Summer of progress?

Progress of a kind.

Obviously, this isn't good enough. The fact that I haven't written about Peterborough Business since the spring says something about my commitment.

The site has developed at bit, but my reluctance to blog about it is telling. And I can hardly criticise visitors to the main site for not taking part when I setting such a bad example.

Let me try to make amends by filling in this huge gap.

So, I met with Donald of Customers Matter and he gave me some encouragement. I created Localbusinessmedia.com, too.

For most of the summer I spent every Sunday morning rewriting the press releases coming into news@peterboroughbusiness.co.uk

A typical week would see six or seven news stories posted and I started to send out a news email to a slowly-growing email "database". That's how I remember summer Sunday mornings 2008 - a cafetiere of coffee, iPod on shuffle and a laptop in the conservatory.

I enjoyed doing something satisfying and learning more about what's going on in the city.

But August crept up on me and the family had a massive adventure planned. We went to America for a month and you can read all about it here: http://la2ny08.blogspot.com

My mailing list had grown to over 200 email addresses, some taken from research but many from visitors to the site signing up. Traffic to the site was around 40 visitors a day - relatively tiny.

I wondered how I might keep the site ticking over for a month and on the last Sunday before we left for America I had the bright idea of feeding RSS news into panels automatically. I took RSS news from the Evening Telegraph, the BBC Business and Economy news, Opportunity Peterborough's feed and other local news from BBC Cambridgeshire.

Feeling quite pleased with myself I left it all behind me and came back a month later to quite a shock. Because of all the dynamic content feeding into the site, the constantly-changing news page had become a popular destination. The site was getting over 100 visits a day (admittedly, a proportion from America) and my email list had grown to nearly 300 recipients.

Not so successful is the community section, which started as an experiment before the holiday and has still not caught on.

But bouyed by the activity on the main site, normal service was resumed in September and October.

September saw another milestone. I spent some money. Apart from registering the website address last winter, I hadn't spent a penny on Peterborough Business, but now I decided I needed business cards for a forthcoming business exhibition in the city. I ordered 200 and they arrived the day AFTER the event. Typical.

The event was Business Focus and I had three or four interesting conversations squeezed into my lunch hour away from the day job at Fleet News. Holly Draper at Opportunity Peterborough was wonderfully encouraging and friendly. She admonished me for not writing the blog, so I hope you're pleased to see this, Holly.

A week later I wrote an editorial about the media talking us into a recession and found myself on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire talking about Peterborough Business and hearing my name mentioned in the news all morning. That was weird.

The last meeting of note was with a local journalist, Joanna Borrett. Joanna is a former editor of Nene Valley Living and shares my enthusiasm for the region and city's potential. Joanna has a project in the planning stages and we met to compare experiences, share ideas and talk about ways we might be able to help each other.

That happened about three weeks ago and I'm afraid since then I've struggled a bit. My day job is busier than ever and I've had a number of weekends away. News, features and emails out have all but dried up. Information is still coming in to me, though, and I will get back into the swing of things soon.

Traffic to the site is now running at 200 visits on the day after a news email, settling down to 120 visits for the rest of the week. Many visitors are obviously happy with the varied news feeds coming into one page automatically, making Peterborough Business a kind of news portal.

Customers matter

DONALD Pollock runs Customers Matter, a marketing company based in King's Cliffe. I used to work with Donald at Bike and Practical Photography magazines.

We're still good friends and we met for a drink last night.

I told Donald about the idea for Peterborough Business and he was quite enthusiastic and positive. We talked about the scalability of the idea and the possibility of rolling it out in other towns.

Choosing the word "Peterborough" in the name of the brand obviously has its limitations, so we talked about establishing a parent brand with a broader remit and generic name.

Tonight I came up with LocalBusinessMedia and registered the domain name. Weebly is so easy, I had this site up in about an hour while watching the football.

Second news session

LOTS of news in the PB inbox.

Took most of Bank Holiday Monday to sort it out and post the second batch of stories.

Disappointed by the lack of news coming in from PR companies. I know I'm only speaking to a tiny audience, but these companies take money off clients for their services.

As you'd expect, Opportunity Peterborough is prolific and agencies linked with the council are very good too, especially the Peterborough Regional Economic Partnership.

Interesting that the public bodies are performing better that the private sector!

Meeting with Peter Hall, Wadenhoe

ONE of the emails that came in yesterday was from a former colleague from the old Emap.

Dave Phillips now runs Nene Valley Media with his partner, Charmaine, and he was interested in the Peterborough Business idea.

He does a lot of work for his neighbour in Wadenhoe, Peter Hall. Peter runs a successful management training and development organisation from Wadenhoe Hall.

Dave was very keen for me to meet Peter, so I squeezed in a lunchtime meeting with them.

I like Peter a lot and I'm interested in his ideas about business. I think I might be able to persuade him to contribute to Peterborough Business. His opinions will make interesting reading.

Twenty emails to Peterborough Business!

CHECKED the emails to Peterborough Business tonight and there were 20 messages in the Inbox, mostly acknowledging my request for press releases.

Some were very complimentary, one or two asking questions about the site and the idea.

Typically, I only added detailed site traffic measuring today, so missed out on these people visiting the site to look.

First news session

POSTED my first set of news stories today.

I've sourced most of them from local authority and development association websites. There are a few PR sites with news on them, but many are out-of-date - unforgivable, really.

As I wrote the news, I also collected contact information for people who might be able to supply me with press releases. Then I sent them an introductory email.

Meeting with Alchemy Marketing

VERY enjoyable lunchtime visit to the offices of Alchemy Marketing in Orton Southgate.

Naomi Gwynne emailed me in April and resurrected my enthusiasm for Peterborough Business.

I met the Alchemy team, including Sari (who used to work at my 'day job' newspaper Fleet News) and the managing director Gavin Elsey. I was slightly critical of the local Chamber of Commerce and its failure to respond to my approaches back in the winter, so it was interesting to learn that Gavin holds a senior position at the Chamber. Ha ha!

Anyway, that didn't stop us discussing ways to help each other grow.

New website almost finished

MOST evenings this week I have been copying content over from the old Peterborough Business website to a brand new one.

Click here to see the old site.

Click here to see the new site.

Weebly is fantastic. There are glitches with the system and some little jobs take two or three attempts to get right, but considering the power of the editing and formatting tools, it's worth persevering. It probably still takes less than a quarter of the time than to do things the old way.

For the first time in over ten years of website building, I've finally created a dynamic site from home. People are still charging thousands of pounds for sites less capable than this.

I aim to swap the main www.peterboroughbusiness.co.uk web address over to the new site in time for my meeting with Alchemy Marketing next week.

Welcome to Weebly

THAT'S what the email says, welcoming me to one of the most exciting web design and hosting services I've ever seen.

Since the minor flurry of interest in Peterborough Business a couple of weeks ago, I've been looking for a way of introducing a content management system to the site.

The original website was made using static web templates and an editing program (Dreamweaver) but this doesn't lend itself to fast, flexible news and features content.

I wasted a lot of time trying to learn about database-driven website construction, but this is not my strength and just gets in the way of what I want to do.

My next idea was to harness the power of a blog like this and use it for the Peterborough Business news feed.

And that's when I discovered Weebly. It's simply amazing and does almost everything I need.

People are looking at this thing

AFTER an email arrived out of the blue this week, I looked into the traffic stats for the Peterborough Business website. An average of ten people a day are somehow finding it and then having a look. They started showing up about a week ago and they are now dwindling again.

It's nothing in the grand scheme of things, but I'd be interested to know what sparked it off. As you can see from earlier posts, I'm doing nothing with the site.

I replied to the email from Alchemy Marketing, apologising and explaining the situation with Peterborough Business. The company has invited me to its Orton Southgate offices for a chat.

Shock email

HAVING ignored the Peterborough Business website for at least two months, I got an email about it today!

A Peterborough-based marketing company contacted me on behalf of a client and asked about advertising rates and a media pack.

I will have a bit of explaining to do!

Putting PB on the back-burner

IT seems prudent to put the whole Peterborough Business idea to one side for a while.

My job at Bauer seems fairly secure and it's certainly busy. I've got the concept out of my system by creating the website and the only way forward is by much greater commitment and hard work. I can't give it either right now.

Perhaps I'll just leave it sitting there, appearing low down the Google rankings and picking up the occasional visitor.

More ups and downs

IT has been another week of mixed feelings about the idea of Peterborough Business.

This has been a very busy week. The new Fleet News website launched, we finished issue one of the brand new Fleet Business Europe and two days were spent judging the Fleet News awards.

I met a consultant from Deloitte who is based in Leeds and we chatted briefly about my idea. He seemed quite positive and told me about TheBusinessDesk.com, the new website an e-news service that was mentioned in the FT article that inspired me.

Looking at the TheBusinessDesk.com operation, it struck me how advanced it is and what high-calibre people are behind the initiative.

Later I chatted to a colleague about this and we both had a look at Crain's Manchester Business, the other publication featured in the FT article. We were struck by the apparent lack of advertising on this site. It is still quite new and maybe the website performs a different function. It seems to mainly promote the print product.

The other thing that stuck me is the scalability of these two ideas. TheBusinessDesk.com can expand from Yorkshire into Lancashire, Cheshire and across the UK, keeping its name and brand identity and growing regional communities under the umbrella brand. Crain's Manchester Business can be joined by Crain's Birmingham Business, Crain's Glasgow Business and so on. Peterborough Business won't be able to do that, so there's something else to think about.

I haven't heard back from the Peterborough Chamber of Commerce yet.

Then yesterday I went to the Peterborough United versus West Bromwich Albion FA Cup match at London Road. Sadly Peterborough lost, but the friend who invited me knows lots of Peterborough business people and as I looked around at the city's great and good gathered in the director's suite I again felt that there is a role in this city for a strong online business community.
I do need to get out and talk to people, to test the idea and then, maybe, spread the word.

But the next week is set to be busier than last week and I will struggle to find much time before April. It's still frustrating.

From Gucci boss to window cleaner

I’VE dragged myself away from Fortune magazine to write this.

My body clock woke me at 7am as usual and as my wife slept on beside me, I read about wifi in aeroplanes, how American Express has come up with the perfect model for chief executive pay, the development of “widgets” for social networking websites and how a former ice cream salesman has turned around the Gucci empire to be named Europe Businessman of the Year.
Fortune magazine has changed my life.

I discovered its appeal on a trip to the World Cup in 2006. I was a guest of Hyundai at the England v Paraguay game in Frankfurt and there was a copy of Fortune in my hotel room. I put it in my bag for the return flight and I’ve had a subscription ever since.

Back in the days I was editing motorcycle magazines, I never would have guessed I would read a magazine like this. But I love the way it puts wisdom and advice from its featured entrepreneurs and visionaries into panels printed alongside the interview. It’s very inspiring. It even gives investment advice and will be quick to acknowledge when it gets things wrong. There’s a kind of confidence in that, as well as a reminder that it gives no guarantees.

If somebody asked me if there is already a magazine that is a bit like Peterborough Business, I’d say Fortune. I’m trying to apply the Fortune formula to the micro-economy of my city. We have our global operators, we have our tech start-ups, we have our visionaries and we have our enterprising service companies.

Like my window cleaner, Bob. Back in the summer he demonstrated his new kit to me. It uses specially purified water to remove the dust and grime and then he leaves them wet. This saves him lots of time, obviously, but he also uses less water, so it’s good for the environment.

When he first used it I was sceptical (journalists tend to be that way) as he rushed off to his next job, leaving my windows flecked with droplets. But sure enough, they dried clear and sparkling.I don’t even know Bob’s surname, but next time he knocks for his £13 I’ll get his details and put them on the forum.

What are these events like?

TWO days in London this week has meant a bit of a struggle keeping up with messages and looking to see if anybody has visited the website.

The beginning of the week saw quite a lot of web traffic. Putting the idea for Peterborough Business onto Facebook (here and here, I'm still working out the difference between the groups)alerted all my work colleagues. I got about half a dozen messages of encouragement via Facebook, email and a comment from Dan on one of the postings here. This one particularly thrilled me because Dan and I spar online over our ideas around traditional and future publishing.

I particularly like having colleagues with different opinions who also find it very easy to say good things to each other. I’d like to see quite a lot of that in Peterborough Business.

Because I was staying in London on Thursday night I couldn’t summon the energy to go along to Charters on Wednesday evening. I’d seen that the Chamber of Commerce was holding an informal networking evening there and I rarely need an excuse to go to a decent pub for a couple of hours.

I emailed someone at the Chamber with my idea for Peterborough Business at the beginning of the week. I haven’t had a reply yet, but hopefully that will happen before the next informal meeting at Charters and I can go along for a face-to-face chat.

I’ve also noticed that the Peterborough Business Club UK is meeting at The Bell in Stilton on January 28 and February 11. If any of you reading this has been to Chamber and Business Club events, it would be great if you could post some comments on the forum. How many people go? What businesses are represented? What is the age range? Were they friendly? Was it useful?

This is a shockingly busy time at my proper job, so I’ll struggle to get to these events before April. In the meantime it would be great to get your feedback here.

Quite a day

AS well as having to deal with the busiest day of the week at Fleet News, I've also started to get a reaction to Peterborough Business today.

Since I created the group and business page on Facebook, some of my friends have shown an interest. Some of them seem quite keen to get involved. I just hope I get the same reaction from the advertising side of the business.

Sarah Dodds at MacIntyre Hudson also sent me an email with words of encouragement and a few things to think about. Thanks, Sarah.

Looking at the web stats, 30 people have now stumbled upon Peterborough Business. Hardly rocking the world on its axis, is it? I'm going to move the website onto its own server at the weekend and that should affect search engine results, but I shouldn't be getting too excited.

I talked to my wife about the idea over dinner - the first time we've really discussed it. She's predictably cautious and encouraged me to speak to lots of people before I resign my proper job. She also volunteered her help in lots of ways, which left me feeling quite positive.

So it feels like I'm moving into the information-gathering phase. The website does a fairly good job of communicating the idea and might result in some feedback. The next stage is getting out there and asking questions. Maybe business plan-type questions.

I'm also going to add a section on the forum for feedback about Peterborough Business itself. Please leave a comment or two.

Fleshing it out

TURNED my attention to the magazine this week.

The website is quite limited when it comes to describing the magazine. I want to keep the web pages quite succinct, so I set about creating some visuals that open in pop-up style pages.

At the same time, I wrote a summary of the ideas I've had so far. I illustrated it with the visuals and linked to it from the website. If you click on this link, you can download the 1Mb Word document.

I've also created a Facebook group dedicated to Peterborough Business, so I'll be disappointed if the site doesn't attract one or two more visitors and, hopefully, some interest over email or the forum.

I still feel far from confident enough to make any big announcements and I'm disappointed the business advisor I emailed before Christmas hasn't replied to my message.

Slow progress

BUT progress all the same. I've finally got over losing the diary entry on New Year's Day and feel more inclined to post another update.

This is the busiest time of the year at my proper job, so I either get frustrated at my lack of time for this project, or end up working into the night.

The website has gone just about as far as I can take it with my own web skills. It needs a proper web designer and dynamic content management to take it to the next stage and make it properly useful. I don't have the money to pay for that, so if somebody wants to help, you can imagine how things might work...

I've put some traffic monitoring code into the site's pages and it's interesting to note that a handful of people have stumbled on it already.

I'm not sure if I'm doing the right thing by putting everything out there. Somebody could find the ideas at any time and launch something similar with real resources. I suppose my hope is that they would be impressed with the work in progress and propose something with me rather than against me.

I've had an idea...

Every day at work I skip read the Financial Times. I edit a weekly newspaper for the business car and van industry and one of my first jobs each day is to scan the FT for relevant stories to follow-up.

On December 11, 2007, this story caught my eye: US publisher in Manchester business magazine launch.

As I read the article an idea started to take shape and that idea seemed to represent the coming together of several trains of thought and a set of circumstances.

My idea was to create a multimedia brand called Peterborough Business, based initially around a website and high quality business-to-business magazine but ultimately incorporating podcasts, online radio and TV and possibly events.

Some of my spare time during December was spent thinking about the idea and trying to find out if anything like it existed already. I did some online research and sent an email to an accountant/business advisor that, so far hasn’t received a response.

Over the Christmas holidays I got a stinking cold, so confined to the house I decided to put together a simple website to give some shape to the idea. Halfway through creating the website I got a crisis of confidence. Maybe the idea isn’t very good, perhaps nobody is interested...

As the cold improved (I drank more scotch) I stuck at it and completed the modest website just before the new year. I took a short break and, feeling much better, I resolved to press ahead with the idea from the very start of 2008.

And now it’s January 1 and my first positive step has been to create this blog – an account of my endeavours. I started by writing a 400-word explanation of why I think it’s such a good idea. I wrote about those several trains of thought and the set of circumstances I referred to above.

It read very well and I felt very positive.

Then I pressed the ‘Publish’ button and it all disappeared, lost in some black hole in cyberspace. Damn.

So now I’m fed up. Not at all positive. Maybe it’s not such a good idea after all... and it’s too early for a scotch.