jbsh

I mentioned in an earlier post how a client was unsure of my experience and background, and that the jbsh website didn’t communicate effectively and I lost the job. Those of you on the RSS feed won’t have noticed but this site now has a static front page with mini-biographies of me and Sam, the blog is accessed from a link in the header bar.

We’ve also added a client page where short client / project descriptions will go. This post tells the story of the first of these, Gordon Morris.

Gordon and I spent some time yesterday catching up at his new premises  in Somerton. I first met Gordon back when I was working for UWE as a Business Sector Specialist, my job was basically to meet companies in the West of England area, conduct a business needs analysis and figure out how the Universities could help them.

Gordon had single-handedly built a successful business selling equipment to help organisations communicate with individuals that were hearing impaired. An electronics engineer by training, Gordon also designed his own bespoke solutions for situations where the existing products weren’t up to the job. His usp was that, being hearing impaired himself, he could assure the system’s quality and functioning personally.

However, the business was getting too big for Gordon to contain in his head, he recognised that he was beginning to be the limiting factor in future growth. He was also facing a premises move and these two triggers were the catalyst for a business transformation plan.

I worked with Gordon over a couple of months learning about his business, understanding the challenges and putting together a plan of action. I introduced Gordon to the Bristol Business School and together we wrote the funding application for a Knowledge Transfer Partnership that introduced an excellent young graduate to implement a financial and operations planning system. This system acted as the foundation for the following business cycles.

As the Disability Discrimination Act came into force, Gordon saw a major upswing in business, the plan we put together gave him the infrastructure to cope with that. After the upswing came the downturn, but Gordon took this as another opportunity to broaden the sales and marketing part of the business; I had joined Futurelab by this time but he came back for another KTP.

He’s still a live wire looking for new opportunities and ways to simulate the energy within his staff and company to continue growing. The discussion we had ranged across Skype and Qik for doing video conferencing and presentations in order to reduce his carbon footprint (and the expense of driving all over the country), he’s looking for product videos to be shot so that people can see these systems in use at their own convince, we also talked about the factory layout and how some of that was working really well (the open plan) and some of it less well (the separate customer demonstration suite).

Gordon’s working with another business consultant in his ongoing development but I’m going to be sending Gordon some links to other Bristol organisations that may be able to help in his new ideas for the future. What are your business headaches and how can I help?

Uploaded by frozenchipmunk on
20 Aug 07.

Not about a portfolio of businesses, but rather for a business to have a portfolio of income streams from a single (or small number) of core products / services.

Several recent conversations in Bristol, Leeds, London and elsewhere have shown that a winning business model could be through diversification of income. A number of excellent projects have been initiated with funding from the Government or charitable foundations. These usually have a section on sustainability, but they tend to be very light.

When the funding ends, the crunch bites. Obviously you don’t want to kill the service, goodwill and community that’s been built up, but without a cash flow, any service will end or at best stagnate.

I’ve found examples of deep community knowledge and solid data even without Facebook / Phorm style tracking. The challenge then becomes how to identify income streams to sustain the service/community once the grant funding runs out.

The models that are intriguing me most at the moment are blending sponsorship models (basically brand association), membership fees, and the possibility of consultancy / expert witness type activity.

If you’re managing a community (however lightly) then you know the demographics, levels of engagement, patterns of engagement, areas of interests, what’s current, what annoys, etc. And that’s valuable knowledge, knowledge that another organisation wishing to work with that group, or develop products/services for that group may pay for. This is not about selling your email list / registration database, there are good data protection laws in place to stop that.

So that’s part of what’s interesting me at the moment; mixed business models blending sponsorship, membership and consultancy. The other two two oft-cited business models (freemium services & advertising) are also of interest for commercial clients, but less so in the situation of many foundation initiated projects.

What are your experiences of transitioning from grant funding to revenue funding?

On the 8th April, I blogged about an article being accepted for publication in the International Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery. Today I received the digital object identifier (DOI) can be used to cite and link to electronic documents. The DOI never changes which makes it an ideal medium for citing articles. The DOI my article is - doi:10.1016/j.ijom.2008.04.004. Depending on your institutional or personal access you maybe able to access the whole article from this link. If not you should be able to view the abstract, although I have written it out below (with permission from the journal).

Abstract:

From 2001 to 2005, 66 patients referred for perioperative hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBO₂) for debridement of necrotic tissue or prevention of radionecrosis were assessed with quality of life measures, before and after completion of HBO₂ and surgery. The Medical Outcomes Short Form 36 (SF-36) and Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) showed no significant changes. The European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer Core (EORTC-C30) questionnaire showed significant improvement in pain, global health, and dyspnoea (p = 0.011; p = 0.027; p = 0.008, respectively). The Head and Neck sub-module (H&N35) identified significant improvements in teeth, dry mouth and social contact (p = 0.002; p = 0.038; p = 0.029, respectively). The University of Washington Scale (UW), showed significant changes in relation to chewing and shoulders (p = 0.031; p = 0.047). When sub-group analysis using ‘osteoradionecrosis’ and ‘dental extraction or implants’ was performed on the EORTC and UW data, variations in the patterns of significance were found. Adjunctive HBO₂ should be considered for the treatment and prevention of some of the long-term complications of radiotherapy.

Uploaded by klauspost on
29 Jan 06.

Another great OpenCoffee with more new faces to the OpenCoffee networking scene. Yesterday we welcomed Katie More from Business Startup Community. With over 500 subscribers and the prestigious conference series in London, Katie promises to be a valuable addition to the Bristol entrepreneurial ecosystem.

James Gareh was back from South Africa where he’s been specialising in company turnaround projects. It’s good to have him back in Bristol where his skills in identifying and driving growth plans will be put to good use I’m sure!

I had to leave a bit early but the conversation around supporting company growth and connecting business needs with solutions was in full flow.

Next OpenCoffee Bristol is on 3 June, from 8.30 in Starbucks on Park St.

Disclosure: As well as Managing Partner of jbsh LLP (the business behind this blog) I also work part time for the University of the West of England on the Knowledge West project managing their QuickMark® service.]

Today was an important day for jbsh, I gave our first unsuccessful pitch. Obviously in writing research grant applications and funding proposals, I’ve had unsuccessful submissions and I’ve talked a couple of clients out of engaging me in favour of more appropriate (and cheaper or free) options.

What was different today was that I really felt that this was a great business that I could add value to.

With most funding applications you don’t get great feedback on why you’re unsuccessful. When the negative email came through there was an invitation to explore why we weren’t proceeding with the plan as discussed.

The discussion brought an important point home, you need to constantly evaluate every message across every medium to make sure it’s effective and conveying what you think it is. I’ve been working on building the QuickMark service, taking on new Researchers and more clients. I’m actively seeking ways to grow and build the service as a sustainable offering outside the funding that has provided stability so far. In doing this I’ve significantly refined the proposition, carefully positioning the service between the core activities that the Universities offer and those that are provided by commercial market research organisations.

Unfortunately, I hadn’t spent quite so much time on this blog evaluating what message I wanted it to convey. Originally it was a place to share thoughts, talk about events I’d attended and give jbsh LLP a presence on the web. This has all be augmented by LinkedIn, Facebook, MyBlogLog, Twitter, etc. Since that launch (almost exactly a year ago) the message that this blog is being used to convey has changed. Sam is using it to promote, explain and disseminate her research, and I was using it to build confidence with potential clients to trust their businesses to my advice and guidance. This last bit hasn’t worked, because I haven’t developed the blog, I’ve just used it to a different purpose (one it wasn’t designed for).

The other messages are still important, so we won’t undergo a complete redesign, but there will be some changes. Most critically I’ll be putting more references to existing jbsh clients and stories from businesses I’ve helped in the past.

It’s not survival of the fittest, it’s survival of the most adaptable and appropriate to the environment.

[Note on the photo: I grew up in Gibraltar and have fond memories of walking across the runway to catch planes to 'exotic' locations like Southend where my Grandad lived. My first thought was say something about stopping and re-evaluating, hence the flickr search for stop signs. Searches for failure weren't as nice so I'm sticking with the image.]

I’ve been a MyBlogLog community member since Dec ‘06 and have the sidebar widget to personalise and put faces to visitors (at least those registered with MBL). In the last upgrade to WP2.5.1 the widget didn’t get turned back on so was missing.

Then Google announced the launch of their FriendConnect (here on TechCrunch and all over the blogsphere).

I’ve pre-registered, see we get access, but that triggered me to see how MBL was doing (and the fact that the widget wasn’t there any more). So it’s reinstated, I like that it’s more personal than ClusterMaps (though that gives a nice global feel to the web). I don’t have a need or desire for folks to register with jbsh, so its nice that there are 3rd party services that can take care of that and show who’s dropped by in person.

I should admit that I do all my blog surfing via Google Reader so probably have a much smaller blog footprint than I did even 12 months ago, despite reading a much larger number of blogs, twitter streams, etc.

Uploaded by suresh_gundappa on
17 Aug 06, 9.27AM BST.

The nominal theme for this morning’s Open Coffee was ‘articulating your message’, or the art of the elevator pitch. Without wishing to do anyone (including myself) out of a job - go to this blog post and read it.  Actually might as well read the whole site if you’re looking at the investor path.

Having suggested that Matt from Montage Communications might get the ball rolling with a few pithy words on communicating complex ideas in compact spaces, by the time I got downstairs at Starbucks on Park St, the conversation was in full flow!

With roughly 2:1 entrepreneurs to business support professionals there was plenty of discussion and swapping of business cards. Everyone I spoke to had met someone new and interesting.

My new connection was with Rob Cox, launching a new motivational and self belief workshop and mentoring service for kids to “Dream, Believe, Achieve“.

Thanks go to Hannah at Montage Communications for handling the coordination with Starbucks and to Rosie (Interim Store Manager, Starbucks) for keeping the (free) coffee and cakes flowing.

The next Open Coffee is on 20 May, same Starbucks on Park St., please sign up or leave a comment here so that Rosie can order in enough fresh muffins!

I mentioned earlier on Twitter that I was hoping to confirm some additional support for Open Coffee, well Starbucks are getting behind us and offering free coffee, free muffins and free WiFi to attendees of Open Coffee at 9am Tuesday, 6 May.

We’ll be downstairs at the Starbucks on Park Street (map).

Kick off will be from 9am but some folks will be there before and you’re obviously welcome to stay as long as you like. Rosie (the interim Store Manager) has offered free coffee until 11am.

Hopefully this will be a long term partnership for digital companies in Bristol. The next 3 Open Coffee meetings are already scheduled in for 20 May, 3 June and 17 June.

All the details are on the Upcoming group, I’ll be talking about them here and on Twitter, Facebook and anywhere else that folks will be checking out. I’m also hoping to get notes put in BEN event announcements, Creative Technology Network, Bristol Media, Business Link, etc. The purpose is to give those companies (or start-ups) that are building growth businesses in digital software, services or media have an additional physical network to augment their online networks and wider business support services.

See you there!

What is the Lung Information Needs Questionnaire (LINQ)?

LINQ is a self-complete questionnaire that measures the information needs of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). LINQ can also be used for patients with some other chronic lung diseases. It is not suitable for patients with asthma.

What is it used for?

LINQ is designed to help clinicians identify which patients would be helped by information and the type of information an individual patient needs. This questionnaire can also be used to evaluate the impact of intervention, including pulmonary rehabilitation, for research and audit purpose.

Why am I writing about it?

I have been involved with the development of LINQ for the last four years, and think it is a really valuable tool. Over this period we have used LINQ in a number of projects and it has be embraced by doctors working with patients suffering from chronic lung conditions.

We have had several papers published reporting patient needs and the relaibility and validity of LINQ, and have recently had another paper accepted reporting LINQs ability to measure change in information needs. The details of this publication will soon be posted on the research page, but if this is a topic you are interested in, then visit the LINQ homepage and learn a bit more about it.

One last thing is,who can use LINQ?

The LINQ is freely available for clinical use and not-for-profit research. It can be downloaded from the homepage in multiple languages. Because it is still a ‘young’ scale, it would be helpful if researchers email me or one of the members of the team listed on the LINQ website let us know if they intend to use it, so we can update them if needed. This is, however, entirely voluntary. We welcome comments about the experience of using the scale, and any data you care to share with us.