Creative Credits aims to help Manchester SME businesses get creative input from other businesses registered on the Creative Credits gallery on their web site.

The way it works is as follows:

Creative Credits As A User

Initially eligible users register on the Creative Credits site. There is a deadline after which no more companies can register.

Then there is a lottery and a certain number of companies is awarded “Creative Credits.” What that means is that NESTA (the organisation funding this) will pay £4,000 of a £5,000 creative bill if the user uses one of the companies registered on the creative credits database.

What NESTA say on their web site is:

We’re inviting Manchester-based small businesses from all sectors to apply for ‘Creative Credits’ worth £4,000. These can be used to purchase services from a local creative firm. All we ask is an investment of at least £1,000 and we’ll top it up with £4,000.

The first wave of registrations has finished and the next wave will be February 2010. So remember to register.

Creative Credits As A Supplier

A web design agency, marketing coach, PR company, graphic designer or other sort of creative company registers on the Creative Credits site as a supplier of those services.

Then they wait to be approached by businesses who can browse the online gallery to choose a supplier to work with.

It does seem like a very good idea for businesses who would benefit from creative input but who really can’t justify the cost of a campaign yet.

And of course I’m registered as a supplier, see my creative credits gallery

Table of contents for Trade Shows And Events

1. How You Make Your Trade Show or Event Successful
2. How You Can Make Or Break Your Event
3. Making The Most Of Seminars, Events and Exhibitions

Help People Interact

There is continued discussion about the use of interaction in meetings to maintain the interest and attention of delegates. Chris Elmitt of Crystal Interactive reviewed the feedback of 4,867 of their delegates and published the results in June 2007 in a report titled “Inside The Mind Of The Delegate.” The results showed that good interaction could massively improve perception of an event, compared to any other aspect of that event.

In his summary Elmitt noted that for “Interactive Excellence” you needed to give interaction significant agenda time and commit to making it work.

The other key point about interaction was that many delegates want to network, to meet like-minded people, to discuss the ideas they hear and to generate new ideas in discussion. Typically events provide minimal networking during the day and most of it is relegated to the evening when delegates are too tired.

To help your attendees make the most of your event offer frequent breaks and mini workshops which help people to get to know others and breakdown barriers to communication. If you’ve allocated people to tables in your venue then ask them to sit at a different table after the break and not with people they’ve already met and that can also help the networking.

Using Workshops

Workshops are a great idea for getting people involved and interacting. However, make sure that whatever you ask them to do is useful and can be achieved in the time you’ve allocated, otherwise you’ll have a bunch of annoyed and frustrated delegates on your hands.

Also make sure that what you ask them to do is clear. Provide a slide with the main points if it’s a big exercise. Alternatively make sure you speak slowly enough for them to take down what you say as notes. Then give them a time limit and some guidance on how they might use that time.

Finally, make sure that you warn them that they have 1 minute or 5 minutes remaining and finish as you planned.

Using Breaks For Networking

Whilst it’s useful to provide breaks for people to network you must help them overcome barriers to meeting people. After all some people are reticent, others are involved with the people they’ve brought or with the new friends they’ve made and others are flitting around like butterflies.

So give people a task for the break. So for example, at the coffee break say that, “you must meet up with at least 3 people you’ve never talked to before and listen to their business and give them one idea to improve it.” Or you could say, “go into the break go and find out one interesting thing about 3 people then come back and I’ll ask ‘x’ of you to share what you’ve found.”

Digital Events

As the Digital Age continues to apparently increase the amount we have to do, the will to travel to a venue lessens.

People can hold video conference calls or even hold meetings in virtual worlds such as “Second Life.” In fact we’re no longer limited to Second Life there are other massive online life experiences you can get into. And in all of them you can hold company meetings or public seminars. The only drawback of course, is whether your audience is on Second Life or its brethren.

Information exchange type meetings can use webinars, where the speaker can show slides and connect with the delegates through the Internet using specialist service providers like WebEx and Microsoft Live Meetings.

And there are so many free teleseminars floating around the Internet that you’d be unable to listen to them all before you died of old age. Teleseminars you put on should be aimed at your prospects and customers or your employees. And any telesminar should be knee-deep in providing an education.

IceRocket tags: events, workshops, networking, second life, Webex. Microsoft Live Meetings, Skype

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The latest business thinking is a phrase that marketers like to use when they’re offering something that they want to appeal to people who must have the latest.

You probably know someone like that…

They must have the latest gizmo, drive the latest car, seen the latest film or used the most recent business school buzz phrase.

And of course the latest business thinking is a phrase that springs readily to an Internet Marketer’s pen.

Particularly when talking about search engine optimization (SEO). Because SEO is a subject that gets talked about whenever a small band of people with web sites gets together.

And yet they all agree content is king!

SEO Self-Help

So how can they agree on that I wonder? “Content is King” and yet we still need Search Engine Optimization, surely that’s not necessary?

Well of course SEO is necessary but it needs to be integrated with the content. So trying to “do” SEO on a web site or blog without paying attention to how you write copy is a complete waste of time.

There is so much that you can do to help yourself with SEO:

• Write a title with the keywords in
• Keep one page pretty much dedicated to one concept or product or service
• Research and use the appropriate keywords as you write the content
• make sure you do off-site SEO
• Encourage appropriate inward bound links

Above all, write great content, publicize your site and the hits will come.

Then Bob’s your uncle and I’m the coolest guy on the planet still!