Congratulations to the Pipe and Glass for Food List accolade

Congratulations to the Pipe and Glass Inn at South Dalton, which is the only East Yorkshire restaurant in the Sunday Times Food List. The supplement published today profiles the top 100. The Pipe and Glass isn’t in that list, but is ranked as the 5th best restaurant in Yorkshire and the North East. It’s also ranked as the UK’s 8th best gastropub.
Pipe and Glass website

The modest maverick who brought the Internet to millions

They say entrepreneurs are by nature mavericks - they don't fit the business norms and don't play by the accepted rules.
That's certainly true of internet pioneer Ajaz Ahmed, a man with no qualifications, who has never done market research and builds businesses on doing things differently, courting controversy and going on gut instinct.
Ajaz , founder of the internet game-changer Freeserve, gave his story and the benefit of his wisdom at the Allam Lecture Theatre at the University of Hull, in an event organised by For Entrepreneurs Only.
And it's quite a story - how Ajaz joined Dixons from school, conquered his self-doubts, persuaded the group chief executive to plunge into the internet in its early days, and built a business worth £9bn at the height of the dotcom boom.
And Ajaz told it in a modest, unassuming, charming manner. A man who has achieved so much from humble beginnings but remains grounded. The event was free and he gave his time for free to an attentive audience of business people and, encouragingly, many students. No doubt they left inspired to pursue an entrepreneurial path.
Ajaz spent 17 years with Dixons rising to be one of their senior store managers, before his "eureka" moment - discovering the potential of the internet while running one of Dixons' PC World stores.
He saw the potential for Dixons to become an Internet Service Provider (ISP) and took the idea to his boss. The idea got kicked into the long grass, but Ajaz would not take no for an answer. He badgered the group chief executive and got his backing.
Not long after, Freeserve launched and became the biggest UK ISP in just three months. Six months later the business floated with a value of £1.5bn. Its value rocketed to £9bn, before the dotcom bubble burst. Three years on Dixons sold the business to France Telecom for £1.6bn as Ajaz went on to become a serial entrepreneur.
As he admitted, Ajaz had made mistakes (all risk-takers do), but he has learned plenty.
Here's just some of Ajaz's pearls of wisdom shared with his audience:

·         Vital to his success was dispelling negative self-beliefs. Early in his career Ajaz wrote on a card: "I'm as good as anybody else".

·         To be successful in business you just have to have a good idea or take over an existing business and do it better.

·         Read about successful people and their traits. Find out how they achieve success.

·         Do the obvious before everyone realises it's obvious, e.g. when CNN's Ted Turner pioneered 24-hour television news when nobody thought viewers would want it. Now we could not do without it.

·         So many businesses are  held back by not knowing people. You have to get into your customer's shoes.

·         Believe in your gut instincts. Ajaz has never done market research, but then neither have Apple or IKEA - they just understand their customers' needs and desires.

·         New businesses can be noticed by getting into the press by doing and saying controversial things, such as when Ajaz launched an Asian restaurant with a friend and booked Bernard Manning for the launch.

Ajaz encouraged the students in the audience but warned them a degree alone meant nothing. Yorkshire's two richest men, Ken Morrison and Paul Sykes, are not graduates. Nor is Bill Gates or the late Steve Jobs.

Ajaz lamented the lack of focus on technical skills. Technology should be compulsory on school curricula and Britain needed to produce more engineers, he said. "Britain is being left behind - we are users, but not creators, of technology." Just one of the world's top 100 websites is British - and that's the BBC.

Ajaz is now working on the launch of Legal 365, a business aiming to exploit "Tesco's Law" which opens up the legal market. Legal 365 will offer fixed-price legal services online and from high street shops. Out goes legal jargon - in a plain English retail approach to wills and divorces.

I can't see it myself ... but that's the point. To Ajaz its obvious - it's an industry ripe for re-invention. Who would bet against Ajaz being the entrepreneur to re-invent it?

Oh, and by the way, what was Ajaz's last job with Dixons before the Freeserve adventure? Manager of PC World in Hull! Yet another example of great things coming out of our city.

The story behind the story of Siemens and BAE Systems at Brough

There was a very interesting report in the Hull Daily Mail about what are described as "informal talks" between Siemens and BAE Systems, apparently about the threatened Brough site and its workforce (see link).

The article originated from a blog posted by Chris Boardman, managing director of BAE's military air and information division, on the company's internal website. Knowing how deeply sensit...ive Siemens are about publicity and the confidential and exploratory nature of the discussions, the post appears exceptionally naive. The reference to the Siemens talks was bound to become public rapidly, given that 900 workers at Brough are under threat of redundancy and there is intense media interest in both the future of Brough and the Siemens plans.
BAE are now seeking to play down the matter but have said Siemens were "keen to explore various opportunities with BAE Systems". Characteristically, German giant Siemens were said to be "unavailable for comment" - for that, read not prepared to say anything at all about what they may or may not be planning to do in Hull, Brough, or anywhere else, for that matter.
The Hull Daily Mail quotes Gareth Russell, business development manager at Associated British Ports in Hull. ABP are the landowners of the Alexandra Dock site in east Hull, which Siemens had selected as their preferred location for an offshore wind turbine manufacturing plant. Siemens signed a Memorandum of Understanding for the development, but this has since expired.
Mr Russell stresses that ABP's discussions with Siemens over Alexandra Dock remain "on track". He has voiced scepticism about the possibility of Siemens switching the plant to the Brough site, which also has a Humber riverside location, mentioning issues over the depth of the water at that point.
I suspect that nobody outside the most senior executives at Siemens really knows what their thinking is. It has become apparent that Siemens are, absolutely understandably, driving a hard bargain and that the Government has been somewhat deficient in courting the German investors. However, Hull's MPs and Hull City Council are doing everything possible to seal the Siemens deal and the Government, from David Cameron down, have belatedly voiced strong commitment to making it happen.
As Editor of the Hull Daily Mail until recently I was briefed regularly on the Siemens situation, so I'm a reasonably informed observer. My reading of the situation is that it remains highly likely that Siemens will commit to a manufacturing facility at Alexandra Dock. The Humber is the best location for the plant and Alexandra Dock is the best site, with the smoothest planning process, enabling it to be developed for production of turbines by 2014.
I cannot believe that, at this stage, Siemens would consider an alternative site, further up the Humber estuary.
It would also be deeply embarrassing if Siemens scrapped their Hull plans. The Government would take the heat, and face accusations of failing to support manufacturing employment in the UK, following the proposed mass redundancies at BAE.
My informed guess is that Siemens have been encouraged to initiate discussions with BAE about transferrable skills among the Brough workforce, perhaps by Government officials keen to do something positive to take the sting out of the loss of hundreds of skilled manufacturing jobs.
If that is the context, fair enough, provided such discussions are not allowed to undermine the battle to maintain Brough as a manufacturing facility - a campaign championed by the Hull Daily Mail.
And then there is the challenge of time. The Brough workers could be thrown on the scrapheap as early as the new year. It simply must not be allowed to happen, but the current BAE plans foresee a shutdown of aircraft manufacturing at Brough in 2012. Jettisoned workers will need to find alternative employment - difficult though that will be given the stalled economy and rising unemployment.
The fear is that the BAE workers will be condemned to unemployment or jobs not employing their skills, in the short to medium term. They have mortgages to pay and families to feed. They can't wait around for two years for jobs with Siemens to come to their rescue.
Despite the intriguing Hull Daily Mail report and continuing rumours over Siemens, my view is that nothing has changed. Local and regional leaders should continue to pursue a twin-track strategy - supporting the Battle for Brough and lobbying to secure confirmation of the Siemens investment. The regional economy needs both BAE Systems and Siemens, rather than one for the other, or God forbid, neither.
http://www.thisishullandeastriding.co.uk/Siemens-talks-future-BAE-Brough-site-workforce/story-13598152-detail/story.html

David Cameron joins Linkedin - are you a connection?

Have you heard that David Cameron has joined Linkedin? He works in Government Administration, don't you know. Is he hedging his bets if the economy stays stalled?
Seriously though, isn't it somewhat ridiculous. Downing Street says it is "part of a move to engage further with citizens and businesses using digital communications", but is there any real purpose in the PM being on this network of professionals.
It's interesting that, as I write, he has just 54 connections. I suspect he'll be flooded by invitations to link up with people he's never met, let alone heard of - just like the rest of us!
The PM's outline profile can be viewed on the link below:
http://www.linkedin.com/in/davidcameronmp
He's what No. 10 says about Cameron joining Linkedin and also Four Square:
http://www.number10.gov.uk/news/prime-minister-david-cameron-joins-foursquare-and-linkedin/

Hull and East Yorks family firms in Top Track 250

It's interesting to see five Hull and East Yorkshire companies in the Sunday Times Top Track 250 of private firms. The list ranks privately-owned companies by sales.
The local firms listed are: Rix (no. 59); Andrew Marr International (68); Arco (152); Swift Group (197); and William Jackson Food Group 238).
The recurring theme is long-standing, stable family ownership. Rix is the oldest with roots in the early 19th century and its current business dating from 1927. William Jackson was founded 1851; Arco 1884; Marr 1902. Swift is the baby, started in 1965. It's a story of success and longevity by companies steered by generations of family members.http://www.fasttrack.co.uk/fasttrack/leagues/top250leaguetable.asp?siteID=5&searchName=&yr=2011&sort=num&area1=99