Make Your Mark Blog

Our very own Jane Walton was out and about with pupils from Brigshaw School, Allerton Bywater, this month when they attended an event at Leeds Metropolitan University to show Paul Deighton, LOCOG Chief Executive, what Yorkshire is doing to raise aspirations towards 2012.

Brooklands Hotel in Barnsley was the venue for our big balloon launch today. There were more than 100 women attending a Business Link event today to support women in business and we were there to encourage them to ‘aim high and think big’. We asked the ladies to put their inspirational quotes on tags, which [...]

Well it’s none stop here in Yorkshire and Humber region. After yesterday’s success with the Challenge we thought the students would be taking it easy… not likely! Students from Challenge College in Bradford had a great day with the launch of the One Water Challenge. More than 200 students turned up to discuss ways in [...]

What do you get if you cross a banana costume (designed by Leeds College Art & Design) two hundred bananas (donated by International Produce) and more than 300 students from Pontefract New College and Park Lane College Leeds? A great start to Enterprise Week and the launch of the Make Your Mark Challenge of course. You [...]

On Monday the 17th of November thousands of students from schools across the country participated in the Make Your Mark challenge. A secret business brief was unveiled at 9:00am challenging students to come up with a creative and innovative new enterprise using the Olympic and Paralympic values as inspiration. The teams of the nationwide competition [...]

Make Your Mark and WAYN bring you the wisdom of a great mentor through the magic of the interwebs. Pete from WAYN meets up with his mentor Jon Gillespie-Brown for some tips for start-ups. Jon is a seriously successful serial entrepreneur. He has been an entrepreneur in residence and mentor for the London Business School, Stanford University and [...]

One to watch: new web start-up favy.com interviewed by WAYN? Another great video diary from Where are You Now?’s Peter and Jerome, interviewing one of Euro Tech Showcase’s most promising European technology companies. Alex and Glen set up favy.com because they felt there was simply too much content online, and the good stuff was too often buried [...]

And now for something completely different, John Cleese (of Fawlty Towers and Monty Python fame) is a keynote speaker at the Creativity World Forum in Antwerp taking place on 19 & 20 November. He is joined by other big names including Steve Wozniak (co-founder of Apple), Chris Anderson (Editor of Wired magazine and author of The [...]

It’s 5am at the Business Academy, Bexley and students and the BBC are poised in a classroom in preperation for a live broadcast. We are supporting Phone Brain a national initiative raising awareness of the risks using mobile phone-paid services. As a specialist school in business and enterprise this is really helping us to kick off enterprise [...]

Don’t take our word for how good Enterprise Week is…hear what the UK’s best business mags and websites have to say… http://www.startups.co.uk/6678842910032753952/news.html - news stories about the week launching and Women’s Enterprise Day http://www.managementtoday.co.uk/channel/Entrepreneurship/news/863156/female-species-ambitious-male/ Women’s Enterprise Day http://www.managementtoday.co.uk/channel/Entrepreneurship/news/863405/dont-greedy-succeedy/ Social Enterprise Day http://www.realbusiness.co.uk/business-comment/5471216/global-entrepreneurship-week-begins.thtml. Global Entrepreneurship Week launches and boy do we need it! Let us know if you find any more!

Briefly this morning I strayed into an unknown wilderness. But after a few familiar icons came into focus I realised- I was back at the office! But not for long (not even enough time to glug down a cappucino from that machine that has got it in for me). Today- Women’s Enterprise Day- threw me to the [...]

Adjust your clocks as the world of work is changing. People in their thousands are heading home from the day job to build a business at nights and weekends. It’s what we call the 5 to 9 economy and it’s a great way of starting a business as it means low cost and low risk. [...]

Not all business books have to be dry and boring. In Dragon James Caan’s autobiography The Real Deal, he talks about how he started out in a broom cupboard with just a Yellow Pages to help him and went on to become a global entrepreneur. Plus entrepreneurial icon Sir Richard Branson shares his business secrets, [...]

It is a sad state of affairs when i am a day behind in blogging only 3 days into Enterprise Week but there has been so much going on in the North West this week that is exactly what has happened.  For the past 2 days i ahve had the lovely Daniel from Policy accompany me [...]

If you think you have ideas to impress a Dragon, then tomorrow lunchtime (20 November) is your chance to put your money where your mouth is. Forget about that frankly rather unappealing sandwich at your desk - and pop along to the Unltd Social Stage at Canary Wharf between 1230 and 1330 instead. We’ll be on stage with Dragons’ [...]

This morning I attended the launch of a new women’s support network.  The morning was very well attended by business women and public sector people who can provide invaluable advice and help.  I was given a very warm welcome by Phil Cowper and his team from the Tameside Business Family   www.tamesidebusinessfamily.com .  I arrived just [...]

Last night I attended a fab Fab Over 50s event in Preston.  Obviously I was only allowed in under my roving reporter remit!  The event was light hearted and entertaining aimed at confidence building and presentation skills.  Organised by Spark ambassador, Janet Harrison www.creative-academy.co.uk in partnership with image consultant Cliff Bashforth www.simplyimage.co.uk .  Cliff gave [...]

Yesterday saw the launch of Speednetwork the Globe with events taking place across the world. The UK’s flagship event took place on the London eye with special guest Lord Bilimoria the founder of Cobra Beer. 60 young entrepreneurs piled into two pods to speed network 443 feet above London. I shared a pod with Speednetworking [...]

I’ve been inspired by a wide variety of fantastic entrepreneurs at each event I’ve been to so far this week. From committed community based social entrepreneurs like Chrissey Townsend, founder of the Teviot Action Group, to energetic dynamic young entrepreneurs Sally Broom of YourSafePlanet and Nathaniel Peat of The Safety Box and , to brilliant innovators [...]

The Steakhouse Team have been very impressed by the food at this years EW events. There’s something about the spread laid on by an event that speaks volumes.   The week was kick-started by The Big Debate –Can Entrepreneurs Change The World? Upon arrival we were treated to some lovely bowl food – bangers and mash, [...]