Wednesday, 23 July 2008
College Leavers seek Enterprise Opportunities
Working with our local sixth form college in Bradford (am I allowed to call them sixth form colleges any more?) this week has been an insight into the way communication methods have changed for the better and a reminder that life shifts at speed.
In designing our contribution to the Freshers' Week for September, we have been looking at the best way to connect with those who seek to leave college at the age of 18 and instead of going into employment, will seek to become enterprising and start their own ventures. It will be good to then stay in touch with them via mentoring support as they and their business progress.
Our contribution to the week will be to have two separate stalls, one for those wanting help finding jobs through our recruitment processes with local registered companies eeking new staff and who will want to take the best and ignore the rest - and why not? The other stall will be more interesting from a Small Business Big Profit perspective given that we will be looking to provide a signposting service to Enterprise activities and engagements.
When you end your full-time education at 18 where do you look for Small Business ideas and guidance? the local Enterprise Agency will be helpful so make contact. The Business Link organisation can provide some very useful contacts and general guidance for most, before passing you on to specialist advisers who will help with technical and legal enquiries.
But the chance for a young adult to be around an existing entrepreneur, around someone who already has that experience to share and that opportunity to promote is a valuable connection to make. With this in mind we are creating connections between Owner-Managers of SMEs who are willing to take someone on for a couple of days to follow them or shadow them in a couple of typical days. This provides an insight into everything from the importance of Skills with people; the need to understand and be capable at negotiating; the means for establishing rapport quickly; to be able to summarise and confirm what is discussed and agreed at a meeting; and the ability to identify and validate the financial opportunities to come from each meeting or transaction.
We will be hosting some local business owners who have agreed to come in and speak about their motivations, about what drives them and helps them to grow and develop their businesses, about theior own personal storied of what makes them 'tick'. At the same time we will also be promoting our own podcasts, videos and blogs in order to connect with and engage our audience of many hundreds of young adults. We will use SMS text messaging to invite them to the event, and then follow this with weblinks and the blogs for the Freshers' Week experience.
No paper in sight and no brochures other than those in PDF and audio file format! A far cry from my own first college Fresher's Week some twenty plus years ago when every piece of information came in it's own envelope and computers were something like a big machine in a room that no-one but 'the few' were allowed into.
In designing our contribution to the Freshers' Week for September, we have been looking at the best way to connect with those who seek to leave college at the age of 18 and instead of going into employment, will seek to become enterprising and start their own ventures. It will be good to then stay in touch with them via mentoring support as they and their business progress.
Our contribution to the week will be to have two separate stalls, one for those wanting help finding jobs through our recruitment processes with local registered companies eeking new staff and who will want to take the best and ignore the rest - and why not? The other stall will be more interesting from a Small Business Big Profit perspective given that we will be looking to provide a signposting service to Enterprise activities and engagements.
When you end your full-time education at 18 where do you look for Small Business ideas and guidance? the local Enterprise Agency will be helpful so make contact. The Business Link organisation can provide some very useful contacts and general guidance for most, before passing you on to specialist advisers who will help with technical and legal enquiries.
But the chance for a young adult to be around an existing entrepreneur, around someone who already has that experience to share and that opportunity to promote is a valuable connection to make. With this in mind we are creating connections between Owner-Managers of SMEs who are willing to take someone on for a couple of days to follow them or shadow them in a couple of typical days. This provides an insight into everything from the importance of Skills with people; the need to understand and be capable at negotiating; the means for establishing rapport quickly; to be able to summarise and confirm what is discussed and agreed at a meeting; and the ability to identify and validate the financial opportunities to come from each meeting or transaction.
We will be hosting some local business owners who have agreed to come in and speak about their motivations, about what drives them and helps them to grow and develop their businesses, about theior own personal storied of what makes them 'tick'. At the same time we will also be promoting our own podcasts, videos and blogs in order to connect with and engage our audience of many hundreds of young adults. We will use SMS text messaging to invite them to the event, and then follow this with weblinks and the blogs for the Freshers' Week experience.
No paper in sight and no brochures other than those in PDF and audio file format! A far cry from my own first college Fresher's Week some twenty plus years ago when every piece of information came in it's own envelope and computers were something like a big machine in a room that no-one but 'the few' were allowed into.
Labels: enterprise business partnership, enterprise in schools, mentoring in education, yorkshire business services
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