A Compound of Alchymie

Very Small Businesses

I have been working with some associates recently on potential projects in the small business support space (including Business Link and the Business Link University).  One of the things I am interested in is intellectual capital and its value to SMEs. I am particularly interested in knowledge businesses but all businesses in some way get value from seeing their business from an intellectual capital viewpoint.  A recent CBI report though on the effectiveness of government support to small businesses makes interesting reading - in particular I liked the following:

" Since 1999, whilst the number of businesses in the UK has grown from 3.7 million to 4.1 million, the number of companies with staff fell from 1.35 million to 1.23 million - reflecting an increasing proportion of 'one-man-bands'."

That effectively means that 70% of all businesses have no employees (that's nil, zilch, nada).  That's an amazing statistic and must say a lot about the reasons why people start businesses in the first place. My friends at Business Link talk about lifestyle businesses - basically businesses that are started to support the owner's preferred lifestyle - and not actually to make lots of money for stakeholders or shareholders.  These businesses are considered second class because in the eyes of the goverment a good business is one that grows, employs people and hopefully also makes big profits (that can be taxed). The question is - are lifestyle businesses actually more attuned to people's  own needs? Is human capital the ultimate form of capital?

It would be useful also to consider how these businesses support larger businesses - many of these micro businesses are undoubtedely doing excellent work for much larger clients. How can we measure the value they provide to the economy as a whole? Can an intellectual capital model help?

Some of the most creative and committed people I know run micro businesses - clearly we are not alone!

My Business is Me

Following on from my earlier article on business blogging Sergej pointed out that Business Week Online had some excellent articles on the subject - in fact Business Week publishes a number of blogs alongside its regular articles - the one Serjej refers to is called Blogspotting. Clearly as traditional publishers they are keen to also tap into the new publishing phenomena as well.

Also check out the really neat Business Logs - does this site work for you?

Ed from KnowledgeBoard also pointed out Jamie Oliver's (aka 'The Naked Chef') web site which successfully integrates a conventional web site structure with both a blog and forums (the latter being a particularly neat and simple implementation of phpBB). This in fact is a good example of 'My Business is Me' sites where the founder becomes a sort of business celebrity. They can work quite well and it's certainly a refreshing change to corporate sites that fail miserably to show any people at all. Some examples:

Cliff Atkinson - The PowerPoint Beyond Bullets Guru (The Book, The Site, The Person)

Seth Godin - Author and New Marketing Guru (click on his head to read his blog - neat integration)

Jeffrey Zeldman - Accessibility and web design guru.

Finally, one of my favourites, representing the world's oldest profession, the out of the ordinary Postmodern Coutesan (warning: not for everyone, but very tastefully done).

Business Blogging

I guess I''m a business blogger because I blog about issues connected with my work and I'm keen to reach potential new clients who may find me through this blog. However, there is a fine line to tread when blogging in support of a business model. For me, a blog has to have an informal but authentic voice and this may sometimes conflict with the formality of most business' internet presence.

Since I run a consulting business blogging is a natural extension of my work sphere - and for me at least its a useful way of capturing ideas and exposing them to the world without actually incorporating them into a formal website structure. However, I've noticed over the last few months, that while my website languishes with few updates my blog is much more dynamic. This has caused me to re-think the balance between my site and my blog. Clearly what I need to do is to integrate them - seamslessly. Is that possible?

I see it happening along the following lines:

1. A topic of interest to me (and probably my network) comes up so I create a blog article on it.

2. This creates a seed around which further ideas can grow. It also means that people searching around this topic may find my site.

3. If my interest in the topic develops further I may create more blog articles.

4. Eventually I decide to incorporate some service or product as a direct result of increasing interest in the topic. I then create a new web page describing the new product or service. I could probably use some of the actual text from my blog articles  but the more likely scenario is that I create a new web page which then links to the blog articles for additional information on how and why the product or service has come into being.

Effectively, I am innovating and doing NPD online - transparently.

This integrated approach isn't completely new but I struggle to find businesses that do it well - that maintain a balance of authenticity and still promote their business effectively. The following are some examples that are exploring the concept:

49 Folders - more a blog with a commercial edge (and it's all done in TypePad)
English Cut - still my favourite - simple, but it just speaks volumes for the authentic approach
Gurteen Knowledge - David Gurteen's site integrates everything, so much so that it's really hard to navigate your way around (and tell the difference between comment, articles, products etc.)

If you have any examples of good web site and blog integration please post a comment with a link.

I'm currenly playing with some new designs for my own site - maybe I'll share some of these in a later article.