Global Entrepreneurship Week 2008

Entrepreneurship- "the state of being an entrepreneur." An entrepreneur is an individual who owns, organizes, and manages a business and, in so doing, assumes the risk of either making a profit or losing the investment.

Enterprise week at Bucks consisted of series of optional lectures and challenges put on by the Enterprise Dept and the Business School. Many influential people with much experience in various industries came to Bucks to share their thoughts and advice with the students. All the events put on throughout the week were free, and all were of a very high standard.

Women in Business Day falls during Enterprise Week, and a workshop was put on for that day. It was a mixture of students studying various Business disciplines and some older women who had their own companies, and wanted to improve their business. It was a very enjoyable, interesting day- and the food provided was fantastic! The first lecture of the day was run by two women who were image consultants. They ran a simple exercise about first impressions and how it is estimated to takes at least eight positive exposures to change some one's opinion of a person/product/brand/place after a negative first exposure. Another fact that came across strongly in their lecture was that looking confident can not only make you feel more confident, but it gives others confidence in you.

The second lecture of the day was on presentation skills. This was the most interesting lecture of the day, in my opinion, as well as the most beneficial for me, as standing up in front of people is not one of my strengths. She gave some wonderful, if slightly odd, hints and tips on being confident, how to project, on engaging the audience and how to structure a presentation most effectively. One of the best aspects of this lecture was that because it came very early on in the day everything she said, the rights and wrongs of presenting, were all illustrated by other speakers during the day. For example, she mentioned a speaker who she had been to see who had stood in front of the projector throughout his speech this was also done by a presenter later in the day. Being told how to do it and what not to do was great, but then being able to see it in action just cemented what she was saying in my memory.

There were lectures through the day on different brainstorming techniques, Meyers-Briggs testing, and many other subject that were all useful and motivational. I had the chance to talk to women with many years of experience and to ask them how they felt about different issues. It was a good extension of what I have been and will continue to learn in the classroom. The speaker who I felt that I got the most out of was the Buckinghamshire Entrepreneur of the Year, Caroline Kinsey, who founded PR company Cirkle in 1998, which is a mostly female team. She shared many of her experiences as a woman in business, as a boss, as a PR in the world today and many other relevant issues with us. She was inspirational. One of things she said that most struck a cord with me was that the time where women have to try and compete with men in the workplace by trying to be like them was over, and that the way forward was now to embrace your femininity and realise that there are things that you can, perhaps, do that men can't, or aren't as good at.

All in all I feel that it was a fabulous day, that was brilliantly organised and it was immensely useful. I can't wait to see who will be speaking next year- and hopefully I'll be able to come back in a number of years and speak to the female students studying business then. That's exciting.

Micheal Dell's advice to entrepreneurs,

"Be willing to fail and learn from mistake
you make, and that others make."

The second event that took part in was The Bucks Apprentice Challenge. This event was a lot of fun, and during it I sustained a huge learning curve, as well as earning £50 profit for each of our six team members. Our team, The Dream Team, did extremely well and I am very proud of them all. We got through the first round, but, unfortunately, didn't make enough profit in the second round to get through to the final stage.

For our first challenge we were given £50 and had to buy doughnuts, and then sell them on for a profit. In the second round it was organised with The Eden Centre that we could set up a market with in the centre, and each team got given a lovely, old-fashioned barrow style market stall. We used the profit from the first round, and were given a further £200 to create a stall. We decided to sell hand decorated gingerbread men. This went down very well, but, regrettably, I over ordered on the gingerbread men, and we were unable to sell them all.

Had we of gotten through to the final showdown, our team would have had four days to design and put on an "event" at the Union in High Wycombe. The catch being that the event had to be during the hours of 5-8 in the evening, therefore not a student event. This would have been a huge challenge and, in a way, I am very glad that we didn't get through, as we had a lot of work on at the time. But mostly because it was quite a stressful process. Despite this I learnt a great deal, I had a wonderful time, I got to know people that I wouldn't otherwise have met- and I will definitely be entering next year. Long live The Dream Team!!