Managing Editor  Karen Birch
At the3rdi we have a total commitment to delivering our clients and stakeholders the highest quality product and services.

This is no false promise; we strive to produce a content-driven journal that adds value in as many ways as possible to our readers.

We are an ethically-driven team of professionals with the united goal of passing on our knowledge, experience and wisdom so that our readers can benefit and make their own business and private lives as rewarding as possible.

I'd like to tell you a bit about myself, share my journey as an entrepreneur and tell you something about my vision for the3rdi magazine and how we plan to

CHANGE THE WAY THE WORLD DOES BUSINESS.

I'm often asked to speak at meetings and conferences about my entrpreneurial journey; partly as it hasn't been a straightforward career path, more crazy paving as a colleague once observed, and partly as the lessons I have learned serve as inspiration and warnings to other entrpreneurs.

I often hear entrepreneurs telling stories of how they knew they were going to be entrepreneurs; you know the kind of thing - they sold sweets to their pals in the playground or charged them to listen to their record collection. I too can demonstrate early entrepreneurship, although I don't really view it quite like that. When I was growing up I wanted a guinea pig, and so that she wasn't lonely, I persuaded my parents to buy another. I had two happy little girl guinea pigs until one day I discovered a third, much smaller guinea pig in the hutch and realised that one of my girls must be a boy! They continued to breed, producing 4-8 little piglets every couple of months. Naturally I wasn't allowed to keep them, so I sold them to the local pet shop for 50p each! Early entrepreneurship? Maybe, but I prefer to look at it as early problem solving. If I wasn't to be swamped by guinea pigs, like the tribbles that overran The USS Enterprise in Star Trek, I had to do something.
Lesson 1: A problem became an opportunity and the money was an added bonus!

My schooling is a book in itself but ended conventionally enough with me heading to university to study Zoology. I worked as a medical microbiologist, water treatment engineer, marketing manager and became a board member of a multi-national pharmaceutical company by the time I was 29. While working I studied for an MBA - two nights a week for three years. Hard work but, if asked, I always recommend that people study management while they are doing management rather than tacking a post graduate management degree onto the end of their student life.

People often say to me. "I couldn't do what you have done" and I always disagree. Most of us don't court change. Most of us like security and avoid change and I wasn't any different. However, aged 29 I split from my husband and decided that "now was as good a time as any" to start my own business. I'd an idea that at some point I might like to work for myself and at this stage of my life, there was no good reason not to take that chance.
Lesson 2: There's a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood leads on to fortune. (Shakespeare)

As a marketing manager in a medical company I'd commissioned advertising and promotional material from a number of large agencies. What I'd found is that I ended up doing most of the work and paying them! They didn't understand the medical terms. They were good at selling bread or beer or bathrooms but were clueless when it came to medical equipment. So, I established a highly successful marketing agency to cater for the needs of the emerging biotechnology sector; most notably being involved from the first with PPL Therapeutics of Dolly The Sheep fame. Yes, I'd had a good idea which would always have made a good business, but biotechnology was booming at that time and the combination of right idea at the right time made it a great business.
Lesson 3: "Life is all about timing ... the unreachable becomes reachable, the unavailable become available, the unattainable... attainable." (Stacey Charter)

As the companies I had helped to grow grew I was faced with the dilemma of growing with them, taking on extra staff in order to handle larger and more complex tasks, or concentrating on start ups. While pondering this issue I was head-hunted to lead the biotechnology industry association in Scotland, a role I combined with helping new companies to bring technologies from university to market. "That was a lucky break, dropping into that job" a number of people said at the time...hmmmm? I was already on the board as a non-exec and gave advice and support, free of charge, to help the organisation present a professional image to its members. It's as Gary Player says "The more I practice, the luckier I get." In other words;
Lesson 4: Get yourself out there! Be visible, be useful!

While I was with the association I was also working with my partner developing CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software and small business accounts packages. The applications were fantastic, the market was just starting to develop, so the timing was right, BUT there was no way we had the resources to launch these products into a market dominated by large companies, like Kalamazoo and Sage. Sometimes even the right idea at the right time isn't enough. My dad always reckons that he invented the hovercraft. He didn't, of course. He had an idea about transport on an air cushion and as a chemist/physicist a good idea about how this could be achieved. He didn't, though, have the resources to build a prototype, never mind build a hovercraft. So despite having a good product, we stopped, or rather we changed direction.
Lesson 5: Don't flog a dead horse.

There was a new and exciting technology emerging at that time which allowed small companies, like ours, to reach a global market, cheaply and efficiently. It was called the internet. I was still working with the industry association but following a trip to Florida, where even Shamu the killer whale at sea world had a website, I decided to join my partner in the internet adventure full-time. The idea was to develop shopping cart software which would allow companies to design their own website and sell their goods safely and securely on the internet. I can almost hear you saying, "Big Deal".

This was 1995. Only Amazon was really selling on line. There was only one other piece of software that did what we wanted to do; and that was from a US based company and it was really difficult to adapt to UK commerce. We developed an absolutely fantastic piece of software which had built in templates for bespoke web design, remote and secure access to orders and order processing, currency exchangers, mailing list manager, built in affiliates programme...you name it, the software could do it. We spoke at conferences alonside the guys from Amazon explaining how this technology would change the way we shopped, we advised the Scottish Parliament on the strategy it would adopt in this new market.....and we sold hardly any software packages.

Did I mention that this was 1995? Yes. Companies in Scotland hardly had e-mail let alone the abilty to sell their products on-line. So once again we switched track and set up a retail company to prove the principle to potential software buyers that you could sell goods on line. Very quickly the company grew to become Scotland's leading Internet retailer, selling Scottish goods world-wide and winning many awards along the way!
Lesson 6: Be clear about your goal but be flexible about how you go about achieving it.

I retired from e-commerce in 2006 to concentrate on my artwork and now sell my work in galleries across the country. With this very different business I learned another, vital lesson. I make sculptures out of clay that look like lizards emerging from driftwood.


As you can see they are very distinctive! I became known as "The Lizard Lady!"
Lesson 7: Make an Impression

However, I have been tempted from my semi-retirement to establish the3rdi on-line magazine for women in business. The magazine looks at business issues from a womans perspective. It has, from the start, been a collaborative project with contributions from some of the UK's leading business men and women. I am committed to the idea that much more can be acieved by co-operation than by competition and decided to "put my money where my mouth is", as it were, by turning the3rdi magazine into a fully fledged co-operative. From January women will be able to join the community of women who are united behind our aim of CHANGING THE WAY THE WORLD DOES BUSINESS. Everyone will have ownership, voting rights, a share of the profits and a real say in how the business is run and the direction we take.

Over the past few months three areas have emerged as key if we are to fulfil our aim of CHANGING THE WAY THE WORLD DOES BUSINESS.
Stated simply, these are:
  • Empowering the authentic voice of women leaders

  • Improving women's confidence and self-esteem

  • Networking and mentoring.

1. Empowering the authentic voice of women leaders
the3rdi is leading the way in Changing the way the World does Business by connecting with and empowering the authentic voice of women leaders. We do this by connecting with senior women leaders, women who make a difference and who can unite behind this vision.

2. Confidence and Self-Esteem. A Women's issue?
There is much debate about whether women have the self-belief to succeed. We need to work together, to build confidence, boost our brand and develop the resilience to be the best we can be.
As Oprah Winfrey said, "I don't think of myself as a poor deprived ghetto girl who made good. I think of myself as somebody who from an early age knew I was responsible for myself, and I had to make good."

3. Network UP!
Many women's networks are little more than ladies who lunch. Other are simple business exchanges, swapping a photography session for a web site design, for example. This is is good, in itself, but women need to NETWORK UP, ie, network above our peer group if we are to build and grow businesses.

This is just a glimpse of what we will achieve in 2011 and beyond when we all work together.


© CORTEX MEDIA 2009