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falviarbaqueroFiled under: Uncategorized
Eileen Fisher started her company with $350 and a vision.
“Life-fulfilling work is never about the money–when you feel true passion for something, you instinctively find ways to nurture it,” explains Eileen. “Looking back at my life, I see it was the support and inspiration of friends that kept me moving forward. Financial support is crucial, but even more meaningful is the energy behind the money–when someone trusts your vision and truly believes in you.”
Eileen wishes to infuse that same energy into the businesses of five woman-owned companies with grants of $10,000 each. At least one of these grants will go to a start-up organization (or an organization that’s less than three years old), and the rest will go to organizations that need funds to grow.
HOW TO APPLY
Application Deadline is June 1, 2009.
Criteria
Only wholly woman-owned businesses are eligible for this grant. The five criteria that Eileen Fisher will be looking for in each application are:
- Innovation: the degree to which a business addresses a stated need in a new and exciting way.
- Social Consciousness: a commitment to one or more of the following: the environment, social justice, the community in which your business is situated or the individual growth and well-being of your employees.
- Sustainability: the existence of a solid plan to create (or grow) a business that will be self-sustaining and continually evolving.
- Use of funds: the need for the grant, and a clear and constructive plan for its use.
- Alignment with the EILEEN FISHER mission: an understanding and shared commitment to the practices outlined in the Mission.
EILEEN FISHER reserves the right to withhold any grant if an appropriate candidate is not found. EILEEN FISHER employees and relatives are not eligible to apply. Past recipients are not eligible to apply. Nonprofit organizations are not eligible for this grant, but are encouraged to apply for charitable support through our regular corporate contribution program.
Ladies, apply here!
One oft-repeated lament is that of ‘how can I keep my Facebook page from being seen by potential employers’? There have been lots of blogs telling students how to increase their privacy settings lest their on-line peccadilloes scupper their chances of finding a job in the currently challenging market. Fewer blogs are educating them about how to use social media in order to find them.
I did however come across a great blog that gave a list of ways to use LinkedIn to find a job. Historically LinkedIn has been populated by professionals several rungs higher on the career ladder than final year students or graduates, and this is reflected in some of the suggestions such as point 2. “Get LinkedIn recommendations from your colleagues”. However ‘colleagues’ could just as easily be replaced by ‘tutors’. ‘lecturers’ or fellow students.
Students and graduates will need to become a bit more savvy about the way they find a job, and this is a great introduction as to how to do it. The advice is still sound…points 10. and 11. particularly so…
10. Find startups to join. Maybe this recession is God telling you it’s time to try a startup. But great startups are hard to find. Play around with LinkedIn’s advanced search engine using “startup” or “stealth” in the keyword or company field. You can also narrow by industry (for example, startups in the Web 2.0, wireless, or biotech sectors). If large companies can’t offer “job security,” open up your search to include startups.
11. Build your network before you need it. As a last tip, no matter how the economy or your career is doing, having a strong network is a good form of job security. Don’t wait until times are tough to nurture your network. The key to networking (or “schmozing”), however, is filled with counter-intuitiveness. First, it’s not who you know—it’s who knows of you. Second, Great schmoozers are not thinking “What can this person do for me?” To the contrary, they are thinking, “What can I do for this person?” For more on schmoozing, read “The Art of Schmoozing.”
Last week-end I attended the a conference that explored the Investment Climate in Africa organised by the Africa Club at London Business School. I especially enjoyed the panel that discussed Innovative Financing in Africa and was particularly encouraged by the repeated mention of enterprise, entrepreneurship and the support of SMEs. The main concern remains how to get finance directly to entrepreneurs while the equity risk premia remain so high.
MyC4, an on-line marketplace that connects Western investors directly with Africa entrepreneurs, was put forward as a solution to this. Investors are able to give as little as 5 Euros and the ethos of the company is as follows:
By focusing on the power of Business as the driving force to end poverty, MYC4 provides all with a dynamic platform to create and support new enterprise and commercial innovation in Africa. Through modern technology we all create financing for the ‘unfundable’ by bringing us together in Business partnerships. And thereby MYC4 becomes a significant tool in the fight to eradicate poverty.
This idea becomes even more interesting when taken together with the arguments of Dambisa Moyo in her recently published Dead Aid, a controversial book which has sparked a debate that graced the cover of the Financial Times this week-end:
Ms Moyo argues that official development assistance has fostered dependency and perpetuated poor governance. She proposes a blend of commercial debt, micro-finance, fairer trade and investment in its place….Activists fear that developed countries seeking an excuse to slash aid budgets have found one in Ms Moyo, at a time when Africa is especially in need. They dismiss her book as simplistic – even dangerous.
The debate continues…but clearly we are in a time when we are questioning the status quo and, thanks to Dambisa Moyo, that now includes what we previously took for granted with regards to aid to Africa. In this environment it would be a tremendous step forward if the western individual looking to do something for Africa ended their culture of micro-aid and ‘money for nothing’ to African governments, and replaced it with one of micro-investment directly to the African entrepreneurs that need it most.
You can follow Dambisa on twitter via @dambisamoyo
For more information visit – www.myC4.com
Filed under: Uncategorized
Obstacles and hardships are commonplace in business. Everybody experiences setbacks in their career, which feed doubt in yourself or the project you’re involved in. Most entrepreneurs will have fallen more than once before eventually making it. Others came dangerously close to giving it all up before ultimately succeeding.
One such entrepreneur is Richard Reed, co-founder of Innocent smoothies.
Mr Reed, who founded Innocent Drinks with fellow Cambridge graduates Adam Balon and Jon Wright, told Sky’s Jeff Randall Live that the trio almost gave up on their smoothie dream until a last-minute intervention by an investor.
“We’d thrown in the towel basically. Innocent was a business which was not going to happen,” he told. However, an email sent round to friends asking if they knew any rich people led to a £250,000 investment from US businessman Maurice Pinto.
From selling just 24 on its first day, the company now sells over two million bottles a week.
(To read the full article click here)
Innocent’s story is a familiar one for many successful entrepreneurs. Persistence and faith, both in yourself and the project you’re involved in, helps to overcome tough challenges. The battle is only lost when you give up.
Filed under: Entrepreneurship
Steven Kaplan, Mark Klebanov and Morten Sorensen recently completed a study called “Which C.E.O. Characteristics and Abilities Matter?” They looked at detailed personality assessments of 316 C.E.O.’s and measured their companies’ performances. They found that strong people skills correlate loosely or not at all with being a good C.E.O. David Brooks from the New York Times writes:
Traits like being a good listener, a good team builder, an enthusiastic colleague, a great communicator do not seem to be very important when it comes to leading successful companies.
Flamboyant visionaries rarely work out. So what makes a successful CEO?
What mattered, it turned out, were execution and organizational skills. The traits that correlated most powerfully with success were attention to detail, persistence, efficiency, analytic thoroughness and the ability to work long hours.
In other words, warm, flexible, team-oriented and empathetic people are less likely to thrive as C.E.O.’s. Organized, dogged, anal-retentive and slightly boring people are more likely to thrive.
In other words, those who make good C.E.O.s may not be the life of the party.
Today we have a guest blogger – Danvers Baillieu of Winston & Strawn LLP – who shares his insights into the legal aspects of using interns (or enterns!) in your business in the UK:
At the Bootlaw session in April, I addressed the topic of using interns in a business. This is a interesting area, because everyone wants to do it but there are no hard and fast rules and no easy guidelines for you to follow: it’s a grey area.
The shades of grey apply particularly in relation to the requirements of the National Minimum Wage Act 1998 (NMWA 1998) – the introduction of which was a key manifesto pledge of New Labour in the 1997 election, back in the day when they actually tried to keep their manifesto pledges.
The NMWA says that anyone who is a “worker” – not an employee – is entitled to the minimum wage – currently, £5.73 for workers over 22 and £4.77 for 18 to 22 year olds – and in the Act, worker means:
“an individual who has entered into or works under (or, where the employment has ceased, worked under)—
(a) a contract of employment; or
(b) any other contract, whether express or implied and (if it is express) whether oral or in writing, whereby the individual undertakes to do or perform personally any work or services for another party to the contract whose status is not by virtue of the contract that of a client or customer of any profession or business undertaking carried on by the individual;”
Section 54(3), NMWA 1998
Or, in plain English, it means anyone who works for you in any capacity, but is not employed by someone else to work for you – so your lawyer, accountant and plumber are all excluded if that was your concern.
Against this backdrop, the main justification for having an unpaid intern is they are under no obligation to you to perform any work or service, in contrast to the obligations of an employee to turn up and do the work he or she is given. This is very simple to demonstrate where you have a young person, probably still in education, doing a shadow placements, and are there only to observe (but of little relevance in this context) – but notoriously, in certain industries, there are people working hard, for free, doing essential work which means they are completely relied upon – and this is almost certainly in contravention of the NMWA 1998.
If you are going to give someone meaningful tasks to perform, it makes sense that they should be given the chance to learn as much as possible – so time spent on shadowing, training and other non-productive tasks will show clearly that you are offering something more fulfilling than simply unpaid work. In this respect, interns should keep learning or accruing valuable experience and it should be recognised that the marginal benefit of working for free runs out pretty quickly, in weeks rather than months, although will depend very much on the task being performed – the more mundane, the shorter the timeframe. Once this period is up, it is time for the intern to move on or for you to bite the bullet and start paying (at least the minimum wage!).
From a practical and legal perspective, interns should not be put under too much pressure to work long hours – in particular, they may need to be working in the evenings to make ends meet so you should not expect to take precedence over that. You do have the option to help out, and if there are discrete projects where they could be paid by the hour and which otherwise might be outsourced (e.g. making sales calls, data entry etc) then there is no reason not to offer that to them.
If your arrangement was ever looked at by HMRC, which is responsible for enforcement of minimum wage rules, the decision would turn on the facts of the case. If you were investigated, the chances are you would be given the opportunity to compensate your interns and agree to comply with the rules going forward before any penalty is levied. However, once that concession has been made, the “interns” would retrospectively be viewed as being employees and, depending on length of service, employment law issues could also kick in which might be more expensive to handle if you have previously ignored them.
If you want to contact Danvers about this here are some ways of getting hold of him:
Work profile: www.winston.com/dbaillieu / LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/danvers
Twitter: www.twitter.com/danversbaillieu / Personal blog: http://danversbaillieu.blogspot.com
You can also check out: www.bootlaw.com
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Enternships trouped off to Prague for the Microsoft European Investor Summit and had an incredible time – meeting lots of great people. There were some particularly cool European start-ups that had made great use of the Microsoft Bizspark technology and support. The event was held as a part of the first ever EU SME week and @bindik tweeted about all the goings on throughout the 2 day seminar – check out #msfteis to read about it.
The week ran from 6th-14th of May and aimed to be a campaign to promote entrepreneurship across Europe. Countries all across Europe got involved and there were hundreds of events celebrating and encouraging small business.
We look forward to many more!
Filed under: Recession
A friend of mine got a new job, but she won’t be starting until next year.
For the rest of the year, she will be traveling the world on the $20K that the employer gave her in exchange for agreeing to start in January 2010.
This is not uncommon; in fact, a recent article in the Economist highlights recent changes in recruitment due to the recession.
Allan McKisson of Manpower, an employment-services company, insists that companies should be adopting a “ramp-up plan” and hiring new talent now, to ensure that they are firing on all cylinders when the economy rebounds.
[Some companies now] offer deferred start dates to new hires, giving them six months or a year to travel or do public service. This approach has been embraced by consulting firms, law firms and banks.
This seems like a generous compromise from companies that want to secure talent. So what do you think? Would you take a deffered start-date job?
Filed under: Uncategorized
Enternships.com is now partnering with Sandbox. Sandbox is a trusted global network where extraordinary young achievers under 30 come together. It’s an inspiring meeting place where a selection of young thinkers and doers connect, exchange ideas and talk about innovation.
Sandbox will complement Enternships’ services from two sides: It provides exclusive access to the most talented students, as well as to newly founded start-ups that evolve from Sandbox’ match-making activities. With the help of Sandbox Enternships.com will be able to extend their activities from the British market to a global scale.
We are looking forward to a great and fruitful partnership.
On Wednesday the government outlined plans for a new initiative to help employers create and offer graduate internships, allowing graduates to kickstart their careers. The announcement about the’Graduate Talent Pool’ comes after a long wait following initial mutterings about the National Internship Scheme…but Enternships was hugely encouraged by this step in the right direction!
It is a complete validation of our ethos – that cultivating employability skills and experiencing the workplace prior to taking on a career should be an essential part of a young person’s development. Therefore, while the government signs up companies like Network Rail, the Police Service, Marks and Spencer and Microsoft…Enternships will continue to support the long tail by solely targeting the start-up and SME end of the spectrum.
We continue to believe that a culture change is imminent as more and more enterprising young people undertake placements to learn self-efficacy & entrepreneurial intent. Crucially, now more than ever, they will also learn the resilience of a successful entreprenuer and how to embrace failure as a learning experience. They will learn to keep faith in their idea and their inherent ability to create wealth when all rational evidence points to the contrary – optimisim that is key to surviving, and even flourishing during the recession.
For as long as people believe in themselves and are encouraged to risk failure for the chance they will receive massive reward – there is hope for the British economy. Enternships passionately believes that strengthening small business by the regular influx of talented, motivated and innovative young minds…and simultaneously inspiring enterns to start their own ventures, is key to the creation of jobs and the survival of a nation.
We know that by doing so, as far as Britain is concerned, the 2009 recession will not be remembered as a time of self-pity, recrimination and inertia, but instead as a era defined by the maxim:
Fortune favours the brave.
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