Globalization 2.0 : My first blog post on ecademy

I first became aware of globalization as a phenomenon about ten years ago, when it started popping up regularly in strategic objectives handed out by corporate headquarters. However the idea of globalization isn't exactly new, it been going on for a long time, it's just that recently with the availability of the high speed internet in every corner of the world its evolution has rocketed ahead.

Until the last few years globalization of the world economy has almost entirely benefited large multi-national corporations, who could afford to put in place the infrastructure and organisation required to control their markets around the world.

The latest web developments like social networking and social commerce are starting to provide smaller businesses and individuals with the tools they need to operate globally. It's never been easier to 'go global' and there is a new category of business emerging referred to as the 'global small business'. Their size makes them nimble and their ability to embrace innovation quickly will be their main advantage when competing with the giant multinational corporations.

On their own a small business or even a global small business will not seriously challenge the big incumbents, who will resort to all sorts of tactics to keep control of their markets, for example leveraging their press and government relationships in support of their business interests.

Small businesses must collaborate to compete effectively and the basis of good collaboration is great communications, a common purpose and trust. Open and available global business networking platforms like ecademy meet some of the needs, but there are still gaps in the armoury especially when it comes to delivering the business, ecommerce systems that work globally are very expensive and complicated to install and outsourcing commercial processes to a managed service provider may lead you back into the arms of a large multinational, who will only be too pleased to take a slice of the precious margin.

The unashamed mention for my new business venture gotradelive is that we are helping to equip small businesses with some basic commercial tools that will help them trade more efficiently and remain in control of the process all within their own private networks.

I recently invested some time listening to the new MD of ecademy, Daniel Priestly, talking about the new direction he is going to take the business. Reinventing the 'e' in ecademy to mean 'entrepreneur' academy is inspired and I wish him well. The massive majority of entrepreneurs are responsible for starting and running small businesses and they will need all the support they can get and we all need them to be very successful. 

Successful entrepreneurs will mean a dynamic and growing small business market sector, which will drive the economy and employment forward. As SMEs represent most of the wealth generation in every country their success will lead the global economic recovery. On this basis one would imagine that support for entrepreneurs and small businesses should be at the forefront of every government policymakers' mind when they are contemplating their challenges, let's hope they are not drowned out by the vested interests of large multinational corporations.

Gotradelive Real Live Demo - Selling £50 Note

This is a genuine opportunity to bid for and potentially win a £50 note. 

The starting price is just £1.00 and the increments are set at 1p, so lets see how good the winning deal is.

This is no trick, but an honest incentive to get you to try out the Gotradelive system. 

It's only possible to offer this deal because Gotradelive is completely free and there is no transaction fee or set up fee to be paid to a third party. Its your tool to run as you want.

To place a bid all you need to do is to register your name and email address - and choose a password. 

Click here to register and bid

If you have any questions there is a brief 2 minute video introduction to the Gotradelive system on the registration page or here

Gotradelive is a new online trading platform will level the playing field for SMEs

A free online B2B trading system for SMEs could help them cut costs and boost their revenue without having to make any investment.

October 15. London. A new trading system for SMEs, Gotradelive, gives smaller businesses the trading power of bigger corporations, helping them compete more effectively and run a tighter more efficient sales operation.

This cloud based platform (explained here) provides business networking as simple to use as Facebook and really useful buying and selling tools that will add a powerful string to any commercial bow.

Gotradelive gives SMEs the capability to market their products and services more efficiently. Its features allow businesses to create an online trade for sale or tender and invite their own selected audience to place their bids. It’s very easy to use and maintains the privacy and control which is lost when using a public auction site.

Founder and CEO Robert Doughty says it gives SMEs all the advantages of the trading portals and ebusiness systems that only multinational corporations can afford. “The odds are stacked against the SME and this platform will help them compete on a level playing field. It gives them better buying and selling power within their existing markets, and it helps them find and manage new market opportunities too.” says Doughty.

Farmers, for example, are often forced to dump perfectly good stock. But using Gotradelive a farmer can quickly remarket and sell a consignment of vegetables that has unexpectedly been rejected by a supermarket, maybe just because they were ugly. Currently, finding a buyer at the last minute would have been too time consuming and the farmer would have had to bin them. But using Gotradelive the farmer can set up an online sale in under 5 minutes, contact all their alternative customers and invite them to bid for these bargains. The farmer salvages some money for his crop and the buyer gets a bargain they would have not even been aware of.

Similarly, Gotradelive can be used for reverse trades or invitations to tender. The same farmer could invite a number of suppliers of fertilizer to tender for their next requirement, or maybe use it to find a new cost effective supplier of tractor tyres.

In these cases Gotradelive brings a new liquidity to the SME sector and creates value by making new trading opportunities possible.

Why SMEs Need a B2B Trading System

1.    Global trading systems and software licenses are too expensive and complex to set up and use

2.     Consumer auction style sites are insecure and the SME loses control of the sale

3. Large consumer audience based auction portals are expensive, and fees are disproportionate to trading margins.

4.     Gotradelive is free, easy to set up and use: there are no transaction based fees and even usage costs are low given how easy it is to use

5.   The trader still makes the sale or purchase and puts the transaction through their own accounts under their own terms and conditions of business.

6.     Trade only buyers are more knowledgeable and don’t waste time – the trader controls the audience in Gotradelive

7.  Trade only sellers are considerably more trust worthy and on Gotradelive the trader manages an audience they already know.

8.      Gotradelive allows the trader to scale their business and still retain control.

9.    There is an opportunity to create an event that will act as a catalyst for action – be it a deadline for sales or procurement

10.  Gotradelive adds a vital weapon in the commercial armory which enables the SME to operate effectively in the global trading community.

Keith Collins' True Marketing Experience: Fred Greeno Launches Gotradelive to the World

Keith Collins' True Marketing Experience: Fred Greeno Launches Gotradelive to the World: Who is Fred Greeno? Watch the video and see him explain how gotradelive will give small and medium sized businesses another way of doing bus...

Fred Greeno Launches Gotradelive to the World

Who is Fred Greeno? Watch the video and see him explain how gotradelive will give small and medium sized businesses another way of doing business online.



If you have followed my blog in the past you will won't have missed the lack of activity whilst I have been busy getting gotradelive ready for the market. Now it is ready, you will see many more posts from me as we go about spreading the word about the value we can bring to SME's around the world.

Please visit the site and register, there is no commitment, no cost and you can try it out with friends and colleagues - just for fun try finding out how much your colleagues will pay for the bosses car! Seriously though   these tools which are available to anyone can really help companies improve their business, with more efficient ways of selling, buying and marketing to their private networks - and stay in control of the whole process.

The team is off to China tomorrow to kick start our Asia Pacific operations and we are totally excited about the prospect in store. Stay tuned to find out how we get on over the next few days.

Building a pipeline for TrueTalk

It’s time to focus on my own consulting business and the first thing to do is establish a pipeline of new opportunities.

If you are interested in discussing any marketing or business development challenges you are currently facing please let me know, hopefully with my experience I’ll be able to help you in some way and maybe you can join my pipeline.

I can be flexible to accommodate a wide variety of needs simply drop me a line if you’d like to set up a call or a meeting.
(email: keith [at] truetalk [dot] co [dot] uk)

The Apprentice Form

It is almost impossible to precede this amazingly insightful and hilarious form card for this year’s series of the Apprentice, but for the last few series David has produced this analysis with ever increasing accuracy and this year it is time to publish and share. No apologies for the many ex-Amstrad insider jokes but you’ll probably get them anyway (apart from Tony Massey – read ‘Duncan Goodhew’)! Thanks and credit to David Hennell for this work of .....

Blimey... give a guy a break! I Sky Plussed it and only finished watching the first episode 5 minutes ago.

Anyhow by popular demand, here's Hennell's tips to the runners and riders for The Apprentice 2010. Accept no substitutes... here's the real thing, the original and still the best (sorry, Mike!)

I'm going to do this in two parts, because I'm knackered. Let's face it guys, none of us are as young as we were back in Brentwood days (even if Thomas Power spends hours photoshopping the thousands of pictures of himself that then appear on every social networking site in an attempt to look as if he is... honestly, that man's *such* a cyber tart!).

Okay the boys. Far FAR easier to sort this lot out, compared to the girls. What is it, gentlemen, that makes us so transparent? Some perma-squirt of machismo? Speaking of which...

Dan "Lunch is for wimps" Harris (RIP). You'd think he knew plenty about sausages, given his fleshy-jowled look of a ginger Yorkshire butcher. But no. Management style straight out of the early 80s, so much so that he made Gary Meyer (Amstrad Australia's erstwhile MD for those of you who have forgotten) look like Gandhi. You just *know* his favourite film of all time is Wall Street.. he had to go, if nothing else because of his extraordinary "go on, sniff my gonads... you know you want to" way of sitting in the boardroom.

Stuart "The Brand" Baggs. More Jo Brand than Nike, methinks, except far less intentionally funny. Overweeningly arrogant, blissfully un-self-aware. Offered himself to Alan on a sale or return money back deal in the boardroom showdown - if only his mother had had the benefit of an identical offer at his birth. Mind you, he ran rings round Dan the ginger butcher and did him up like a kipper in the boardroom, which if nothing else needs applauding as a mercy killing. He'll be great TV but there's no way in Hell Alan could bear him, not even on consignment.

Alex "New Labour" Epstein. Why New Labour, I hear you ask, when he's obviously such a good little corporate capitalist? Well for one, he worryingly resembles Gordon Brown after a fake-bake spray tan. And two, he's got that badly trained public speaking move that all New Labour wannabes have done since Blair to attempt to show sincerity. You know the thing, that masturbatory emphatic hand gesture a la Gareth Hunt Maxwell House adverts c. 1980, whenever you're trying to make someone believe whatever line of crap you're peddling. Apart from that, not one to get his hands dirty and won't last.

Raleigh "Training wheels needed on my tricycle" Addington. Bless him! That lip-quivering shocked speech at Dan, ending with a genuinely morally outraged finger-wagging cry of "Shameful!". I honestly thought he might burst into tears. Just too soft, too sheltered, too green and is just bound to get completely stabbed in the back by someone he thinks loves him as much as he worshipped his house prefect at Eton when as a junior fag, he was required to be on 24 hour call to butter the latter's crumpets.

Shibby "Trust me, I'm a doctor" Robati. I was briefly convinced he'd been expelled from a recent international cricket team for match fixing, but he's no fool, this one. He just looks like it's all beneath him and he doesn't seem to be that bothered. No doubt he'll do well as a surgeon with that languid doe-eyed arrogance he affects... or rather, doesn't. It's all natural, I fear. Out mid-season.

Christopher "Star Trek" Farrell (yes Mike, I agree with the otherworldly look our commando's got). Kept a low profile and stayed well-hidden - maybe he was a sniper? Came a little bit back to life in the boardroom where it looked like he couldn't believe his ears at the nonsense Dan was spouting. He's in good company... I couldn't believe his ears either. Maybe a dark horse, but I think too nondescript. Out mid-season again.

Chris "Investment banker is not always rhyming slang" Bates. The secret lovechild of Jamie Oliver and Ronan Keating and one of three, yes count 'em three, investment bankers in this year's show. It's mildly encouraging to see that some of the city bozos have got their come-uppance - why else would they sign up to the show? - as we enter double dip recession. He's a bit posh, but I think he has a little edge to him. My 2nd favourite of the boys (not that this is difficult among this bunch).

And finally Jamie "Mi casa es su casa" Lester. Okay so he looks like a Milwall soccer thug in a suit, but that's probably no bad thing as far as Alan is concerned. However, he was pretty much reasoned and professional - didn't you just love the way he took Stuart The Brand to task for acting like a hyperactive toddler after way WAY too much Sunny Delite? By far and away the best of the guys. Final three for absolutely definitely cast-iron sure.

I'll get round to the ladies tomorrow. Stay tuned, pop pickers.

Part 2  

Okay, time for the fairer sex to be scrutinized. This is going to be much more tricky, because with just a couple of notable exceptions, the ladies seemed demure, retiring and nigh on invisible - it's time for gut-feel. Never judge a book by its cover was hardly a Brentwood catchphrase.

Speaking of which, did anyone else hear Alan's radio interview last week, set up for him to plug the new series *and* his new book, called "What you see is what you get". Good title, though hardly one to be applied to your average Amstrad product in hindsight... "A mug's eyeful" might have been better. Anyhow, the shock revelation was that Alan confirmed that he'd been asked to appear on Strictly Come Dancing - his comment unsurprisingly being "What a bloody load of old nonsense." What a complete tragedy - we'd all have given several years of our lives just to see Alan doing the Chigwell cha cha in sequinned shirt slashed to the waist.

Now Nick "The Silver Fox" Hewer on Strictly... that's a marriage made in heaven. I'm sure Nick could rapidly polish up his undoubtedly substantial lounge lizard skills and trip the light fantastic with the best of them - plus in his elegantly stealthy way, the man's a serious player... I know, I've seen him in action. Smoother than a baby's bottom coated in Teflon. I can definitely see him inveigling his way into the arms and charms of some lithe young professional dancer half his age... the red tops would have a field day. We should all lobby the BBC for next year. Seriously. Come on Thomas, you're ideally placed to sort out an online campaign with your legion of lonely businesswomen followers on TwitterCademyFaceSpace... we want to see the "Hewer for Strictly" petition.

Anyhow, enough of the musing... back to the girls and the easy ones first.

Melissa "Peroxide Nightmare" Cohen. Oh dear. The obvious pantomime villain of the piece so she'll be kept in for a good long while as the other one (together with Stuart the Brand) as the ones we love to hate. Opinionated, pushy, patronising and generally vile. She'll force her way into the camera foreground on every opportunity. With a surname like that, she may well be of the faith (or as Dave P would say, she's no schicksa, she's a Red Sea pedestrian) but that's not going to save her. The axe will fall in the second half.

Joy "Oh shit! Jo is back" Stefanicki. It's not just me, is it? She does look scarily like mad Jo Cameron from Series 2. Anyhow, you just *know* she's going to be insane. Not axe-wielding psycho insane like Melissa above, but far more new-age, fair trade, crystal-waving, back-to-back whale-song on the IPod, navel-gazing, ear candling, lentil cooking and above all barking mad. Not in a million years is she going to make the final three, so it'll be back to her vegan wigwam in whatever tree-hugging commune she lives in (yes yes, I know she's from Birmingham, but I bet she could find one).

Laura "Fragile - handle with care" Moore. An absolute dead ringer for an 80s actress called Shirley Cheriton (Angels & Eastenders - and no, don't ask me how I know.. just google images), except brunette. She's only 22, and I'm getting this feeling of petulance and emotional fragility from her. A trained violinist apparently, I think she's going to be equally highly strung. Expect something to snap before long.

Paloma "Not Picasso but" Vivanco. Pretty much invisible in the first episode but just on a hunch, I'm expecting this one to have a short fuse and foresee tantrums ahead. I think she'll throw her toys out of the pram once too often and alienate others, so based on the most flimsy of evidence; I'm going to say not one to go too far.

Sandeesh "Thundercats" Samra. How can anyone possibly have that amount of hair? She's the antithesis of Tony Massey. Another near invisible girl in episode one, but reading her brief biography on The Apprentice website, it states that she "believes that keeping the customer happy is the key to success". A business truism, maybe, but not one that's going to mesh well with Alan. Had it been "hustling the customer into thinking he's happy" or "doing the absolute bare minimum necessary to ensure the customer doesn't get atomically pissed off", she'd have been a much more natural fit. I see this one as being rather too nice and idealistic to last long.

Liz "Too pretty by far to be related to Mike" Locke. Sorry, Mike. Not even in my most twisted fantasies can I picture this year's eye-candy in Union Jack socks on the back of a Kawasaki, so there's clearly no shared DNA there. Mind you, did you see shameless Uncle Nick schmoozing his way into her and Stella's (see below) good books by saying he was impressed with their figures? Told you, he's a sly one and I bet he'd like to share some DNA with this Louise Redknapp lookalike. At 24, she's the right age to be an apprentice, providing her corporate investment banking background isn't too "city boy" big business for Alan. I think she's going to do well, providing she's prepared to get her hands dirty. Final three material.

Stella "Investment banker number three" English. Another good candidate, I think. Hard to choose between her and Liz above. Liz has got youth on her side, but Alan's going to like Stella's whole "left school without a single GCSE" claim to fame - he always does appreciate that sort of schtick. OK it's not quite boiling beetroot in Brick Lane from the age of 8, but it's the next best thing. More liable to roll up her sleeves and dive in, so another contender for sure, but an apprentice at 30? I'm unsure.

Joanna "In with a chance" Riley. Offered herself up for team leader in the face of abject sloppy shoulders from the rest of the girls, so hats off to her for that. Actually did a pretty fair job as well - not the strongest personality, maybe but definitely pleasant and seems to have common sense. If her apparent general air of niceness doesn't prove to be her Achilles heel, this one's one to watch - I can see her making the final three.

So, I'm down to a final five (not that it'll ever go this way - got to keep some hate figures in for ratings purposes). However, Hennell's 2010 Top Tips for the best of the bunch are:-

Jamie Lester - Evens favourite

Liz Locke - 6/4

Joanna Riley - 5/2

Stella English - 3/1

Chris Bates - 5/1

25/1 the rest of the field.

Get your 50p's in now, but at your own risk. Be warned, I'm on a roll, having called a Yasmeena/Kate final with a Yasmeena win last year.

David