The Collaborative Future work experience pilot scheme ran for three weeks in October at our home, contemporary coworking, shared office and event space, Works Social after raising over £3,400 through crowdfunding earlier this year.

Six (18-24 year olds) not in full-time education and employment took on flexible, paid work placements hosted by Works Social’s community of freelancers and small businesses. They were partnered up with 12 businesses including photographer, The Picture Whole, zero waste shop, Shop Zero, us, marketing and PR consultancy, Big Old House, Skate Nottingham, wellness and life coaches Impact People and Change and Bespoke Life Coaching, film experience and events freelancer, Based on a True Story Cinema and student opportunities firm, Organised Fun.

With career aspirations in retail, social media and PR, personal training and other freelance entrepreneurial endeavours, the work experience provided a variety of skills they could use in their future careers.

Hosted at Works Social, which provided a safe base for everyone and removed any barriers for freelancers or businesses based out of their own homes. Han van Oudheusden, co-founder of Works Social said:

“We’re all about collaboration, bringing together like-minded people and helping people follow their passions. It’s great to see so many of our members being involved in a scheme that helps them minimise any potential risks and overheads of employing interns/apprentices, while also gaining benefits of the skills and fresh perspective that young people can provide.”

At Big Old House we welcomed Shanai, a recent media graduate to support us with our own marketing, carry out research for social media content and to complete a review of our clients’ digital profiles. Here’s a little snippet from Shanai’s experience with us:

“For the pilot of the collaborative futures programme I have been working with Rach from Big Old House, a PR and marketing consultant. Some of Big Old House services include, marketing, PR, copywriting, content and social media. Rach has been amazing throughout my time at Big Old House she made me feel very comfortable to talk to her about any questions I had and she was very approachable, and as someone who likes to ask a lot of questions that was a great thing to have.

I am very passionate about magazine writing and social media, which is one of the reasons that I chose to take part in this scheme as I thought it’d be a great opportunity to learn new skills and develop old ones. Since taking part in this scheme I have done a lot of exciting things such as going to a design meeting, which was a great opportunity to get to see inside of an actual office within the field that I would like to go into, and see first hand what happens in design meetings. I have also been doing social media reviews for clients that Big Old House work with, I hopefully want to get into either digital marketing, social media or magazine editing so this has been a great opportunity to get a glimpse into the sort of things I would like to get into the future.

My only downside is that it’s not for longer. I would of loved to work with Big Old House for a while longer to develop more skills and get a better understanding of how the social media sector works. I guess overtime, with more funding that would hopefully be possible. Overall I have  really enjoyed this experience and I think it is a great idea, as a lot of companies don’t like to take you on without any experience, which makes it difficult to get a job. However with this scheme, it is a great opportunity to get that experience that you can put on your CV.”

We were sad to see Shanai go too, but wish her all the best in the future and are really pleased that she’s got some freelance marketing work with one of the life coaches on the pilot.

Tessa Cooper, Founder of Collaborative Future and the organiser behind the scheme said:

“I can’t quite believe that only in April this was an idea fizzing around in my head and now, thanks to a successful crowdfunder and some amazing support we’ve had six young people at Works Social on paid placements. It’s been great to see so many people building connections, learning about different ways of doing business and developing their skills to make work work for them!”

The Collaborative Future scheme was made possible thanks to official supporters Works Social, Cleo., Armakuni and Tech Nottingham and the many other supporters of the crowdfunding campaign. The ambition is repeat this scheme all year round and make it possible for other people to replicate the work placement model in other cities.

If you’re a freelancer or small business who wants help with taking the hassle out of finding suitable work experience candidate or want to help share your skills with a young person to further their career prospects, contact Collaborative Future.

The post Creating Collaborative Futures for Young People appeared first on Big Old House.

According to some, flexible working doesn’t work and isn’t a sustainable model for the future. However, the existing research tells us a different story with the number of coworking spaces rising by 16% in the U.S. and 36% outside the U.S in 2018.

A survey…

As a collective, that got Big Old House and a few like-minded pals thinking, what does a ‘normal’ day at work look like to people? Is there a ‘typical’ daily routine anymore? How can work become truly flexible to accommodate the demands of daily life?

That’s why we’re working together to conduct a nationwide temperature check of people’s attitudes to the changing world of work – from freelancers to full-time employees. Everyone who goes to work, in whatever form that takes, is invited to share their views and tell us what their version of work looks like.

Do you go to work? We want your views…

The survey shouldn’t take longer than 10 minutes and all responses will be anonymous. The aim of this survey is to look at people’s different working models and how this affects their productivity, work-life balance and overall happiness.

From the results, we’ll produce a report that challenges the notion that “Flexible Working Doesn’t Work”, try to look at what the future holds for work and find truly flexible solutions to accommodate what people need to be productive, achieve work life balance and be happy.

Who is doing the research?

This is a collaborative survey curated for you by flexible workspace, coworking and digital nomad ambassadors Dispace, Works Social, and Big Old House.

How can you get involved?

To take part in our short and topical survey to share YOUR experience visit: https://tinyurl.com/2019FlexibleWorking

Please share your thoughts by Friday 27th September 2019.

Share the love…

By all means share with your friends colleagues and co-workers too.

Thank you, we really appreciate your time and contribution. If you have any questions, drop us a line at Big Old House. 

#workspacerevolution #futureofwork #Coworking #dispacelife #futureofwork #agileeconomy

The post What does the #Futureofwork look like for you? Share your views… appeared first on Big Old House.

Delighted.

The irony that a word with such happy and positive connotations can create such negativity has not been lost, but if you look more closely, seriously, are you really delighted?

Let’s break it down:

No issue there.

Then let’s look at some of its synonyms:

very pleased, glad, happy, joyful, thrilled, overjoyed, ecstatic, euphoric, elated, blissful, enraptured, on cloud nine, walking on air, in seventh heaven, in transport of delight, jumping for joy, beside oneself with happiness, excited

Most (over) used in appointment releases, CEO statements, good news announcements – delighted crops up all over the business pages and on company websites, every single day.  But, imagine if you replaced ‘delighted’ with its alternatives in the following statements:

Company X CEO said: “I am in seventh heaven [delighted] about our new manager of widgets.”

MD of Local business Y, replied: “I am on cloud nine [delighted] about our new shed facility.”

Independent baker, of Bake Biscuits said: “I am beside myself with happiness [delighted] about our new range of cup cakes.”

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Instead, why not use your good news story or announcement to add a bit of personality and include a few key messages? Tell us how you really feel, show people what you really think.

It is ordinary people doing extraordinary things who run businesses. Real people with real emotions and genuine stories to tell. Readers can (and should) be able to relate to you.

Why not tell people it’s been a really tough slog over the last few years so it’s great that we’re in a position to be hiring again?  Share that you’ve had a fantastic period of growth, which exceeded your expectations. Empathise that the team can’t wait for another pair of hands to join them to share the workload, because they’ve all been running round like headless chickens for six months and are knackered!

‘Delighted’ in business to business communications is an overused phrase, which is lazy and repetitive (IMHO). If ‘delighted’ is truly the case, the world works in some very happy offices and every business decision is sending people into a euphoric state.

Big Old House has recently celebrated its first anniversary and while proper chuffed, happy and thrilled all spring to mind, so does relieved, grateful, lucky and phew!

Let’s be honest, it’s not quite that giddy in the real world and we could expand our vocabulary to give our content some real insight and make ‘delighted’ a state of mind we aspire to.

If you have a story to tell and need a hand doing it, we’d be as excited as a two year old at a birthday party about it if you dropped us a line.

The post Are you really delighted? appeared first on Big Old House.

For very small businesses, start ups, micro businesses and one person working from home outfits, it’s hard to know where to start to build those networks and which events to put the time and effort into.

Let’s face it, walking into a room full of strangers isn’t everyone’s cup of tea and it can be emotionally draining to big yourself up and make small talk with someone you’ve never met when your head is still problem solving or you’ve spent a whole day staring at a lap top in solitude. But, getting you and your brand out there in as many ways as possible is the most important thing you can do.

Connecting small businesses

Small business network Enterprise Nation cottoned onto this years ago and has been a trusted source of support, advice and action for those building up businesses for over a decade.

With already established hubs in Birmingham, Bristol and London,  Enterprise Nation had it’s inaugural ‘Small Business Meet Up’  in Nottingham recently, at the newly opened tech hub, Accelerate Places and it was true to its mission of “creating a more entrepreneurial society in the UK, helping you start, run and grow your business”.

The atmosphere had an energy and excitement from the off. Within two minutes of arriving there was wine and diverse chat with an innovation consultant, design architect and skin care specialist about the merits of marketing automation without human intervention (pet food mailers to non-pet owners) and the questionable credentials of celebrity TV builders (think Grand Designs).

Enterprise Nation Founder, Emma Jones MBE

For the ‘formal’ bit, we made our way into a very trendy amphitheatre style arrangement and were given the low down on the evening from Enterprise Nation’s Nottingham Ambassador, Greg Simpson of Press for Attention (thankfully the rubber gloves remained off), who then handed over to an excitable Emma Jones MBE, founder of Enterprise Nation – with a strictly no PowerPoint policy for the evening.
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Platform for pitches

The enthusiasm for the team of beauty related start ups, including IntheBuff,  who had just returned from a pitch at Boots was infectious and Emma’s relaxed, yet no nonsense approach to bringing people together was refreshing – encouraging people to take the floor and use the forum to make direct business contacts. Chinese Tea Ceremony start up, August Moon,  taught us all a lesson in PR and self belief.

The main event was an overview of Handle – an idea so good you can’t believe it doesn’t already exist – which offers a digital dashboard for your business profile, so you can see your business the way the world sees you at the touch of a button. Built by one of Accelerate’s first occupants Business Finance Technology Group Ltd (Bizfitech), Handle will no doubt enhance Nottingham’s growing reputation as a FinTech hub.

Wrapping up the evening talking to a fascinating accountant-turned-fashion designer off to Qatar for her first show was inspiring. The energy, buzz and passion for supporting people on their business journey was infectious.

Be inspired

For anyone looking to be reinvigorated by networking events and build their brand, as well get access to exemplary business support and solid, practical, results-driven advice, give enterprise nation a go – tell ‘em yer from ‘NOTTINGHAM’ and get 10% discount on membership. Might see you there.

Photographs by Toby Neal

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