Bill has been continuing to work on The Zone Golf Pendant site today. If you Google Zone Golf Pendant, Brain Integration and Golf Pendants our site comes up on the front page. On top of that he has started a Google Adwords Pay Per Click Campaign. The Zone Golf Pendant ad comes up if you Google The Yips, Better Golf, Slice and Improve your Golf. A really good start - especially given the level of competition.
Next stop - PR
Meanwhile I have been getting to grips with The Horse Boy event. Following Bill's experience with the Zone Pendant I have decided to set up a separate web site for the event www.anewlookatautism.com. This will give us the opportunity to build the energy separately for the event and run another Google adwords campaign. I am also going to use the same PR material from the Chris Cardell Entrepreneurs Summit to promote the event.
Tuesday 31 August 2010
Friday 27 August 2010
Introducing The Zone Golf Pendant
Well we did it just! Friday 6pm and web site published. Ready for business. Have a look at www.thezonegolfpendant.com.
Interestingly it followed the same format as when I used the programme to create Cornucopia. Day one - the idea, day two - creating the space, day three - making the product, day four - the web site. This makes me even more confident that we can make this into a four day Business Start-up Workshop for anyone wanting to create a new business.
We will now look at optimising our site for Google, a google adwords campaign and building a PR campaign - again using material we picked up at the Chris Cardell Entrepreneur's Summit. We can then wrap this into a further two or three day Business Builder Workshop.
Interestingly it followed the same format as when I used the programme to create Cornucopia. Day one - the idea, day two - creating the space, day three - making the product, day four - the web site. This makes me even more confident that we can make this into a four day Business Start-up Workshop for anyone wanting to create a new business.
We will now look at optimising our site for Google, a google adwords campaign and building a PR campaign - again using material we picked up at the Chris Cardell Entrepreneur's Summit. We can then wrap this into a further two or three day Business Builder Workshop.
Thursday 26 August 2010
Day three
Well day three of our four day challenge and we have hit the buffers.... By the end of yesterday we had revised the name of the pendant to the zone pendant. We think we will go for www.thezonependant.com. as the web site name.
We have been struggling to come up with an identity that would work across the golf market and the exam stress market. The Zone Pendant seems perfect. After our Edutherapy years one thing we know a great deal about is brain integration and we will be able to put information about how brain integration is affected by stress and also how it impacts our performance.
Interestingly today it feels as though we have been taken off on a tangent but writing now I think the work we have done today has been creating the product. We have been looking at how to programme the pendants and how to package them. Half way through the afternoon my son phoned to say I had to watch a video on Youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wx0GfbC0BA. Feel we should be doing this for all our projects.
So tomorrow we have to set up the web site. Fingers crossed.
We have been struggling to come up with an identity that would work across the golf market and the exam stress market. The Zone Pendant seems perfect. After our Edutherapy years one thing we know a great deal about is brain integration and we will be able to put information about how brain integration is affected by stress and also how it impacts our performance.
Interestingly today it feels as though we have been taken off on a tangent but writing now I think the work we have done today has been creating the product. We have been looking at how to programme the pendants and how to package them. Half way through the afternoon my son phoned to say I had to watch a video on Youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wx0GfbC0BA. Feel we should be doing this for all our projects.
So tomorrow we have to set up the web site. Fingers crossed.
Wednesday 25 August 2010
Gimmie
Its been some time since we posted on the blog ......school holidays and too many ideas are the main excuses. Anyway Bill and I have set ourselves a new challenge for this week and we are going public to force us to deliver!
We recently went to an Entrepreneurs Summit organised by Chris Cardell. It was quite an experience. In fact Bill described it to a recent visitor to acreativespace as the most spiritual experience he has had for a long time! We came away fired up and full of ideas....almost too full and it feels as though we have had indigestion for the last five weeks. The problem has been where to start....
Quite honestly we have been floundering around for the last few weeks. Bill was away and then I was away and when we both got back we found ourselves sinking under a mountain of material we had subscribed to in our enthusiasm at the Summit.
Gradually the fog has been clearing and yesterday we returned to the BIG IDEA we arrived at during the Summit. A de-stress pendant. Bill woke up with the idea on the morning of the final day of the Summit.
We have had a number of people mention the Q-Link pendant to us over the past few months. As a golfer, Bill was already aware of this product as it is worn by a number of professional golfers. He realised that with the creative space programme we can run an individually tailored de-stress programme into an e-pendant. It becomes a simple product. A user can then chose to top-up the pendant at a later date if they chose.
As I said we then went down with a major case of indigestion/ovewhelm! But over the last week we have been coming across more and more examples of products similar to the Q-Link. Daily we were finding ourselves on a web site for the Q-Link or the quantum pendant and then David Beckham turned up wearing a Power Balance Band...... ok we get the message. Time to launch our de-stress pendant.
Earlier in the year I set myself the challenge of creating a new business in four days using the creative space programme. It felt like it was time to repeat the challenge. So we are going to create the new de-stress pendant business in four days. Not only will this focus our energy but at the end of the process we will be launching a new intensive four day programme for anyone wanting to create a new business.
Follow our blog to find out how we get on!
Tuesday 27 July 2010
A brilliant generation
A brilliant generation
Our children are the most tested in the world. Society has become obsessed with measurement. We have arrived at the stage where we are no longer willing to make a decision without the supporting evidence, even when it comes to our children.
In fact we are at a new level of risk aversion where we are no longer willing to trust the means of measurement itself. We often read that employers are dissatisfied with the quality of students they employ and Dr. Richard Pike, the chief executive of the Royal Society of Chemistry, recently described GCSEs as ‘meaninglessly easy’.
Despite these assertions the current generation of children and young adults continue to outsmart the system. They are absorbing, enhancing, employing and developing an era of technological change that is beyond the scope of any historical comparison.
It is interesting that so many children diagnosed (a medical term for measured) as having learning difficulties are more than comfortable in the new technological arena. They communicate and think in a way which is markedly different from previous generations, yet we insist on educating them with methods and content from an era which is dead.
Our educational system was designed in an industrial age. Taught in a linear manner, the objective is to process as many as possible to a standardised format as cheaply as possible. The fact is that we no longer live in an industrial society. Our children and young adults have grown up in a digital age. Their thinking is by necessity, and some would argue by design, non-linear. With the current speed of change, much of our curriculum, science in particular, could well be described as a history lesson.
Differentiation in the education system still occurs on the basis of being able to reproduce somebody else’s ideas in the pressured environment of an exam. Only those who succeed within that system are entitled to pursue the luxury of free thinking at a higher educational establishment. With grade inflation, the right to free thinking is becoming ever more exclusive as degree level education becomes similarly standardised.
Ironically those still suited to the type of linear thinking and box ticking which affords them the greatest opportunity, and resources, are most likely to have difficulty in adapting to a rapidly changing real world. I believe our children are smarter, more adaptable and certainly more aware than any previous generation. I do not include intelligent because our desire for measurement has so limited the understanding of a word that I feel it is now redundant.
The reason so many children are perceived as a disappointment or are failing in school is not because they are stupid, lazy or naughty. It is because we are teaching them the wrong things in the wrong way. Add to this the fact that the techniques of measurement we use are similarly useless and a clearer understanding of the nature of the problem emerges.
The new world needs new thinking and the new generation are providing it outside the boundaries of education. These brilliant minds will engage when we make it relevant and give them the space to create in. We may not trust our own ability to assess someone without a certificate but let’s allow the young to trust themselves. They may not leave education knowing the same things we were taught, but they will educate themselves in an awful lot more than we could ever have dreamed of.
Have you ever noticed that by the time you have mastered the internet your children are bored of it. Pleased with your first text message they are e-mailing. You master e-mail and they are on Face Book. You open your Face Book account and they are on twitter. We cant keep up and nor should we try Neither should we hold them back by teaching them what is relevant to us. It no longer serves them. Our job is to create the environment and resources to allow them to lead us forward.
Our children are the most tested in the world. Society has become obsessed with measurement. We have arrived at the stage where we are no longer willing to make a decision without the supporting evidence, even when it comes to our children.
In fact we are at a new level of risk aversion where we are no longer willing to trust the means of measurement itself. We often read that employers are dissatisfied with the quality of students they employ and Dr. Richard Pike, the chief executive of the Royal Society of Chemistry, recently described GCSEs as ‘meaninglessly easy’.
Despite these assertions the current generation of children and young adults continue to outsmart the system. They are absorbing, enhancing, employing and developing an era of technological change that is beyond the scope of any historical comparison.
It is interesting that so many children diagnosed (a medical term for measured) as having learning difficulties are more than comfortable in the new technological arena. They communicate and think in a way which is markedly different from previous generations, yet we insist on educating them with methods and content from an era which is dead.
Our educational system was designed in an industrial age. Taught in a linear manner, the objective is to process as many as possible to a standardised format as cheaply as possible. The fact is that we no longer live in an industrial society. Our children and young adults have grown up in a digital age. Their thinking is by necessity, and some would argue by design, non-linear. With the current speed of change, much of our curriculum, science in particular, could well be described as a history lesson.
Differentiation in the education system still occurs on the basis of being able to reproduce somebody else’s ideas in the pressured environment of an exam. Only those who succeed within that system are entitled to pursue the luxury of free thinking at a higher educational establishment. With grade inflation, the right to free thinking is becoming ever more exclusive as degree level education becomes similarly standardised.
Ironically those still suited to the type of linear thinking and box ticking which affords them the greatest opportunity, and resources, are most likely to have difficulty in adapting to a rapidly changing real world. I believe our children are smarter, more adaptable and certainly more aware than any previous generation. I do not include intelligent because our desire for measurement has so limited the understanding of a word that I feel it is now redundant.
The reason so many children are perceived as a disappointment or are failing in school is not because they are stupid, lazy or naughty. It is because we are teaching them the wrong things in the wrong way. Add to this the fact that the techniques of measurement we use are similarly useless and a clearer understanding of the nature of the problem emerges.
The new world needs new thinking and the new generation are providing it outside the boundaries of education. These brilliant minds will engage when we make it relevant and give them the space to create in. We may not trust our own ability to assess someone without a certificate but let’s allow the young to trust themselves. They may not leave education knowing the same things we were taught, but they will educate themselves in an awful lot more than we could ever have dreamed of.
Have you ever noticed that by the time you have mastered the internet your children are bored of it. Pleased with your first text message they are e-mailing. You master e-mail and they are on Face Book. You open your Face Book account and they are on twitter. We cant keep up and nor should we try Neither should we hold them back by teaching them what is relevant to us. It no longer serves them. Our job is to create the environment and resources to allow them to lead us forward.
Monday 26 July 2010
Introducing Cornucopia
Over the Easter break I set myself the challenge of creating a new business using the Creative Space Programme. The result is cornucopia.
Last year I did a course to learn how to make creams and gels as I had the idea we could imprint them with frequencies to support people on the Creative Space Programme. I hadn’t managed to progress the idea until Good Friday when a conversation with Charlotte brought the whole idea to life.
I decided to set myself a challenge. Could I make the gel and design a web site in just four days - without totally neglecting my family? Well I am glad to say the answer is yes. The web site is up and running and you can find out more at www.cornucopia.me.uk. The only thing I forgot to do was tell people about it!
Friday 23 July 2010
The Horse Boy/Awesomism
I have spent the day working on the promotion of our event in November at Sheepdrove. This event has been really easy to organise but I am starting to feel quite nervous about promoting it. I know that the event has a frequency and that if I am able to hold that frequency it will attract everything it needs. It cannot be any other way - that is the Law of Attraction. But I also know that if I start to feel that the event is going to be difficult to promote then...I will be holding the frequency of a difficult to promote event and ....guess what it will be!
So the first thing I decided was to set the event up as a new client on the creative space programme. This means the programme can de-stress the frequency of the event and my concerns won't compromise it. I also decided to use the new intensive programme which lasts 12 weeks taking us to the middle of October.
Once the programme was running I sat down to start contacting people. I am coming to realise that setting the frequency is not enough. You have to take action as well. A number of people had mentioned The Autism File so I had a look at the web site and decided to contact Polly Tommey the founder. I went to dig out the copy of The Independent to find the article that had started the whole adventure for me and there she was on page three. Then I looked at an email of suggestions I had received from Gillian Naysmith who helps to promote Rupert's book and there was Polly's name again.....so I decided to ask her to open the event for us. The great thing about working with frequency is that I know it will either resonate with her or not. If it does brilliant if it doesn't, nothing has been lost.
I then contacted Sheepdrove to confirm the booking. It is such a lovely venue. When I was putting the event together I wanted to build the frequency from the bottom up. It feels like weaving something together rather in the way a perfume is created. The venue is a big part of this. The location, the buildings, the food and the atmosphere at Sheepdrove provide the perfect start - like the base note of a perfume.
We have adapted the flyer we sent out to everyone on our list so it can go out generally. Again it felt important for the flyer to hold the frequencies of Rupert, Suzy and acreativespace so there are two photos and our logo.
Next week Bill and I are going to start applying some of the material we picked up at The Entrepreneurs Summit we went to last week to promote the event. This will start to amplify the frequency and the programme will be working in the background to ensure that our insecurities don't get in the way!
Thursday 22 July 2010
going live
Have decided that after two days practicing it is time to go live with the blog and Twitter. Also really want to start to launch our new intensive programme. So email to all existing contacts half of which went out without a title......thought I could send the email whilst listening to a Wayne Dyer talk...note to self - multi tasking and computers do not mix!
The Wayne Dyer talk was sent by a lady called Mell we have been working with. She uses something called Matrix Energetics which we have mentioned in our newsletters. We asked her to have a look at our new web site and see what she thought. She had a look and told me that the site was about 85% resonant with its purpose which was a really interesting comment. I am hoping to have a chat with her tonight to explore this. She sent the link to the Wayne Dyer talk on The Power of Intention saying that she had the feeling it had something to do with the 85%.
It feels like she is right so am looking forward to exploring that with her.
Bill and I ended up having our photo taken with Bob Geldorf last Friday.....that will have to wait for another blog....and they sent the photo through today. YUK!! Bill is away on holiday at the moment and I hope he can't access that file - although it is slightly less awful a photo of him. I had to scrawl through all the photos trying to find ours and it took me three attempts as I didn't recognise us. Mind you I was on the phone trying to organise car insurance at the same time. Um maybe another note to self about multi tasking!
The Wayne Dyer talk was sent by a lady called Mell we have been working with. She uses something called Matrix Energetics which we have mentioned in our newsletters. We asked her to have a look at our new web site and see what she thought. She had a look and told me that the site was about 85% resonant with its purpose which was a really interesting comment. I am hoping to have a chat with her tonight to explore this. She sent the link to the Wayne Dyer talk on The Power of Intention saying that she had the feeling it had something to do with the 85%.
It feels like she is right so am looking forward to exploring that with her.
Bill and I ended up having our photo taken with Bob Geldorf last Friday.....that will have to wait for another blog....and they sent the photo through today. YUK!! Bill is away on holiday at the moment and I hope he can't access that file - although it is slightly less awful a photo of him. I had to scrawl through all the photos trying to find ours and it took me three attempts as I didn't recognise us. Mind you I was on the phone trying to organise car insurance at the same time. Um maybe another note to self about multi tasking!
Wednesday 21 July 2010
surviving the 11+ summer
Overheard in a coffee shop a couple of weeks ago.. "Ok when we get home how about doing some non verbal reasoning?"
If you don't have children this will not mean anything but it made my heart sink. The start of the long summer holidays with the shadow of the approaching 11+. You want to have a carefree summer and forget all about school but you are concerned that if you do, there won't be time for your children to prepare adequately for the exams. I have three children and plenty of experience of trying to get reluctant ten year olds to spend precious time going through boring test papers. I decided to ask their advice.
Would it be better not to go through papers given the hassle and resistance encountered? They said.. no it helped because the whole thing is really scary. Even if you are relaxed about it, you will have friends at school whose parents are getting them to practice so it can be unnerving if you are the only one not practicing. It also helps to know what you are letting yourself in for.
Having said that.....it is boring....and it is the summer so have a look on our web site in acreativespace for children for our suggestions (compiled with the assistance of Faith age 12 and Holly age 18)!!
If you don't have children this will not mean anything but it made my heart sink. The start of the long summer holidays with the shadow of the approaching 11+. You want to have a carefree summer and forget all about school but you are concerned that if you do, there won't be time for your children to prepare adequately for the exams. I have three children and plenty of experience of trying to get reluctant ten year olds to spend precious time going through boring test papers. I decided to ask their advice.
Would it be better not to go through papers given the hassle and resistance encountered? They said.. no it helped because the whole thing is really scary. Even if you are relaxed about it, you will have friends at school whose parents are getting them to practice so it can be unnerving if you are the only one not practicing. It also helps to know what you are letting yourself in for.
Having said that.....it is boring....and it is the summer so have a look on our web site in acreativespace for children for our suggestions (compiled with the assistance of Faith age 12 and Holly age 18)!!
Tuesday 20 July 2010
here we go
Yesterday was my 49th birthday and I was feeling rather smug about the fact that many of my friends are actually 50 this year when I realised that my 49th birthday was in fact the first day of my 50th year of life! This stopped me in my tracks and I decided that I had to make this year count. So I am starting by embracing the 21st century.
Many of you have suggested that Bill and I should blog, twitter etc but we have never managed to get around to it. Day two of my 50th year and I decided to ask my daughter Holly to put me on the right tracks. A couple of hours later we had signed up on Twitter and had a new blog underway.
Now I just have to work out how to use them.
Many of you have suggested that Bill and I should blog, twitter etc but we have never managed to get around to it. Day two of my 50th year and I decided to ask my daughter Holly to put me on the right tracks. A couple of hours later we had signed up on Twitter and had a new blog underway.
Now I just have to work out how to use them.
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