Projects
Current projects:
Lisa Harris and Lorraine Warren have received support of £5,400 from the Higher Education Entrepreneurship Group (HEEG) to deliver a series of face to face workshops throughout 2010 that will be held in university departments throughout the region.
We will showcase the increasing importance of Web 2 tools and attitudes in the development of entrepreneurial activity, focusing on the use of blogs, wikis, bookmarking and social networking sites to enable entrepreneurs to:
• rapidly build networks with high quality connections at low (or no) cost
• develop a community of interest around their business
• quickly identify and share new resources, breaking news and current issues
• benefit from new forms of publishing to enhance their brand image
The project will itself make use of the Web 2 tools that we advocate in the workshops to encourage the development of an online community for participating entrepreneurs that is embedded in the ‘real world’. It will incorporate video case study examples of emerging best practice, and links to the blogs and twitterstreams of the project leaders and participants, where content will be updated on a regular basis. It will also provide a forum for ongoing virtual collaboration between all workshop participants, the project team, and other interested parties who might be physically located anywhere in the world.
By integrating the online and offline activity, we aim to provide a ‘blended’ approach to learning that research has shown to be more effective than either online or classroom modes operating in isolation.
Media attention tends to focus on how inappropriate online material uncovered by a Google search (for example drunken graduation photographs) may damage an individual’s reputation, but less notice has been taken of the opportunity to actively develop an online ‘personal brand’ or ‘identity’ that will enable the entrepreneur to ‘stand out from the crowd’ in an increasingly competitive business market. We believe that the ‘digital divide’ between the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ in the developed world is now less about access to the web than it is about understanding how to actively participate in the networked society. We will draw upon case studies of best practice to demonstrate how individuals with the skills, time and confidence to navigate and manage the online chaos effectively, will gain access to new business opportunities, find audiences for their work, or enrich the lives of others.
Other work in progress:
Designing appropriate learning experiences for the ‘Digital Native’ generation:
a) To make an early impact in the emerging research area which investigates appropriate roles for social media technologies in higher education
b) To directly apply the learnings from early adopters in this field to course development in order to disseminate ‘best practice’ and enhance the student learning experience
Completed Projects
1. “Abandoned Heroes” investigation of small firms’ innovative use of information technology. Joint project with Royal Holloway and Kingston Universities, sponsored by West Focus, July 2006
2. Follow on funding to investigate how early adopter firms from the above project were using web 2.0 marketing tools to punch above their weight (www.punchaboveyourweight.com), July 2007
3. Follow on funding to investigate trends towards working in collaborative gangs, 12 detailed case studies developed, July 2008
4. The relationship between online and offline networking styles and business growth of SMEs. Our specific objective was to develop a taxonomy of networking based on size, business model and attitudes of the owner manager, March 2009
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