Congratulations to Sue Field of Finesse Cakes for winning our March 2012 Website of the Month contest. We spoke to Sue to find out more….

Tell us about how Finesse Cakes came about

Finesse Cakes is my business, which I launched via my website in 2009. I’ve been making cakes for about 13 years now, initially making cakes for friends and family. Once my children were a little older, I decided to launch my home based cake making business.  My website is pretty much my only source of promotion for the business, but it seems to work well as I’m fully booked continually.

Did you have any experience in setting up a website previously?

I developed the site myself (using Joomla). It wasn’t easy setting it up as I’ve never done anything like this before.

What are the benefits of managing your own website?

All the effort was worth it as I now have complete flexibility to go into the site at any time of the day or night and make updates and changes without the need of going through a third party. Most of the time I’m on the website very late at night updating the blog, as the rest of the time I’m busy making cakes.

What did you set out to achieve with Finesse Cakes’ site design?

When I set up the website I wanted to make sure it was easy to use and gave potential customers as much information about my cakes as possible, particularly focusing on the use of high quality, easy to view images.

What has been good about hosting your website with Easily.co.uk?

I have to say that I have used Easily.co.uk since launching my site and have never experienced any problems or interruptions in service, so thanks to all of you at Easily.co.uk for the service you provide.

Enter April 2012 Website of the Month contest

If you’ve got a story to share, want to win £100 worth of Apple iTunes gift cards and think you have a winning website, simply email your domain (registered with Easily.co.uk) to wotm@easily.co.uk by midnight on the 30th April 2012. More details here.

The move to snap up Instagram last week by Facebook for a cool $1 billion came out of left field for many people.  The same question will be asked in boardrooms up and down the internet – “Why them?”.  Instagram, formed just 18 months ago, is a digital photo editing and sharing app, built initially for iOS devices (iPhone and iPads).  They employed 13 people and their sole product was designed to make pictures look like they came from a Instamatic or Polaroid camera.  Retro has never been so cool.

The Instagram app,  which is still top of the free downloads in iTunes, has been an unparalleled success.  It reached one million downloads within two months of release, five million within nine months, ten million within a year and now has over thirty million downloads.  It has had a helping hand along the way.  Whilst we may cringe when we hear his name, having Justin Bieber endorse your product is enough to send anything into hyperspace which is exactly what happened with Instagram.

So, $1billion for a company that makes a product which it then gives away is quite an “interesting” business model.  Whilst we all know that the likes of Facebook, Google and Apple have deep pockets and are pursuing a strategy to own our desktop activity as well as our mobile life, it is hard to understand who the next “big thing” will be?

Many people believe it will be Pinterest, again another photo-sharing site but with a different take on it, using the concept of pin boards to collate different images on the same subjects (and collaborators) together.  Again this is a free application to use, and again it has grown at a phenomenal rate.  Launched just over a year ago it can boast the fastest number of users for any social network in history and within 9 months it had nearly 12 million users, growing at 11.7% per month.  Yet again, it has no real revenue stream.  The programme is free to use, the app for iOS is free to download so it is hard to see where the value can come from an acquisition, but mark my words, an offer will come, and will come soon from one of the big boys.  In my view it is likely to come from Google.  The reason why?  Well on criticism levelled at Pinterest is that it “encourages” the use of copyrighted material.  It is a very simple application to use – set up a Pin board on your favourite subject (such as football club, Lewes FC, here) and then when you come across a relevant image on the web, simply “Pin” it by adding the URL of the image.  People can then “follow” your boards and also add items to it.  So any copyrighted material can be added by simply cutting and pasting a URL.

However, here is the issue.  All users agree that by “pinning” images on Pinterest “all personal, creative and intellectual property posted to the site belonged to the website and could be sold”.  So essentially they could sell the copyright to someone elses copyrighted images.  A legal minefield.

The only other app I have seen or used that could be of interest is Snapseed.  Again it is another photo app for the iPhone and iPad but one that makes your photos sexy and not dull and washed out as if they had faded in the light.  It can produce some stunning effects as you can see from the picture of the East End of London to the left (as well as a further gallery here), is simple to use and of course does not have the same copyright issues that Pinterest has.  Oh, and it was voted iPad App of the Year for 2011 which is no mean feat.

They also have a revenue stream as this is a paid for app.  You can download it for £2.99 from iTunes or buy the desktop version for $19.99.  So all of a sudden you have one of the must have bits of software which has a revenue line.  Developers NikSoftware originally developed the application for the high end professional users but soon saw the power of making it into an app for mobile devices and have never looked back.

So look no further than this application for your next big deal.  It could be today, it could be tomorrow, but mark my words, Snapseed is going to be huge.

This month the 10 millionth .UK web domain was registered, underlining the growth of the internet economy in the UK. .co.uk is the go-to domain for businesses in the UK and has been growing strongly with around a million new registrations in the last year.

A .UK domain says you do business in the UK and 4 in 5 internet users prefer .UK results when searching online, a great indication of trust in the domain – it really has never been a better time to get your business online and .UK is great place for it to be.

To celebrate this milestone, the folks at .UK are giving away a new iPad daily to one lucky person who registers or renews their .UK domain name between 28th March and 26th April 2012.

Simply register or renew your .co.uk, .org.uk or .me.uk with Easily.co.uk in the next 30 days and you’ll automatically be entered into a prize draw. Read here for terms and conditions.

Rarely has there been a domain name issue that has two high profile contrasting viewpoints in such as short period of time as the matter of how Google will treat the new gTLDs in terms of search engine ranking.  In some ways it shows how reliant brands (and everyone) are on one company to make or break them in an online sense.  Google are today without a doubt the most influential Internet organisation of all time.  When one of their people speaks, people today listen and take those words as gospel.  With so much of the way search rankings world cloaked in secrecy it was inevitable that a single sentence from Google changes the way we see the world.

The week started with AusRegistry International Chief Executive Officer Adrian Kinderis being quoted in marketingmag.co.au on the issue of search rankings of the new gTLDs.  He posed the question:-

“Will a new TLD web address automatically be favoured by Google over a .com equivalent?”

His answer was – “Quite simply, yes it will”.  He believed that the new gTLD programme would provide the purest search ranking relevancy there could be.  A person looking for Apple should see an .apple domain name at the top of their search results (we have no idea if apple have applied for a new gTLD by the way) rather than apple.com or apple.net.

I can see the logic in this argument and when this information was released at ICANN 43 in Costa Rica a murmur of approval swept around the room, and those organisations who have so far invested in an application for a new TLD they must have had a wry little smile.

But then came an almost immediate hammer below from Google’s public face of search, Matt Cutts.  Matt is the man with almost every answer about what matters in terms of search and rankings.  If anyone knows the mysteries behind the curtain in the Google Indexing system it is Matt.

“Google will attempt to rank new TLDs appropriately, but I don’t expect a new TLD to get any kind of initial preference over .com, and I wouldn’t bet on that happening in the long-term either. If you want to register an entirely new TLD for other reasons, that’s your choice, but you shouldn’t register a TLD in the mistaken belief that you’ll get some sort of boost in search engine rankings.”

A pretty damning statement if ever there was one, but over time will the situation change?  That is dependent on a number of factors, but it is inconceivable that Google will not change their ranking algorithm at some point to favour new gTLDs – after all their mantra is all about creating a more relevant search experience for everyone, and you cannot get more relevant than someone using a .brand domain name.

It is naive to think that from day one a new gTLD will jump straight to the top of the rankings.  After all, most brands will have invested massive sums of money in their online brand, search engine optimisation and PPC.  Big brands will have influential content and links around the internet and so you cannot simply swap out your main domain name overnight and retain your ranking.  Apple.apple will not replace apple.com any time soon simply because of the other aspects that make up search rankings away from the domain name.

One aspect Google has not yet commented on is the effect the new gTLDs will have on security and authenticity of search.  Whilst they are committed to the “most relevant search experience” for consumers, what about the security aspect?  Knowing that the results you are served is bona fide authentic must be worth something?  A .brand will deliver those results from day one.  So that surely must count for something.

Google make around 500 changes to their search ranking calculations every year, with only the top two or three releases making the headlines so it must be something that is on the drawing board at some point.  Until then brands will have to devote marketing spend into a duel online strategy to ensure that both their new brand is getting the focus it needs, whilst their existing domain names are not neglected.

Congratulations to Philip Cross of WhosOff.com for winning our February 2012 Website of the Month contest.

We like how he and his business partners came up with the concept of providing a service to help businesses manage staff leave.

“The WhosOff.com idea evolved from a small database project we had done for one of our local clients, who wanted to automate some of their staff leave planning processes. We realised that all businesses have difficulty in managing staff leave and we had been considering doing an ‘online’ project for some time, so we decided to take this small local project, enhance it and deliver it as a service, online”, explains Philip.

The clean, attractive design and easy navigation of the website caught our eye when scouring the entries, and we weren’t the only ones.

“The site received quite a bit of interest, even featuring on Techcrunch”, says Philip.

WhosOff.com started off as a free service and they hoped to earn revenue from online adverts.  However, it soon became clear that they would not be able to keep their business afloat if they continued offering a free service.  So, in 2009 it was decided to make WhosOff.com a monthly subscription service. Philip and his business partners were pleasantly surprised to find that over 60% of our existing users continue to use the paid service.

WhosOff.com is a great example of how a business can successfully grow online. Since then, WhosOff.com has become one of the leading online staff leave planners, with over 1.25 million leave requests processed.  They have since developed the WhosOff iPhone App, along with Apps for the Android and Blackberry.

Not only does the website create more opportunities locally, but also globally.
“We continue to develop the site, driven by feedback from our community and our user base continues to grow. Many of our users come from all over the world with businesses of all sizes ranging from 10 to over 1000 employees. Currently we are used in approx 48 countries and from a wide diversity of industries”, says Philip.

We wish WhosOff.com continued growth and success.

Enter March 2012 Website of the Month contest

If you’ve got a story to share, want to win £100 worth of Amazon vouchers and think you have a winning website, simply email your domain (registered with Easily.co.uk) to wotm@easily.co.uk by midnight on the 31st March 2012. More details here.

Last week a friend tweeted a link to a website called “Dogs at football”.  The link took me to a webpage on a site called Pinterest.com.  I’d heard of the site before, after all it is the latest buzz word on the Social Network scene, but had yet to venture inside for a look or play. His page, or “board”, was a humorous look at dogs of all shapes and sizes wearing all sorts of football colours in football grounds.  I spent a good ten minutes looking at the content, wondering where he got all of the pictures from.  “No idea” he said when I asked him, “people just keep adding pictures”.  He explained the concept to me – pick a topic (as random as possible seems to be the norm), find some pictures, start uploading them as “pins” to your board (copying and pasting the image url) and away you go.  By making it public anyone can add images to your topic.  People can then “follow” and “like” your boards in a sort of Twitter-come-Facebook hybrid.

At the moment you need to request an invite to use (not view) the website so that Pinterest can try and control bandwidth and usage.  Just eight months ago the site had 400,000 users.  Today it has over 12 million.  It became the fastest website to get 10 million unique visitors and now welcomes over nearly 12 million unique views per month.  All good stuff you would think, and certainly the media has fawned over the small firm based in Silicon Valley.  Analysts suggest the firm has a valuation already of over $200 million.

But it’s not all good news.  Suppose a new board is set up protesting about companies involved in animal testing or child labour.  It is far too easy for one of the 12 million users to add a brand or a logo without any true founding.  This obviously isn’t a new issue for brand holders – they are often wrongly accused of being involved in everything from crop circles to the assassination of JFK.  But it is another platform rights-holders have to monitor.

Pinterest makes it very easy for copyrighted images to be uploaded without permission.  Whilst the company absolves itself of any breach of copyright by putting the onus on the uploader being required to comply with copyright requirements, few people who use the site will adhere to this.  Pinterest have said that they will comply with any interventions that rights-holders may make, but by making it so easy for users to upload any image it has opened up a whole new field of abuse.

Time will tell if Pinterest is the latest Social Media disrupter, or if it can differentiate itself from sites such as Tumblr, Twitter and Facebook.  But for now it is the only place I can find on the internet where I can view pictures of dogs at football ground.  Genius.

This morning our Communications Director saw with horror that his football club, West Ham United, have sold their soul to the world’s fastest growing consumer company, GroupOn.  For just £20 you too can be subject to a brand of football that is as far from the “beautiful game” as you could possibly get.  For consumers this seems like a great deal – well, not so much the West Ham deal (which lists highlights including – “Close to tube station”).  A chance to do/see/experience something new at a fraction of the cost.

But do businesses really understand the true cost of going down this route?  In the short term they may well rub their hands at an influx in new customers, but at what cost?  As all Economists will tell you, there is an opportunity cost for everything.  By opening up an offer for new customers via GroupOn, what is the impact on existing customers?

GroupOn, like it or loathe it, is now part of our daily lives as consumers.  The concept, created in Chicago in 2008 is now used daily by over 35 million users in 100 countries around the world.  The company today has revenues in excess of $300million and has peaked at a market capitalization of over $1.3billion.  However, many experts, including those at Forrester Research suggest that the firm is actually in a not-so comfortable position, stating in October 2011 that the firm had become an example of “how fast an internet darling can fall”.  In its first quarter of trading on the NADSAQ it reported losses of $9.8m.

The questions are based around the business model.  It works on something called an “assurance contract”. They offer a daily deal and set a minimum number of people who need to buy.  If that number is reached, the deal becomes live.  If not, then it falls by the wayside.  However, this daily threshold is set very low (in the instance of the West Ham tickets only 50 needed to buy which was passed after a few hours).  But here is the rub – GroupOn take approximately half of the deal value and pass the rest back to the retailer.  So a 50% off a meal actually means the restaurant will only see 25% of the original value of the meal.  But that isn’t the only issue.

Let’s take the football example first.  The club (in the past in London Fulham, Crystal Palace and even the “giants” of West London Chelsea have used GroupOn this season) has a number of seats that it cannot sell at full price (£40).  So discounting them is an obvious option.  But what is the likelihood those taking up this offer will see enough value that they will return, paying a higher price.  In the case of West Ham, that higher price is close to £40 for a ticket at other games.  So whilst they may fill those seats for the offer game, firstly they will only get £10 for the seat instead of the £40, but what happens if someone turns up on the day with £40 to spend and there are no seats? The other aspect to consider is what is the impact on those fans that have already purchased their £40 seats?  West Ham, like other football clubs operates a membership scheme whereby for an annual fee, “loyal” fans get to purchase tickets in advance of the general public at a slightly discounted rate (around 10%).  So how will they feel now that other “Johnny-come-lately’s” are paying 50% less?  This is a yield management model gone wrong – the early bird is certainly not catching the worm.

How about restaurants who offer deals?  Today alongside the West Ham offer was one for a three course rib-eye steak dinner for two for just £27 (ironically at Frankie’s restaurant located at Chelsea FC’s Stamford Bridge ground).  Sounds a good deal?  Well, for diners it is assuming that they can actually get a reservation.  Many restaurants put strict restrictions on when the deal can be used and expiry dates aren’t generous.  But say you get a reservation then you have a bargain.  As for the restaurant, well they will hope you will spend lots of drinks because they will be making absolutely nothing out of your dinner.  How can they? They will get just £13.50 from the deal to cover two steak dinners.  You would be hard pushed to be able to buy the ingredients yourself at the local Aldi.  But here is their dilemma.  They cannot afford to scrimp and save on the ingredients because they want you to come back.  So they will be making a loss on the meal, to try and ensure your future custom.  But would you want to go all the way out to Fulham Broadway if you live in South East London to pay £55 for a meal when there are so many other restaurants closer and just as good?

Hotel deals are even more short term.  People will take up a deal for a hotel that has 50% off, but rarely will someone return to pay full price, again because of the competitive nature of the hotel industry.  It helps a hotel fill rooms, but unless guests spend money in the bar or restaurant, the opportunity cost of having to employ staff to clean the rooms may mean they end up losing money despite the hotel being full.

Organisations who go down the GroupOn rate are taking the easy route to trying to get to new end users.  Whilst it can be argued that GroupOn is an extension of the social media evolution, few of the advertisers have fully embraced social media.  If they started to offer their own discounts via Facebook and Twitter not only would they get new clients but they would retain that portion of revenue they give away to GroupOn.  Frankie’s, for instance has a Facebook page that was last updated in July 2011.  West Ham has an official Twitter feed with 39,000 followers yet they haven’t tweeted the GroupOn deal.

Any successful business model is copied over time.  LivingSocial.com, Retailmenot.com, CouponMom.com to name but a few are vying for a slice of the GroupOn market.  The success of these businesses will be dependent on them being able to attract and keep the retailers, restaurants, bars, hotels and football clubs happy.  And to do this they may just need to re-assess their business plan, which of course will mean less revenues and as Forrester predicted, seeing how fast an internet darling can fall.

We had tons of high-quality websites to choose from. However, there could only be one winner this month.

Easily.co.uk Website of the Month

Congratulations to James Allsop, the creator of http://www.ps3home.co.uk.

We like the eye-catching design of the PS3 Home website.

It’s easy to navigate your way around PlayStation 3 news, reviews, previews, cheats, video trailers, themes, charts and more.

Search for reviews and news using the handy search toolbar, and keep up-to-date with the latest PS3 news through the rolling newsfeed.

So, how did James get involved in setting up a website for PS3 Gamers?

“I was interested in PS2 gaming back at school when I purchased my first URL through Easily.co.uk in 2000, whilst completing a GNVQ ICT at school. My interest turned to the PS3 when the new console was released”, says James.

PS3 Home became a bigger project as his skills advanced and it has been online now for 6 years. Since then, PS3 Home has attracted a growing following, and has become a popular PS3 website in the UK.

Enter February’s contest

Do you think you can win our February Website of the Month contest? Simply email your domain name to wotm@easily.co.uk by midnight on the 29th February 2012.

More details

The Easily.co.uk Website of the Month contest celebrates the hard work our customers put into their websites. Not only will the winning website be featured on our Easily.co.uk website, but they will also win an Apple iPod Touch 8GB.

Your website’s domain needs to be registered with Easily.co.uk in order to enter.

Send your domain name to wotm@easily.co.uk by midnight on the 31st January 2012.

Read more to find out what we look for in your website.

Neuromarketing studies have shown that emotional activity in a customer’s brain decreases after just eight seconds. You must strive during this brief time span to get people enthusiastic about your online shop and your offerings. The single most important factor? A well-designed shop! But what should you keep in mind while sprucing up your shop?

Do not overwhelm your customers.

Your online shop’s homepage is the online equivalent of a storefront. You can use your homepage to win over customers’ trust. You should therefore invest a great deal of effort in it. Unfortunately, a lot of online merchants make the mistake of cluttering their homepages with too much information. Consequently, customers cannot find their way around and exit the site without making a purchase. You therefore should not cram all of your products into your homepage. Instead, use your homepage to set the stage for shopping. Large-scale, high-quality and topic-specific images on your homepage enhance your entire online shop. Doing so also frees up space for you to promote certain products as discounted items. You can also utilise your homepage to draw attention to categories. You should use large-scale, topic-specific images here, too; manufacturers sometimes provide such images to merchants.

Accentuate your products

Use as many product photos as possible on product pages. Every single image helps turn interested visitors into paying customers. Use merchants’ product images or – better yet – make your own photos. You should do this, however, only if you have the necessary equipment, such as professional lighting. Your product images will otherwise seem quite unsightly and shabby.

Products are typically photographed in front of a white background. We therefore generally recommend that you similarly use a white background for those sections of your online shop where you will present products. Images will thus fit in well with their surroundings.

But do not forget to add flourishes of colour to your online shop, either. In menus or the page elements, perhaps, which appear near your products. Do make sure that you choose colours which harmonise. EasilyShop offers a colour manager precisely for this purpose; it suggests a suitable set of colours for any colour you select.

Make the most important elements easy to find

A field-proven rule for websites states that you should always place the most important items at the top of the screen – ideally, in the upper right. Users are accustomed to looking there for key information. The two most important things you should make clearly visible at the top of your online shop: a clearly portrayed shopping basket and the product-search function.

If you want to convert interested parties to customers, you must ensure that people in your shop always know which step they must take next to complete the process of buying something. We therefore recommend using colour or a large format to emphasise buttons which are essential to the buying process. While you are selecting graphics for buttons, make sure you choose an icon set familiar to your customers. The symbol for “Add to shopping basket”, for example, should be instantly recognisable. Accepted methods of payment are also significant concerning the buying process. You should therefore prominently display the logos of all payment providers on every page.

In general, you should guide customers through your shop. A navigation bar and properly organised categories will help them to get oriented quickly. A “bread crumb” – in other words, showing the current menu item as a path – can also help customers. Because users look first to the footer (the section at the bottom of a web page) if they want to find mandatory information –such as a site’s legal notice or links to contact options – you should place such information in the footer.

In just three months .xxx will be with us for good.  All of the protests about the moral rights and wrongs of the domain name suffix have been debated for years but there is really nothing that any of the groups can do now to stop it becoming part of Internet history.

Indeed in the last month alone the first adult website to use the new suffix, casting.xxx, went live.  Last week thousands of applications for brand holders and members of the adult community were also made through registrars across the globe.

Even the Los Angeles Times got in on the act, publishing a full page ad last week under the banner “Why the Adult industry is adopting a new position”.  This is all very well and good but how will search engines treat the new .xxx suffixes?  Will certain traffic be restricted? Will .xxx websites be safe? Will our search habits change for good? And will search engines create identifiable communities for adult sites?

ICM, the organisation appointed by ICANN to run the .xxx registry claim the suffix is the way forward.  They pose three moral rhetorical questions:-

•    How can we prevent children from being inadvertently exposed to adult content online?
•    How can we ensure willing consumers access adult websites that are safer from malware or spyware?
•    How do we create an easily recognisable and identifiable safe environment where adults are free to enjoy the best in adult entertainment in a relaxed and secure fashion?

On the face of it adopting .xxx is the answer to all of these questions.  That is until you stop and think about things a bit deeper.  Will adult sites still keep their .com or .net as well as their .xxx?  Of course they will, because if they don’t they will lose their existing search ranking. More importantly, however, if they dispose of their name they are essentially giving away the associated natural traffic that goes with an established name.  So people will still search for casting.com and be routed there and that negates the first statement.

In terms of malware and spyware – well there is some reverse psychology at work here.  If you saw that all .xxx names will be free from such scams surely it is only a matter of time before a malicious website is set up using an .xxx.  If people are given the belief that .xxx is a safe haven they will lower their defences.

Finally, we have the issue of an “identifiable” community.  One thought here is that if you put all of the pornographic content in one place on the Internet, you can try and ring a fence around it and only allow those in who wanted to go in – hence the ICM statement about a “safe environment where adults are free to enjoy” etc.  But this also means it is easier for companies, ISP’s and even countries to very quickly put specific filters both on content, and on search results.  The adoption could be seen as a very easy way to put censorship in place, a move that many strongly disagree with.

Google doesn’t have a “Safe Search” option you can switch on or off in general search, so if a site is classed as “adult” irrespective of the top-level domain (TLD) it will not be listed either in the auto-suggest results or general search findings unless there is a direct keyword match.  I cannot see them changing their policy for .xxx.

In fact Google are yet to decide how they will treat .xxx in terms of its TLD “powers”.  There is a fear that they may not treat it the same way as other generic top-level domains (gTLD) such as .com or even .co and this will have a massive impact on search results.  In the long term this will mean that sites will still have to invest in search engine optimisation (SEO) for both their traditional gTLD and their .xxx variety which defeats the object of the whole concept.

A number of organisations will also want to put their own censorship in place on .xxx names.  Most firewalls can be easily configured to allow this to block results, and few could really argue that looking at adult websites during working hours is an appropriate activity.  But will it really stop the determined?  Proxy servers or sites with custom iframe capabilities will bypass any restrictions, and how long before someone sets up a site like viewmy.xxx to allow “discreet” browsing.

.xxx is the new kid on the domain block and we will continue to hear more and more about the benefits of the suffix until the general release in December 2011.  However, there will be uncertainty about the value of the suffix with regards on how it will be treated for ranking purposes.

Register with the UK’s top domain name & hosting provider, over 10 years exceptional service & technical support.

Taken from Technorati:

Domains, top-level domains, URLs and similar terms that, to the uninitiated, are often as dismissed or misunderstood as Greek mathematical symbols (∑ anyone?).  But Google has made a step forward that has been catching on among internet companies as a means to shorten domain names and maintain their trademark.

The International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, is the organization that manages, briefly, web site names.  The system is called Domain Name Service, and it creates a tree system, which looks similar to computer file systems used by most computer users.  At the top of the DNS hierarchy of names are three groups, collectively known as Top Level Domains, or TLD, according to the ICANN site.

Read more about this article.

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This year, Sheffield will have the opportunity to position itself as the entrepreneur capital of the UK with the 2011 MADE: The Entrepreneur Festival scheduled to take place in the city from 21 to 24 September. More than 2,000 entrepreneurs from all across the nation are expected to come to Sheffield to share their ideas and their knowledge, while getting the opportunity to meet Britain’s leading business and political figures.

Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills Rt Hon Dr Vince Cable MP and the Minister of State for Business and Enterprise Mark Prisk MP will be headlining the MADE Festival, along with some of the country’s most renowned entrepreneurs.

“The Made Festival in Sheffield is a great opportunity for entrepreneurs to share idea and knowledge, and help inspire the next generation of business owners in the UK,” said Dr Vince Cable. “We want to make our country the best place in the world to start and grow a business. It is small businesses that will drive growth in the economy and we need to support them in every way we can,” Dr Cable added.

Director of Marketing Sheffield, Brendan Moffett, said, “The MADE Festival has really put Sheffield on the map as the UK’s leading city for entrepreneurial thinking, and is the ideal location for entrepreneurs to set up and thrive.” According to Mr Moffett, “The UK needs to nurture new entrepreneurial talent and ensure that we help them to grow their ideas into successful businesses. Sheffield is the place to get those conversations started.”

The 2011 MADE: The Entrepreneur Festival aims to focus on three themes:

Inspire – The MADE Festival will focus on inspiring entrepreneurs to think out of the box and learn how to turn their dreams and ambitions into reality. The festival hopes to achieve this aim through networking events and panel debates, which will encourage and motivate the next generation of entrepreneurs to thrive.

Disrupt – The festival aims to highlight the value of disruption for an entrepreneur. This essentially means how an entrepreneur and think and do things differently, thereby disrupting status quo. Workshops and discussions will lead the way and focus on tech and digital start-ups. Through these channels, the MADE festival aims to motivate entrepreneurs to gain the confidence to have a disruptive influence and make pioneering decisions that take their business to new heights.

Accelerate – The MADE festival aspires to be the catalyst that accelerates innovation and growth in business. It aims to achieve this goal with the support of leading global brands that will encourage businesses to take up the challenge of transforming the economy of the nation.

MADE 2011 will be chaired by Michael Hayman, co-founder of StartUp Britain, a national enterprise campaign, co-founder of Seven Hills, a communication consultancy and Chairman of Entrepreneurs at Coutts & Co. According to Mr Hayman, “If you want to see what it means to be made in Britain, come and see MADE in Sheffield. The festival is the signature event in the UK calendar for entrepreneurs. It’s a symbol of innovation and optimism about what business can do to help spearhead the economic recovery.”

“Enterprise is about entrepreneurs and the MADE Festival is a fantastic showcase for everything that is best about British business,” Mr Hayman added.

This year’s MADE Festival will help strengthen Sheffield’s international reputation and help attract tourism, investment and jobs to the city. This is the chance for Sheffield to shine after its concerted efforts at regeneration, which has given the city the capacity and the infrastructure to support businesses from a wide variety of sectors.

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The Management Times released its 2011 list of 35 women under 35. A list of the year’s top 35 women achievers this year’s list seemed to be a list for entrepreneurs. David Cameron has spent the last year emphasizing that what Britain needs is “more people to make a job rather than take a job.” From the women on the list this year, four have started up their own businesses and are doing exceedingly well. Between them, they employ nearly 70 people, which is not bad for a self funded start-up. ‘Backing new enterprises to start up, and small businesses to grow, will deliver new jobs and economic growth,’ business secretary, Vince Cable, told MT. ‘I want people all over the country to see that working for your self is a real alternative to unemployment or getting a job.’

The common factor amongst these women is the fact that they are confident of themselves and their ability to succeed. Confidence is something that goes a long way for any business enterprise. Julie Diem Le, founder of Zoobug, an online retailer of children’s glasses, says that “having the confidence to take the plunge is vital. You need to have dogged determination and be able to think outside the box – if somebody’s not already doing it; you have to be brave enough to just go for it.”

Of course, along with confidence comes the ability to play your own strengths to your advantage. A common advice given by most of these entrepreneurs is that one should be comfortable in their own skins. Women find the need to emulate men, which is something they think is the key to success, which these 35 women have disproven. Being yourself and comfortable with who you are will go a long way in contributing to your success.

This year’s list has a wide range of businesswomen, from designers to corporate disciplines. Let’s take a look at three of these success stories and what they do. The list has entrepreneurs as well as executives for the biggest names in the country.

Natalie Dunn is at 26 the youngest woman on the list and the senior advertising manager at Sainsbury’s. What makes her a name worthy of mentioning is the fact that she worked her way up at Sainsbury’s. She started out at the check out at the age of 16.

Anna Bance, at the age of 30, is spearheading her company, Girl Meets Dress. The idea was simple enough and Anna, who was formerly working at Temperley, managed to convert it into a successful business model. Mentioned in the Vogue as ‘the answer to all your prayers,’ Girl Meets Dress rents out designer wear for a fraction of the cost, for those who cannot afford it or don’t want to spend so much on designer wear.

Julie Diem Le, at the age of 34, has made herself an online sensation. Her idea for a line of safe to wear sunglasses for children came to her when she was looking for a pair for her niece. Being an eye surgeon with an artistic streak helped her a lot. Zoobug, her company, now distributes in 21 countries around the world, and is currently working on producing the official Olympic themed sunglasses for children for the London 2012 Games.

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In an economy that is struggling to recover from the recent slump, the jobless in the UK are seeking jobs in the technology sector. The tech sector is one place where not having the expertise in the field does not stop people from applying for and securing jobs.

PeoplePerHour.com, a website for freelance recruitment, released new figures that say that there are a large number of people from other industries seeking jobs in the tech sector. These latest figures prove that the tech sector is playing an important role in the economic recovery of the UK.

Going by these figures, it is clear that there is a 50 percent increase in the number of jobless people applying for and securing jobs within the digital sector. The general observation is that most of these people have secured jobs working in a technology role or in the IT department of an organization. According to a report on V3.co.uk, PeoplePerHour.com says that “75 per cent of the new workers in the sector were working in an area unrelated to technology before being made redundant.”

Web programming, IT and web design account for 30% of the jobs in this sector, while editing and copy writing accounts for 11%. Another 10% of the jobs were secured in the search engine optimization and internet marketing domains.

Xenios Thrasyvoulou, the founder and chief executive at PeoplePerHour.com says, “Tech is in the driving seat in what looks to be a stagnant economy. There’s significant innovation in the digital space. You just need to look at the whole ecosystem that sprung up around Facebook, the iPad and gaming industry, iPhone apps, it’s really what’s driving the economy. All of this is creating demand for more digital talent, a lot of which works freelance.”

In an economy that is struggling to hold on to the power of its currency in the foreign market, this trend looks like it might be able to bring some relief from the economic crisis being faced, given that joblessness makes demands on the economy’s social services and employment cells. Foreign investment is an important aspect of the economy and is being depended upon as a driver to lift the economy.

The coalition government has time and again courted the tech industry, in the hopes of attracting investments from foreign sources. Web giants, such as Twitter and Google, are a main source of foreign investment. The tech industry is expected to encourage investment by these companies in the home-grown start-ups.

Technology Strategy Board, which is backed by the government, is expected to plough in £1 million into UK-based tech start ups. This is an attempt to increase the prosperity of Silicon Roundabout, a digital hub in east London. The UK seems to be fast realizing the importance of a strong digital sector, and jobs in this sector are being encouraged all around.

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A group of UK’s largest companies and environmental groups, Adlersgate, says that the deregulation drive undertaken by the government could hamper the economic recovery of the country. Adlersgate Group’s report, to be launched in Parliament on Wednesday, to an audience of business leaders and MPs states that “effective regulation is essential to drive growth and jobs.”

In the report, Adlersgate states that initiatives, such as the red tape challenge that threatens to “rip up” vital green legislations are likely to jeopardize future competitiveness as well as damage the attractiveness the UK holds for green investment. Not only this, the report states that the deregulation drive would “lock in polluting industrial processes for decades to come.”

The government has committed itself to reducing the cost and volume of regulation on the economy with the implementation of measures such as the ‘one-in, one-out’ rule. The report questions the government on whether measures such as this one will make any sense when addressing environmental issues like climate change. In a market that requires more regulations, not less, to protect the environment and to drive the growth of new and upcoming industries, this measure is an example of market failure.

Regulation ought to seek to achieve “best value” and should be assessed on the basis of merit, according to the report. The report highlights the negative impact that putting sensible environmental regulations at risk will have, especially since a loss in business confidence will be a consequence.

“It is a myth that all businesses want less regulation. Effective green laws create a level playing field which drives efficiency, early action and the innovation in UK companies that will be the engine for future growth and jobs,” says Peter Young, the Chairman of the Adlersgate Group. “A crude deregulation drive risks damaging competitiveness and severely threatens the Prime Minister’s commitment to a green industrial revolution. The regulatory framework should encourage a rapid shift to a sustainable economy rather than being held back by vested interests or the lowest common denominator,” Young explains.

He feels that the “war on red tape” that the government has undertaken must not become a misguided crusade that will result in a threat to the regulatory outcomes, protecting the environment being one of them. “Even the threat of deregulation on the Climate Change Act and renewable energy support is massively eroding investment and making growth more difficult,” Young adds.

Chris Huhne, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, said, however, that the debate is not more regulation versus deregulation or more laws versus fewer laws. The question here is what the right kind of regulations might be. Regulations that will help businesses become more competitive globally, that will lower the costs incurred by consumers and that will result in the realization of benefits for the environment, economy and society should be focused on.

Dealing with deficits, the report by the Adlersgate Group also argues that the reduction of outdated, excessive and burdensome measures are welcome, but they should not be at the expense of the essential role that regulations play in the correction of market failures, protection of the environment and the promotion of fairness. Regulatory reform should be about the maximization of innovative potential of businesses as well as effectively achieving outcomes.

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Last week Sustainable Brands held its fifth annual conference in Monterey, California. Professionals in the fields of design, brands and sustainability from global countries convened to lead a movement of change towards a brighter future. For companies committed to making sustainable innovations a business and brand value driver, the conference is an important event. Amongst the topics discussed by the attendees of the conference, a few struck out as important for companies that want to make a shift to sustainability.

Besides just doing less harm, companies should work towards providing proactive solutions, so as to see some real benefits in terms of industry leadership and costs, said Chris Laszlo, co-author of Embedded Sustainability. “Innovative disruptive change is the future,” Laszlo added.

Ogilvy Earth stated in its latest research, presented at the conference, that the “green” concept has long been associated with being feministic and is perceived as having a larger appeal for women. Products need to appeal to the male ego as well in order to actually change a consumer’s attitude and buying practices. The marketing of sustainable products needs to shift from eco-friendly to “ego-friendly.”

“GE’s Ecomagination not only posits the company as a sustainability leader, but is GE’s #1 recruiting tool at schools and MBA programs and is itself a Fortune 500 company,” said Kate Brass, GE Program Manager, Ecomagination. She believes that eco-innovations should not be treated as a means, but as an end.

Cost overruns are thrust upon the consumer by the traditional models of business. “In a world where sustainable materials cost more than their unsustainable counterparts, successful business models move beyond economic disincentives for sustainability to make their products viable for consumers as well as business,” said Jeffrey Hollender, co-founder of Seventh Generation. The economic disincentive needs be overcome. It is one of the major hurdles faced by sustainable product makers.

Erin Schrode, the lead spokesperson for Teens Turning Green, observed that to capture millennial consumption and loyalty towards a brand, the promotional success of sustainable products lies in the company’s authenticity and its transparency. Once this is incorporated, brand advocacy and social sharing will follow automatically. The key here is to remain completely honest with the consumers.

Ian Yolles, the chief sustainability officer at Recyclebank said, “Recyclebank has employed a strategy to get people to recycle that is actually working.” They have gamified recycling by providing incentives and online spaces for engagement in order to improve communities. The key here is to involve your consumer and encourage sustainability.

“SAP provides carbon footprint analysis that allows companies to pinpoint the energy use of individual plants, consumers to monitor their energy use and analyze savings and employees their personal carbon footprints,” said Peter Graf, the chief sustainability officer at SAP.

Jules Peck, Partner at Abundancy Partners, UK explained that decoupling economic activity from material throughput will be of massive significance. It is a fact that by 2050, the global carbon intensity should be only 6 grams per dollar of output. The current figure is 770 grams per dollar, which is a whopping 130 times the figure it should be. Peck described a “Great Transition,” one in which we shift paradigms, from the current growth as prosperity paradigm to a wellbeing as prosperity paradigm.

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Edwina Hart, who was recently appointed the Minister for Business, Enterprise Technology and Science, gave her first interview since being appointed minister. In her interview with Walesonline.co.uk, she spoke about the goals she has for the department and the challenges being faced by the Welsh economy.

The minister’s first comments were about the Civil Service reforms. She feels that the assembly has a very “risk-averse culture,” an observation she has made ever since she became a minister back in 1999. She says, “I think if the risks are always outlined to you as a minister then you should be prepared sometimes to take them as that is the only way you get success for businesses.” Edwina Hart feels that the risk taking is an inherent part of the success of any business. She agrees that the government needs to improve clarity in terms of what kind of support they are going to provide businesses with. “This is an area I am exploring, looking at how we can be quicker to respond, but also sometimes I don’t think it is clear to business what the role of Government is in this area,” Hart explained. She also said that the government should use what resources it has to its advantage, seeing as how the nation is at the edge of Europe.

Her appointment to this key position was a surprise to her as well as a lot of people in the Assembly. “I don’t think you are ever surprised at what you are offered. You are always very pleased and honoured that the First Minister has considered you for an appointment. Obviously I enjoyed my time in health which was a period of great reform and very much enjoyed the restructuring and discussions within the service… this is a different challenge,” Hart added.

Edwina Hart has her own opinion as a newly appointed minister on the exclusion of Transport from the Department for the Economy and Transport, and its inclusion in the portfolio of the Local Government Minister, Carl Sergeant. This was a decision that had raised a lot of eyebrows in the Assembly. There is definitely a link between improvement of the economic performance and rail connectivity, and so the fact that Transport is not in any ministerial titles is a little worrying.

“When you are trying to attract companies into Wales they will not always go to areas, say like up to the Valleys, but where they want to go for their interest,” she said. “We are duty-bound to look at transportation and systems to make sure we take people into work wherever they are, like Cardiff” hart added, regarding the potential economic upside of projects such as electrifying the Valley Lines to Cardiff.

Edwina Hart also discussed a lot of topics ranging from her interest in helping micro businesses become successful to the government’s powers to vary the corporation tax.

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Foreign exchange movements affect investments and as a result most investors prefer to stick to British companies. They prefer to stay away from investment assets that are valued in foreign currency. Since almost all the day to day liabilities are denominated in sterling pound, it makes sense for investors to have assets in the same currency. More so since the mortgage is not going to be accepted in Japanese yen or US dollars.

Globalization, however, has allowed many companies to set up their offices overseas, to an extent that the one can question the nationality of the company, especially since the currency in which they make their profits is not the pound.

This brings us to the question of how exactly can the nationality of a company be determined? Textbooks say that the country where the company has its headquarters is the country it belongs to. Now, this can prove to be difficult to determine, seeing how some companies have their base and operations in over a hundred countries. The earnings of a company cannot be determined by its location, and that is an important thing. Take the copper mine, Antofagasta, for instance, whose registered office is in London. Its operations are, however, in Chile, and the accounts are in US dollars.

Some companies do not list their profits on a country to country basis, like Diageo, the spirits giant. Nearly 28% of its sales in the year 2010 were from Europe and Russia, so one can safely say that what happens in the UK does not really affect it. Now, if you want to define a company’s nationality based on where it gets most of its business from, then Diageo is more American than British, given that 34% of its sales are in the US.

Even big companies like Unilever and Procter and Gamble are affected by where their offices and sales are because most British  investors tend to choose Unilever over P&G, since they consider Unilever more British. This happens despite the fact that most of Unilever’s dividends and accounts are in euros, with maximum business conducted by it outside the UK. These companies can be thought of as “Global.”

British investors benefit from the fact that despite conducting business in countries where English is not an official language, these companies generate their reports, news releases and accounts in English. And more often than not, their accounts and papers are easier to decipher and understand than most native British companies.

However, where the question of investor protection and regulation is concerned, having a Nationality becomes an important aspect for the company. Investors are directly affected by the company’s host country, since it has to follow the rules and regulations of that country. This becomes an even bigger concern for investors if the company in question is based out of a country that is not developed, say Russia.

The globalization of the market is changing the way investors think and how much they trust a certain company’s assets. British investors would still opt for a company based out of the UK, but this is a trend that appears to be looking at a change in the near future.

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The graphics and technology expectations of the construction industry have been transformed thanks to the latest innovations in BIM Technology. BIM Technology has allowed more sophisticated information exchange and enhanced supply chain collaboration opportunities. No longer is BIM concerned only with 3D modeling, the latest innovations have added a dimension for the manipulation of models through time, and incorporation of cost data, making it 5D!

The operational scope of BIM exceeds its initial incarnation of being a mere model-based visualization tool. “The BIM concept has been expanded across disciplines as well as work flow to become an advanced business enabler, customized for all stages of construction from concept to completion and beyond.” says Jay Bhatt, Autodesk’s senior vice-president for architecture, engineering and construction solutions.

This means that BIM can now manage, manipulate and monitor, as well as model. Its capability is no longer limited to and concentrated on just visualizing buildings alone, BIM now aims to influence post-occupancy management, civil infrastructure, environmental performance and urban development.

This new generation of BIM has been driven by the turbulence in the global economic front over the past three years, adds Bhatt. He said, “BIM is now crucial to delivering smaller costs, greater certainty, higher efficiency and minimized waste.” Some of the latest advances in BIM technology are Data Management, Interoperability, Urban Planning and Infrastructure, and Utilities and Post Occupancy.

Autodesk has developed software, such as Vault, Buzzsaw, Autodesk BIM 360, Revit Sharer and Navisworks, that seek to consolidate and control centralized banks of information. BIM technology is being embedded with integrated capability that allows full access to the project data, while tracking and securing the project’s history. The growing use of mobile synchronization will enable instant access to the facility to edit digital data in real time from portable media, such as the iPhone and iPad, as well as from web browsers.

Two of the biggest operators in the field, Bentley and Tekla, announced their plans to link BIM software formats to ISM technology, which enables interoperability between the two.

“Supply chains … need to appropriate knowledge, process, tools and infrastructure to help them collaborate electronically. IT vendors also need to enable easy exchange of data between the tools that are used by different team members,” said technology consultant Paul Wilkinson, while identifying one of BIM’s key challenges.

The Urban Planning and Infrastructure innovations allow for the quick simulation of entire cities, regions and countries! A basic 3D model of the city of Boston was created using BIM in just 40 minutes! Buildings, squares, roads, dams and bridges, everything can be visualized virtually and then subjected to performance testing that probably would have taken years without this technology!

Utilities information can now be overlaid on to 3D models with some strands of the BIM software. This software allows the inclusion of critical details that are related to the age, size and location of the important civil infrastructure components, such as sewers, drainage, access tunnels, power lines, water pipes and gas mains.

Amongst the most significant innovations by BIM is its evolution from a simple planning and design tool to a management tool. The data accumulated during and for the construction can now be used for the maintenance and operation of a building, long after it has been completed.

These innovations by BIM are certainly set to make the construction business more cost efficient and manageable.

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