my latest social accounts – more impact, but not all positive...?

So, it’s that time of year again when I publish my summary ‘social accounts’. There are various reasons why I choose to be so transparent and open in my performance in respect of the values that I try and conduct my business and work by, and I’ve listed them before. (If you’re curious as to what they are – you can read about them in previous posts here).

And year on year, they show that I’ve gotten better at managing my environmental impact and also in strengthening the resilience of my local economy. But what they also suggest is that my ‘performance’ as a trainer seems to have struggled in comparison to previous years (although it’s still a high satisfaction rating) – this prompted me to dig a little deeper into this apparent variance and has meant that for the first time, I’ve included a brief commentary to the findings that offers some additional insight into what lies behind the figures.

This expansion to the presentation of these ‘accounts’ I prepare has prompted me to revisit the overall structure of how I monitor and report on my impacts. As a small business/sole trader offering a range of consultancy and support services both to and through a wide variety of groups (see my portfolio), I needed to create a template that was easy to use, didn’t require a lot of resource (‘cos I don’t have a lot to spare!), and would allow me to reflect on my values in a tangible and meaningful way. The expansion of this to begin to include narrative commentary to some of the findings means that I’m wondering afresh if there are also ways in which I might begin to consider how the methodologies of established social impact standards such as SROI and SAA (which are not designed with sole traders in mind!) might be able to be applied to a small business/sole trader who trades across a wide range of customer groups and impacts on not only local groups, but also national policy and legislation.

I’d welcome any comments people might care to offer... meanwhile, you can see the latest set of my social accounts on the last page of my ‘blag sheet’ here.

I'm more accomplished than I realised!

Very often, we don't fully appreciate the impact we have on those around us until much later (if at all), when comments are made in passing - which is another good reason for adopting social impact reporting, but that's not the focus of this musing...

I was struck by a piece of post I received yesterday: my shiny new RSA Fellowship card arrived, but I didn't initially recognise myself as the person it was addressed to. You see, I usually refer to myself as 'Adrian', and while I hold some qualifications and awards, I don't usually list these in any context (unless I'm bigging myself up when pitching for contracts!).

The letter I received was addressed to "Mr A Ashton MA MBA ASIP FRSA FCISI" - well, they got the FRSA letters right, but sadly I don't have an MBA, and am not entirely sure what some of the other letters even mean!

Could it be that they have foresight about what I'm about to embark upon; that its a reflection of their appreciation and perception of my skills, abilities and apititudes (after all, they originially approached with with an invitation to join their Fellowship); or perhaps just a clerical filing error...

In a world when we don't always get thanked for the efforts we make on behalf of others, I know which of the explanations I'd like to believe...

Where have all the pens gone? (the hidden victims of technology and austerity custs)

On the occasions that I find myself at conferences I've noticed that I'm increasingly 'lending' my pen to the person I'm sitting next to. And I wonder if this is symbolic of the rise of mobile technologies and budget cuts – after all, before the rise of the smartphone we would have to scribble notes and ideas down in a notepad but now we can just tap them onto a keypad; and the assumption that delegate packs will always have a pen in them just can't be taken for granted anymore (they may not cost much individually, but can soon add up when you're trying to keep within a budget!)

So – I'd like to propose that you all take a moment to mourn the passing of what was once a common item in all suit pockets and ladies' purses – the humble biro. But don't worry, I always carry a spare so if you find yourself short at an event: just see if you can spot me!

the success of small businesses depends on how well they play together

The future of small business may not be that they continue to emerge and grow, but that their success is based on their connectivity – not through social media or with their customers, but with each other in person, through the places where they hang out and do their work.

That’s the view I’m increasingly coming to, especially after I shared a link on twitter recently to the benefits that coworking creates not for the individual entrepreneur, but for their local communities - with it being ‘retweeted’ by various other people, well over 5,000 people have now become aware of these benefits, so it’s obviously something that people are finding of increasing interest and importance.

(And just to clarify, coworking is where small businesses share a common physical workplace and are looking out for opportunities to not only work together on larger contracts than they’d be able to manage on their own, but also for leads for each others’ business.)

There are some good examples of coworking here in the UK– and they seem to work best when the workspace they share is structured as some form of co-operative. But don’t just take my word for it, check out OpenSpace in Manchester.

As small and ‘micro’ enterprises, we seem to be constantly bombarded with messages about the benefits of being more connected on-line, but I wonder if sometimes we forget just how beneficial it can be for our small businesses to be connected with each other in the ‘real world’...

I'm number 6, 37, 72, 180...

The government announced a grand vision last year; that there would emerge a volunteer army of no less than 15,000 business mentors by now to support those aspiring start-ups and existing enterprises in the wake of cuts to funded business support (remember Business Link and the once proud national network of local enterprise agencies?)

And those nice civil servants in Whitehall recently revealed the exciting news that 7,500 such volunteer mentors have now been found! Fantastic! But there might be a problem... it seems that they haven't asked what level of enquiries for support these mentors are receiving (or are actually delivering...). So there might be 7,500 business mentors sitting around twiddling their thumbs. And there's another problem in that they're likely double counting too: I offer support to various enterprises through a number of mentoring initiatives (including the RSA Skills Bank, Unltd Connect, and others...)

So – volunteer mentors: there are obviously quite a few of us, and there are lots of schemes through which people can get at us. But I'm not sure how valuable it is to have government watching over us and claiming credit for what we're quietly getting on with to make sure that the world manages to keep getting along...

Alphabet soup

I recently received a piece of post (you know - those messages on pieces of paper that come through your letterbox instead of your computer screen) addressed to me, but with a string of letters after my name.

I'd forgotten that my membership of that particular professional association entitles me to cite such letters after my name; and I realised that there are quite a few more that I could add on based on other awards and citations I've received over the years.

But would it be worth the effort? For many people that I work with, its my proven expertise and demenour that they value over such qualifications, and for anyone who wants to be impressed about my recognition by national professional bodies then you can see them all listed on my submissions as a provider of services to be contracted.

So i don't have an alphabet of letters after my name as I'm pretty confident in my own abilities not to needs them to bolster my confidence, and for most people I engage with, they're not relevant either; so why should I make my business cards any bigger to accomodate these extra letters?

Mind you, the prospect of being introduced as Lord Professor Adrian Ashton is very tempting...


Adrian Ashton, BA (hons), FRSA, MIC, FoIEE (and probably a few more that I've forgotten as well...)

The highs (and lows) of doing it live...

Ok, so most who are reading this will know that I tweet – if for no other reason that you can see what I’m tweeting in the update sidebar on your screen as you read this!

And lots of other people tweet too – some of it funny, some provocative, some thoughtful, some boring... and you may also know that there are lots of conventions and practices that have emerged around twitter: the #hashtag, the tweetup, and the tweeting live from events...

I've always liked to think that I’m open to ‘experimenting’ with my practices, so when I attended a recent event being staged by Unltd, I took the opportunity to jump onto a wifi network to tweet about the event ‘live’. And other people at the same event did the same. And from my perspective this meant some quite interesting things happened:


* I got to reflect on speakers’ presentations and discussions better because I could instantly follow (via the event #hashtag) what others thought of their points and arguments which helped me better reflect on them for myself

* people who I knew wanted to attend but couldn’t were able to get an insight into the emerging themes and issues being discussed, so didn’t miss out

* through being able to identify fellow tweeters at the event by searching for tweets with that #hashtag, I got to make contact with more people that I would have physically been able to do otherwise


BUT... all these things came at a cost. All the time I spent tweeting and reading others’ tweets I wasn’t fully listening to the speakers (naughty me!) and it also meant that I spent some of the time staring of my phone instead of being open to starting conversations with the strangers around me.

On balance, I’m glad I tweeted live as it meant I got a lot more out of the event that I would have done otherwise – having the opportunity to live tweet again may mean I attend more conferences in the future!