The last couple of weekends I’ve spent quite a lot of time at business events. The first was Startup Weekend Nottingham, where I’d been asked to manage some of the social media on behalf of the Creative Quarter. I ended up managing four Twitter accounts and a Facebook page whilst taking photos and actually getting involved with the event and talking to people. On top of that, we were taking part in a hashtag battle, which meant that, contrary to my day job where I tend to tweet about once an hour, I was tweeting and retweeting as much as possible. Whew. I ended up ditching Tweetdeck and sticking to my phone so I could be more mobile (the event was quite spread out in a large cinema with lots of different rooms), and the app crashed about 20 times in total trying to deal with everything. I’m glad it wasn’t just me ;)

I arrived at the event on Friday night after a full week at work and commitments every evening, but the atmosphere was electric and a quick glass of wine was more than enough to get my energy up again.

There was a short intro talk and icebreaker task, and then people pitched their business ideas. The age range was huge – from eighteen year olds to 40+. Everyone got on really well, and just got chatting to each other like we’d all known each other for years. It was an amazing atmosphere, and one of the best things I’ve been to in my life. Loved every second.

After the ideas were voted on and the best ones picked, people divided up into teams to get started planning their business model, pricing, presentation and everything else. Businesses ranged from phone number forwarding to improving clean water access in developing countries to smashing things up for stress relief :D
There was plenty of Red Bull, Vitamin water and food to keep the buzz going, and although there were some slightly flagging moments from tiredness (and a break to watch Dr Who), the teams worked incredibly hard and were enthusiastic right to their presentations at the end.

Made cupcakes for everyone – vanilla and chocolate.

I feel like I can’t really get across how amazing this event was in words and pictures.

Last weekend I spent some time at another event, Good for Nothing. The concept involves helping a couple of schemes/enterprises/businesses out, and the ones chosen this time were focused on local, sustainable food and more environmentally-friendly, sociable eating. I liked the concept, and it was great to see some familiar friendly faces from the week before, but the briefs were far too involved (multiple different areas in each) and the event wasn’t organised enough generally in some ways, and over-organised in others. I think having a team leader for each team and simplifying the briefs down – and having fewer of them – as well as having more time to work on the tasks (e.g. the Sunday) would help a lot, because the fundamental idea was very strong. I ended up not being able to make most of the Saturday because I had a cupcake class (I had explained this to the organisers and they asked me to come along anyway), which I think may have offended at least one person in my team (or maybe she just wasn’t a friendly person – who knows), so I left a bit early because I felt like I couldn’t be useful in the remaining time.

The cupcake class focused on cake lace, which is this amazing silicone-feeling edible substance you make from a mix, spread in very flat moulds and stick in the oven. We also did some sugarpasting and painting, neither of which I’ve ever done at home because I don’t have the time or the space (also, I’m definitely more of a buttercream girl). The class was tiny; normally it’s at least ten, but there were only two of us so we got plenty of one-on-one attention which was great.

Awful phone camera picture because I haven’t had time to photograph them properly yet.

On Sunday we went to a gaming event in Derby, and I won a couple of things in the raffle, which was awesome :)

This week is a catching up week – gym, house cleaning, baking and birthday and guest preparations are on the go because it’s my birthday weekend and I’ve planned a whole load of stuff, including a Dinosaurs vs. Robots themed party on the Saturday, because I’m a child :D My birthday is next Tuesday (planning to seeing Catching Fire), and then it’s Second Wednesday, the work Christmas party and a gaming mini meet, Notts Programmers, and then it’s off for Christmas. This month is actually one of the quieter ones for me – October nearly destroyed me – and I’m looking forward to some much-needed time off!