event by Jo Haigh who was promoting her book ‘Tails from the Glass Ceiling’

As a female director of an open source consultancy, we have operated a democratic board of directors and have certainly not felt that I am a lesser person than my male counter parts. We have played to our strengths as a team, irrelevant of gender, which I think is impressive especially in an IT company (which is a male, geeky dominated world!).

However, when I have been to other networking events with senior business leaders, I certainly have felt that that glass ceiling is there. Being younger, female and in IT I have in certain situations felt to challenge some people’s preconceptions and beliefs.

It is too easy to loose sight of our aspirations and need inspiring. I came across the Yorkshire Women in Business Convention which is on the 6th March 2009 in Harrogate, which I’ll definitely be attending.

IoD Yorkshire and Humber Young Directors Forum

Back in the summer I was appointed the Chairman of the IoD Young Directors Forum for Yorkshire and Humber. At the end of 2008, I now reflect on the achievements of the forum this year.

So what is the YDF?
I asked myself the same question when I was appointed – ‘What do we stand for and what’s our vision?’. I am fortunate to have a wonderful committee who are enthusiastic and committed. We spent some time working through our vision and what makes us different.

“Provide emerging leaders with support and development to enable personal and business success. Aim to represent and support views of the forum’s membership in the Yorkshire business community and we will build partnerships with the key power bases in the region to allow this to happen.”

What makes us different to other IoD branches?

We are tomorrow’s leaders, today
Challenge current IoD thinking and practise
Embrace modern ways of working, not held back
Latest technology
Social networking
Link traditional and new works of working
Informal | Relaxed | fun
People centred

The Plan for 2009
In the current economic climate we have spent time talking to our members about what they want in 2009 and how we can engage with our members. A key message that came back is that people are feeling isolated and are feeling the pressures of running a business.

I would like to develop the membership of the YDF into something of real value where younger members of the IoD can share their experiences and discuss ideas and current issues with their contemporaries. The ultimate aim that we all can develop skills and relationships that will allow us to become business leaders of the future.