(iPhone Only) Photography 1 is a limited edition, handcrafted book of photographs taken only with an iPhone. The book’s photographer Kenny Allen came up with the concept whilst experimenting with the camera on his iPhone. Kenny then joined Instagram and discovered a world of like minded photographers experimenting and enjoying using Instagram to create their own visual story. The book explores nine months of his visual storytelling.

For Kenny the story of this photograph is one of spontaneous insanity! He was driving and suddenly spotted the sunlight breaking through the winter mist, he halted the car and ran into a boggy field, crouched down and started shooting whilst his feet were sinking into the bog below. That moment of spontaneous insanity will be forever captured in this image.

Every image in the book has a story to tell, and together the images tell the story of the nine month journey Kenny has taken with his iPhone. Buy a copy of the book or find out more about it here. Follow the iPhone Only project on twitter.

How to start a Business

As part of the series of breaking down the business plan, we are going to look at a fundamental part of that plan – your Company’s Mission Statement.

Ok, so you have your idea. What we are going to do today is brainstorm your idea with the aim of identifying your company’s brand values. The Mission Statement flows from this.

What is a Mission Statement?

This is a summary of your company’s brand values and goals in a single paragraph. This is what the company will be living and breathing…..in its dealings with suppliers,  customers, employees and investors. It will be inspirational. It will be challenging. It will be dynamic and will motivate you every single day.

So, where do we start?

Business Values

 As the leader or CEO of the business, very often the business values will reflect your own values and indeed until they are aligned, you might find it more difficult. Therefore, lets start with brainstorming YOUR values and the ones that you think might be applicable to the business. Have a long think about the values that matter most to you. Here is a link to a blog looking at the values of business award winners. Once you have your five, evaluate them to see how they can apply to your business.

In Mama Tea, our values are undernoted:

1. Empowerment

2. Honesty

3. Respect

4. Innovation

5. Love

“Empowerment” is one of our core values. We seek to empower our wonderful customers with teas that help them through difficult times in their pregnancy. Faced with labour in particular, if women feel empowered then they can reduce the stress and fear that is sometimes present with labour. In doing this, they reduce the stress hormone, “Cortisol” and so allow all the wonderful pregnancy hormones to kick in that help to speed up the labour. Taking control in this way, empowers them and helps them.

However, it doesn’t stop there. We take this value right throughout the company. So, we believe in empowering our employees. Giving them the power and responsibility to grow and develop within Mama Tea. We trust our employees and believe that this is always reciprocitated. We also try to empower anyone that comes into contact with the brand. If we meet other female entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs, we try our very best to energise them and give them encouragement. Again, this flows from our core value – empowerment.

So, please do the same with your list. How can you apply each and every one to your business?

I have also attached a link to Business Link that further explores values in business. Also, this article looks at the link between values and profits.

The next blog will explore the Business Goal.

Yesterday, I was fortunate enough to be asked to asked to speak at the RBS conference for Women in Business about the story of Mama Tea and my experience of how to start a business.

RBS are being very proactive in addressing the issues of trying to get more females starting up businesses with this initiative. They have a network of Women in Business Ambassadors throughout the UK who are there to assist female entrepreneurs. Isn’t that fantastic? I believe they are rolling out this initiative on a much wider scale and I applaud it fully!

I spoke about how to start a business – looking at one of the first hurdles – the business plan. This is traditionally seen as a bit of a pain to do but really, it is YOUR plan of what you want your business to look like, not some template. Also, if you are thinking of starting a business, you really need to research your market, competition, pricing, product, USP’s very carefully! You should know the answers to all these questions; there are some great resources out there and a lot of them are FREE!!! Here in Edinburgh, I used the National Library of Scotland. They have a fantastic business resource centre, so you can look up all the business research reports and research competitors etc. Also, go and do some of the FREE courses at your local Business Gateway. They have access to over 200 videos, tutorials etc for you to use and the website is fantastic.

Start with your idea and break it down. Why is it unique? What are the Unique Selling Points (USP’s)? What does the Market look like? Is there a demand for your product or service? What can you sell it for – is there a good profit margin in the product or is it a high volume/low margin product? How will you market your product or services?

Other companies and banks also have resources that you can use for free – RBS has an excellent business planning tool - http://www.rbs.co.uk/business/banking/g2/planning.ashx

Over the next month, I am going to break down each part of the Business Plan into manageable chunks and include a checklist at the end of each blog, so that any aspiring female entrepreneurs can actually take practical steps to getting a great plan in place and then get going!

The Mama

Search operates in a similar way on Linked-In as it does to other search engines; optimising your profile helps to raise your profile to the top of the list. So, how do you do this? Below, I have outlined the 4 main steps to follow in order to give your profile a boost:

1. Research your KEYWORDS. Use Google Adwords to find the best keywords for your specialism/business/expertise. Then you have to litter your profile with these keywords. However, there is a skill to repeating these keywords whilst still writing an appealing profile. You should insert them in your Title, Summary, Experience, Skills and Expertise.

2. Fill out your FULL PROFILE. Linked-In rewards you for doing this by automatically taking you up the chain.

3. CONNECT with as many relevant people as you can. Again, Linked-In rewards those profiles with lots of connections.

4. Change the text on your main profile box headed “Websites” to your own ANCHOR TEXT instead of using the generic “company website”. Change it to the name of your actual website/blog/twitter account etc. Again, if you can get the keywords I mentioned earlier in here, great! If not, just make sure it is personalised for your actual website.

Good luck with it and hope it works for you!

The Mama

Instagram

Everyone that is active in the world of social media will have heard of this app, aside from the social interaction aspect of the app, it has a selection of filters and effects that can be applied to photos you have taken on your phone.

The images above are a before and after using Instagram. The image on the left is the before shot taken on an iphone camera, the image on the right is the same picture but with a little bit of Instagram editing applied. The picture below is the same picture with more editing and another filter added.

Camera+

This app costs £0.69 but if you’re taken with the affects available on Instagram you’ll enjoy playing with the affects available on this app. It calls itself “the ultimate photo app” and I’m inclined to agree, the range of filters and editing tools available allow you to do anything from cropping a photo to being really creative with all sorts of effects.

The three photos above show the mama tea birthday cake from the first picture taken on an iphone in the office to the final picture that was used in our birthday blog post. You can see the original photo was not well lit and showed the desk in the background, a little bit of editing on camera+ and we have a picture that is good enough to eat!

There are other photographic apps but these two are my favourite and right now essential tools for my visual content. We at Mama Tea are not alone in thinking visuals, and importantly the quality of your visuals, are essential to your social media presence, Mashable have just published an article (here) about the importance of visual content and Hubspot have also published a blog post (here) on optimizing your pictures for google search.

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Now that I am The Mamapreneur and a fully fledged *mumpreneur*/*mompreneur*, I have some basic needs. I no longer need clothing that offers a sleek transition from day-time office to evening wine-bar transition. I need a total metamorphisis from school gates to meetings with bank/lawyers/investors/business networking/office back to school gates again. Wine-bars no longer get a look in!

This got me thinking….what would be the top FIVE demands for such a working wardrobe:

1. SMART

Ok, so I need to look the part. This is the main part of the challenge. This outfit/uniform/suit needs to impress. However, traditional clothing that impresses is often of the booted-and-suited variety. As you know, this type of clothing is great but does not accommodate running through school gates, with laptop bag slung round your neck, school bag on your back and two wee ones in each hand. The traditional mummy clothing is more of a casual variety….for a reason!! Therefore, what I need is truly SMART clothing. Clothing that looks good but is adaptable. An outer protective layer perhaps? Combat fatigues that turn into sleek jumpsuit with the flick of a zip?

2. POWERFUL

I need to ooze power in my meetings. I need to look powerful and in control. I also need power…literally! I am hooked up to my iPhone 24/7. It is my mobile office. I can take calls, answer emails, review contracts all whilst waiting outside nursery. However, this magic little invention tends to run out charge way before I do. Therefore, I need a renewable outfit. I need solar panels fitted all over my back, like a glittery power pack. I then just plug my iPhone into my pocket and bingo! One fully charged office! At present, this would look insane and would be even heavier than my laptop, so I need someone to invent solar clothing.

3. WATERPROOF

I live in Scotland. It rains here. A lot. I also have curly hair. For the uninitiated of you out there, this spells damp frizz hair disaster which is not the best look when presenting to a group of investors. Therefore, my outfit needs to have some kind of seal skin waterproof element to it. With a hood. A sleek hood. Not like my current option. Shaking hands with my very sophisticated, dapper lawyer whilst swinging my quilted, hooded coat around my shoulders results in a slight rise of the eyebrow and me muttering about the rain as I scurry to the door. I need a more sophisticated option that still protects against the elements.

4. HIGH

I like high heels. I wore high heels constantly as a lawyer. I still really like wearing them. And I believe, they can make an outfit! They make me feel powerful and in control, so great for meetings. However, when running to get to nursery/school pick up in time, they are a pain. Literally. I need a pair of shoes that can convert from high to flat with a flick of my iPhone. Therefore, I want a convertible pair of shoes that are a bit Bond like (or is it Moneypenny?!) and will change according to need. And an app to do that would be nice too, please!

5. RESISTANT

This super duper outfit needs to be resistant….to everything! Silk is beautiful but is not toddler friendly! Sticky hands are a constant dilemma for any suit. This new suit needs to repel all sorts of paint/chocolate/jam/dirt/milk etc etc etc etc…………..this might be the most difficult part of all. Stain resistant material still looks pretty *sturdy*.

So, there you go! Any budding designers out there, this is my list! I am sure others could add to it. I am just looking forward to the day I get to wear it!

The Mamapreneur

x

I have ideas all the time as do most people; ideas are like little sparkly particles buzzing around, waiting to be plucked out of thin air! It is so much fun musing about this invention or that one. However, fun is where they stay until you TAKE ACTION! What I say to you (as do Nike) is JUST DO IT. Jump, leap, open the door……take ONE STEP towards making your idea reality and it will start to happen. That first step is the most important one. It becomes easier and easier to take more steps.

I dreamt up the idea for a range of herbal teas that tasted good, looked good and helped with pregnancy and breastfeeding. It could have stayed there – hanging in the air. But I picked up the phone to a Master Tea Blender and took that vital first step. I then called one of the UK’s top Medical Herbalists and took my second step. They could have laughed at me but both liked the idea and then worked with me to develop the range. I am now managing an international supply chain and have supplied Waitrose, Tesco and Roche Pharmaceuticals. I am still taking small steps every day and am still scared a lot of the time. Being an entrepreneur is a roller coaster of a ride but I BELIEVE in myself and I BELIEVE in Mama Tea. That gives me power and fuels my persistence.

It all came from that first step.

Think, then DO. Then see what happens!

MAGIC!!

I thought I would blow out the candles and tell you my three business birthday wishes:

Birthday Wish No 1 – Big Mama

I wish that Mama Tea goes from strength to strength. It is not easy bringing a brand to market but we have managed it! It is now our time to grow rapidly and periods of growth are always challenging for any business. I am busy raising investment money for our business and am going to be doing a series of blogs about the challenges of growth. Time to go big, Mama!

Birthday Wish No 2 – International Mama

I wish that we can launch Mama Tea in the US and Europe this year. We also want to change our website so that we can sell direct into as many countries as possible! We are going to be developing an international e-commerce platform over this next year, using the principles of agile development to launch it and develop it. Eventually, we want to sell into every country in the world. Let’s fly, Mama!

Birthday Wish No 3 – Social Mama

I wish that we could increase our social media presence by launching an app, or a map, or a niche social network or whatever the next social trend is! Connecting with our customers and being social. #mamateamap is our current social media experiment. Check it out on Twitter! We are using the principles of in-bound marketing in action to get our brand message out there and connect with our customers! Join our community – social commerce rocks!

I am excited about our future and looking forward to sharing the journey with you!

The Mama

Each year Cranfield University compile a report on the numbers of females at board level in FTSE 100 companies. In the UK the figure for the percentage of female board members has plateaued at about 12% since 2008 and in the US it has plateaued at about 14-15%.

The Figures

There were 155 female held directorships, out of 1092, in the FTSE 100 in 2010; 21 of which were executive directors and 134 were non-executive directors. The top ranking board in the FTSE 100 was Burberry with 3 out of its 8 directors female and in second place was Diageo with 4 out of its 11 directors female (note this is the only board with 4 females). There are 14 boards in the FTSE 100 with no females, and in the FTSE 250 it’s even worse with just under 50% of boards being all male.

Time for Change

The introduction to the most recent report, by Theresa May MP and Vince Cable MP, said;

Promoting equality of opportunity and equal treatment for women isn’t just the right thing to do – it’s also crucial to our country’s economic success.

Women bring fresh ideas, perspectives and experiences. As a woman in business I’m keen to understand why women are not achieving board level, I also appreciate it is not all down to men and women need to help themselves. The debate goes on as to how equality is achieved, everyone should achieve based on merit and this is why the idea of gender quotas is distasteful to many, including me. There are no clear answers as to which gender diversity initiatives achieve positive results but we need to keep working at it to encourage and empower women enabling them to achieve their full potential.

It was Apple’s iPad App of the year in 2010 and one of Time’s Top 50 Innovations and we love it, it’s changing how we read the news and view our social media. Flipboard is a free app for your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch that calls itself “your (pocket-sized) social magazine”.

Flipboard presents your choice of social networks, news and publications in a magazine style format. The idea is to fill Flipboard with the things you like to read and it then creates a magazine of the bits of the social web that matter to you. You can then flip through the pages of your personal magazine commenting, sharing and saving to read later.

Flipboard has taken the social web and presented it in a gorgeous, glossy readable format. This style of content curation makes the likes of Twitter and Facebook newsfeeds immensely enjoyable to read and all collects it in one place. We predict that content curation will be a significant factor in the coming year for the social web. Flipboard has some big fans here and we’re trying hard to spread the word about what an amazing app it is to use!