On the last day of the event, I was talking with James Moffat (of Organic Development) and Glenn Le Santo. Rather than let the conversation float away, I caught it on video, and it’s been heavily retweeted and viewed:

And there in is my proof why you want Social Media at your event. Without the blogging team you might not have heard of the event, or seen that talk. Here’s my top 5 reasons to add social media to your event:

• It extends the reach of your event. People who couldn’t make it physically, can still see it.
• It extends the duration of your event. Why create all that great content to only last a day. Get it on-line. Let it last.
• Create conversations. Get feedback. People pay tens of thousands for focus groups. Find out what people think for a fraction of that cost.
• Have expert voices translate your message. All businesses speak in their own corporate speak. Bloggers from your customer base can translate your speak into customer-speak.
• Being direct. Unpolished. And credible. Yes, you can create a polished corporate video, but a 2 minute live on-camera interview pushed to YouTube is significantly more credible.

There’s plenty more. The fact is that having a social media team at your event is a very cost effective way to multiply the value of your event. Orange Business Services is one of those leading the way. Many others will follow.

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The bonus from all this activity has been lots of face to face interaction and debate, from the Information World keynote with Elizabeth and Mia of the Continued Communications research team, through speaking at UKTI’s TechnologyWorld, to the amazing LikeMinds event in Exeter, Web 2.0 Expo and the recent Digital Surrey event. The next few weeks feature a huge number of events, as we escape election (and post-election) fever. The schedule for just the rest of the week is:

• 13th May - Being-Social – , 2-6pm, London. Where I will be chairing the ‘How Social Media is changing how we communicate’ session, joined by Andrew Davis Antony Mayfield Chris Thorpe David Cushman Jamie Riddell.
• May 14th – Higher Ground:The future of social and digital media in HE - London, for CASE. Opening, and joined by Abigail of The Blue Door.

With much more coming up, but more on that later. There is still time to book for Being-Social tomorrow, with just a few spaces left. The full speaker list and programme are here:

• http://www.being-social.com/programme/
• http://www.being-social.com/speakers/

And I am looking forward to getting back to my roots in the Education community on Friday. All of this has required some careful diary management! It is amazing how much backwards and forwards email and phone calls a simple shared diary system can save, likewise, sending event participants a diary invite with the event logistics in may seem a bit cheeky, but at least you know they have the details somewhere that they can find them on the night before. Standards like iCalendar have made diary sharing and synchronisation relatively easy, even in mix Mac/PC/Linux environments.

Here’s to a busy (social) life!

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It’s a big week in London this week, and it’s not just me saying that, it’s a quote from TechCrunch’s Mike Butcher. Yesterday was SeedCamp, today is Geek’n'Rolla and last night I chaired the Mobile Monday London session on “Financing Your Mobile Business in a Credit Crunch.”

Raising Finance

Raising finance is an almost inevitable part of running any business, large or small, in good times (to fund growth) or in bad times (to get through). It is something to understand, whether you are a new employee or a seasoned CEO. This post captures some of the discussion and my thoughts from last night’s diverse and talented panel, that included:

• Chris Padfield, from London Business Angels.
• Carl Uminski, long time entrepreneur (CTO of Overture, TruTap co-founder and involved in Flirtomatic).
• Pamir Gelenbe, from Newton Moore – entrepreneur and VC.
• Rose Lewis, from Pembridge Parnters LLP – again with a VC background and businesses finance experience.

The evening kicked off with presentations, including Vodafone launching their mobile clicks competition in the UK, a session on business modelling, an overview of the DKTN and also Gateway to investment - www.g2i.org – a scheme which helps prepare businesses for funding.

Customers Consulting and Product

A lot of the discussion centred on customers and consulting. Customers are clearly an important piece of the funding equation. Paying customers not only provide revenue to fund the business, they also provide evidence that the business has a credible proposition. Clearly something that is important to potential investors. While a single customer doesn’t prove you have a business (almost anyone can sell something to someone once), a few key references are a good indicator that you might be on to something.

Some businesses are funded pre-revenue, as was the case for many of the businesses that I have been involved in. If you are developing patent-able technology, or a product with a long development cycle, then clearly you are going to need funding to get through to first revenues. However, with changing development models and costs, and the more modular nature of Web 2.0 technologies, it is becoming the exception rather than the rule in the web and social technology space. Businesses are getting customers on board with early versions of the product, and after that seeking funding to accelerate growth. That means less dilution for the company founders – since the company will have a higher valuation, you don’t have to give as much of it away to raise money.

The general consensus from the panel was that web-based businesses really do need to get customers before they go for funding. With the cost of prototyping applications being so low, early development can be self-funded. Customers are key to showing that there is a market for the offering, rather that it just being a ‘good idea.’

There is a temptation for technology companies to slip into being a consultancy business, rather than a product business. Not that there is anything wrong with a consultancy business, but it has a very different valuation and structure to a product one. Consultancy can provide short term cash, but products provide revenue streams that can more easily be leveraged and grown, once up and running. Many businesses do start with consultancy and use that to build expertise and IPR that leads to a product – it takes great skill.

Timing and a Plan

The session on business modelling, and a few questions from the audience, brought up the issue of business plans. I think it was Pamir who said: “Business plans are like sausages, if you knew what went in to one you wouldn’t touch it.” In my experience, that is very true, but you still need them! Rose pointed out something that many people I speak to seem to miss: “Once you have raised the funding, what are you going to do with it?” She likes to see a 90 day plan detailing how the investment will be used.

Timing for investment was another central topic of discussion, and its always a tricky one. There are pros and cons to going early of going late, but Pamir reminded us of the truism: “The time to get money, is when you don’t need it” – If you don’t need funding, you can be more selective about who you get funding from. That gives you the opportunity to choose “better quality” money.

Not all cash is equal.

Just as some customers are a better source of revenue – either because they are prepared to be references or can help with critical product issues -  some angels and Venture Capitalists are going to be able to bring more relevant expertise and contacts into your business. It isn’t just about their money, in fact almost anything but. Also, remember that headline valuation is one thing, but terms are another. Sometimes the terms of the funding can kill you down the line, or at least greatly limit your options.

If you ask a VC for money you get advice, if you ask a VC for advice you get money.

Much of the art of investment is about controlling risk, and that came up as well. As a business person you need to manage your risk, but you also need to manage (and reduce) investor’s risk. 

There are lots of different options for raising money. There are 15-20 key groups of Angels  in the UK, a smaller number of VCs (with funds that are active), then there are banks, competitions (ike Vodafone Clicks) and grants – many of which are regionally specific in the UK. Banks are clearly putting money into businesses, but generally only into larger, mature businesses. If you already have VC funding, then venture debt is also an option. It’s newer and more esoteric, but can be advantageous in certain circumstances – I’ve had good and bad experiences with it. 

Be Innovative

There other ways of funding your business too, and you can be really innovative in ‘raising funds’ – sometimes adjusting cash flow, for example moving to success-based cost models for sales and marketing, or choosing suppliers that will work in ways that free up your cash.

Although we don’t say it so much on this side of the Atlantic, the recession is great for entrepreneurs – Brits talk about it more conservatively. In down times there is more talent available, sales and marketing costs are lower and things are more open to negotiation – for example office space. If you are driven by costs, not revenues – usually the case for early stage start up – then hard times can be good. Not so great for businesses with big established revenues and high margins. 

A big thank you to Farhan for liberally tweeting notes whilst I was chairing – another great use for Twitter, real time session notes.

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WordCamp UK, of course. It was a great event, with The Studio far exceeding my expectations as a venue. It is a fantastic place to hold events in Birmingham, centrally located and suitably post modern. WordCamp gave me lots to think about:

• The technology side of WordPress.
• The content side of blogging (and moblogging).
• And, of course, putting faces and voices to fellow bloggers I have been reading.

It was well worth the travel up to Birmingham – somewhat confusingly, there will also be a WordCamp in Birmingham, USA. This was the Birmingam UK event (we don’t want people getting confused)! I even got to meet both Chris Garretts in one place at the same time (this one and this one).

Now I have no excuse for getting them confused. The links are in the order of the photo, which I promise isn’t photoshopped – check out the full flickr stream to get a feel for the event: WordCampUK photos.

During a break on my journey home I Qik’d a video journal – By the way, Qik is now in public beta, so if you have the right phone, you can sign up and try it out for yourself. You’ll need a good data plan (a large data limit, and watch out for per MB charges). It was a brain dump that turned into a 20 minute monologue, but at least I have captured it all. The video covers the different pieces of WordCamp UK, you can watch it here if you want to hear a full run through of the weekend.:

Video is a surprisingly nice medium for spontaneously dumping thoughts. When you listen back you have the choice of listening to just the audio, or watching the video too. Capturing the facial expressions and seeing what is physically happening adds to the communication – you’ll find out what I mean it you watch the video.

The downside of video is that you can’t skim read it. That was part of an answer I gave during the panel session – I love Q&A panels – always gets the brain going. Chris Garrett caught some of the discussion when he Qik’d from the event. You can hear me telling the story behind WOWNDADI on the video too (thank you Chris):

There are notes and links for some of the content on the WordCamp Wiki, a name check for the event in The Blog Herald and I now have a few hundred gigabytes of audio, video and photos which I will be editting down and posting. Although, embarrassingly, I can’t remember if I videod my own talk!

Special kudos to Sam Bauers of Automattic for flying all the way from Australia and being camera man 2 with a very nifty HDD video camera, as well as fielding a raft of questions. Check out the speakers’ sites to get a feel for a range of WordPress uses:

• My fellow presenters for the Blogging and Journalism session:
  • Bob Jones http://www.thedailynovel.com/ 
  • David Page http://www.expressandstar.com/
• Chris Garrett
• Gurbir Singh
• Ian Covey
• Jonnya
• Mike Little
• Nick Garner
• Peter Westwood
• Rich Boakes
• Richard Williams
• Sam Bauers
• Simon Dickson
• Simon Wheatley
• Tony Scott

Users of WordPress include eBay, The New York Times and the UK Government. More to follow in the coming weeks… It would be great to hear from more WordPress users and bloggers, especially if you are in the UK. Roll on WordCamp 2009!

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