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.