• I’m looking for a new office. I’ve been desk-surfing at Liquid Bronze this week and last, and whilst my home office in my new pad in Chorlton is starting to take shape, I think something city centre might be a good idea going forward. I’m looking at the usual candidates, but with Fly The Coop taking a direction based on the Science Park, I’d be interested to hear more ideas/suggestions of where to take a look.
• I have retained the services of a sales consultant. If you have never done this yourself, I advise you do (and I’m happy to let you have the details of mine – he’s freelance and understands the software sector). You might think you know what your business does and how it is perceived, but there is nothing like spending a couple of hours over coffee with a guy who understands the sector to tell you how it really is. My favourite quote from his initial report: “Paul is the brand at the moment. It will take time to establish Vagueware instead”. Too true.
• We’re going VAT registered and taking the opportunity whilst changing our accounting procedures to change our accounting platform. All the cool kids at the moment are raving about Kashflow – anybody got any experience with it or others?
• Right now there are 4 sub-contractors working on Vagueware projects, and I expect in August/September for that to rise to 6. The recruitment drive has gone spectacularly well with over 20 applicants – I want to hire them all – and it’s now just a case of getting the order book in a place to be able to commit to salaries for the long-term. I’m not hiring somebody without at least 3-6 months of their salary in the bank.
• There is discussion – don’t laugh – about me writing a book. Early days. We’ll see where it goes, but I’m really curious to find out what the advantages of a publisher actually are given most of the discussions so far have focused on how I will go out and “sell” the book. I could earn more by doing the same but publishing via Lulu. The only big advantage I can see is having “published by xxxxxx” on my CV.

It seems everybody is busy right now. I can’t remember a time when the sector as a whole was this buoyant in the UK. Talk of recession seems to be passing the bespoke/boutique sector by. I hope it’s the same with you, and if it isn’t let me know as I have work I’m directing away all the time now.

http://manc-coworking.eventwax.com/13th-may

No networking, no OpenCoffee, just plain old straight format where those who want to meet up and discuss something can do, otherwise we crack on with work.

It’s the same day as GeekUp Manchester as well, so those of you travelling from outside of the city centre can get two events done in the same day and then feel really tired the next day.

It worked well last month, so we’re going to give co-working and opencoffee together another shot.

Please note that you need to type codes into the promo code boxes – “CW” if you’re coming for Co-working all day, and “OC” if you’re planning on just the “OpenCoffee” bit.

Hope to see you there!