You don’t need a fez to Rock (but it helps…)

I’ve held all sorts of jobs and roles in my life so far, and yesterday added ‘roadie’ to the list!

But as you might expect from me, not a conventional roadie for a band, but one of a small select band of handpicked leaders in our respective fields, to support the 3^rd annual #MicroBizMattersDay – 8 hours of streaming video recognising, celebrating, and supporting, micro business owners everywhere. 

It’s the brainchild of Tony Robinson and Tina Boden, and is increasingly attracting a lot of interest from national businesses to government advisors, and this year, plumbers! Not just any plumbers, but the famous Pimlico Plumbers, who went well out of their way in letting us all take over their building to stage the event from, while also trying to continue to run their business around it all!

Loads happened throughout the day, and there are all sorts of stories that people have been sharing across various social media channels using the hashtags #MicroBizMatersDay and #IGave13 (a pledge that micro business owners will offer 13 of something insupport of their peers). However, I thought in the morning after the day before, I’d take time to share what some of my highlights of the day were:

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      -  Meeting the fabulous Ed Goodman in person: there are all sorts of people we meet through social media and start to build an idea about, but he’s far more impressive in real life: not only a similar height to me, but turns out we also share a fondness for pocket fob watches too! (and all my other fellow roadies were equally fabulous too - you can find out all about them in the day's 'souvenier programme' at http://microbizmattersday.rocks/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/MicroBizMattersDay-Souvenir-Programme-2017.pdf)

-  Meeting the ScanSnap crew who embraced the enterprise rocker’s dress code of “hats whenever possible” with aplomb (although there were more than passing resemblances to the Village People at times..) 

-  Seeing how Charlie Mullins, ‘the millionaire plumber’ behind Pimlico Plumbers whom, despite having the ear of lots of very influential people, prefers to spend his time ‘on the shop floor’, joking with his teams and personally making sure everyone is being looked after

-  Seeming to be have not made too much of a mess of sharing about how Todmorden and the Calder Valley have been recovering from last year’s devastating floods in an impromptu interview on camera (starts about 35 mins in from the start of the video)

-  Being part of something that hit the no2 trending spot on twitter during the day!

-  Getting hands on involved in putting up, and breaking down, display stands, and making up goodie bags for guests and supporters who joined the event for lunch: I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed doing events

-  Discovering chocolate covered crackling…

…and of course, giving my fez it’s world debut!

It was great to be able to spend day to share stories, commiserate, and challenge fellow micro businesses. And to have done it all in the shadow in Prince Charles taking a bath just seemed to somehow make it perfect…

So, to all my fellow micro businesses out there, my fellow roadies, and the powers that are Enterprise Rockers - #yourock