SCOPE ENTERPRISE WEEK SEMINAR FOR TALENTED YOUNG DISABLED BRITONS; NOVEMBER 16TH 2005
REMARKS BY SCOPE PATRON DAVID GRAYSON

Where I have come from
I was born in Chesterfield and brought up in a mining village on the Derbyshire / Sheffield border. If you know your movies, it was just before Full Monty meets Brassed Off meets Billy Elliot!

Mum was a teacher in the local primary school. Dad sold life insurance for the same company for 43 years.

I was not born with a disability. But on my 11th birthday I was rushed into hospital with what turned out to be ostiomylitis. Apparently, at the time, the doctors warned my parents that I was hours from death - and later, that I may not walk again. Happily, the doctors exaggerated!

Since then, I have had an incredibly fortunate life and fantastic opportunities: Cambridge, Masters degree in Brussels; a spell in Marketing Management with Procter & Gamble; and then for my second 25 years, I have been a social entrepreneur, starting and / or running a number of public-private-community partnerships: co-founding Project North East - an innovative British ngo which has now worked in 40 countries. (www.pne.org); chairing the taskforce which set up the Business Link network for the Government; Chairing the National Disability Council (the precursor to the Disability Rights Commission); working with three of Prince Charles's charities: the Prince's Youth Business Trust; the Prince of Wales Award for Innovation; Business in the Community. In my spare time, I was involved in youth politics and by the time I was 25, I had been talking international politics in the Kremlin, and the White House and in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

I don't tell you any of that to boast - I have too many fantastic friends who are far more successful than me, to dare to do that! Simply, to give you the context for what I am about to tell you.

What I want to talk about are things which I have learnt over the last 50 years which I wish I had learnt much earlier in life - and / or which I wish I understood and applied much better now! I have called it TEN TIPS FOR THE TOP.

TEN TIPS FOR THE TOP
1. FIND YOURSELF A MENTOR (S)
2. NETWORK FEROCIOUSLY
3. A BRAND CALLED ME - MARKET YOURSELF
4. KEEP IN TOUCH - COMMUNICATE
5. CONTINUE TO LEARN
6. DEVELOP YOUR OWN KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES
7. DEFINE AND REGULARLY REVIEW YOUR LIFE GOALS
8. WORK OUT YOUR PERSONAL VALUES
9. FILL THE UNFORGIVING MINUTE
10. KEEP THINGS IN BALANCE AND KEEP SCANNING FOR THINGS TO HELP

1. FIND YOURSELF A MENTOR

All the successful people I know, have mentors and coaches: people who can give advice, open doors, help you to think through issues and problems. You may find a mentor in the organisation you already work in or volunteer with; someone who lives near you or in your extended family and their friends. Or it may be a mentor you find through the help of an organisation like Scope. Whatever, key characteristics to look for: Someone who will give you quality time; is empathetic; can spot unusual but effective synergies for you; can open doors and make connections; will give you independent advice and a fresh perspective - and whose judgement you can trust.

2. NETWORK FEROCIOUSLY

One thing that a good mentor can do is to help you to network by getting you in to a range of events and organisations. A friend of mine says networking is only one letter different to "Not working!" But I think it is crucial - and a skill that you can learn. Don't get stuck in a disability ghetto! Get in to different networks: eg try your local branch of Junior Chamber International:www.bjc.org.uk (speakers, debating, management competitions, opportunities for community service); or join Common Purpose: www.commonpurpose.org.uk - which offers a range of educational programmes.

Organisations like Common Purpose and Junior Chamber are good places to apply your networking skills but also provide opportunities to continue to learn. Here in London, there are speed networking clubs springing up - try out Oli Barrett's speed networking evenings in central London. It is - I am told - rather like Speed dating. In speed networking, the premise is similar - you get three minutes to talk to each person as you work your way around the room - but this time the aim is to score business contacts rather than dates. There are also on-line networking services like LinkedIn. (www.LinkedIn.com)

When you attend a conference or meeting, scan the delegate list, find someone to introduce you to people you want to meet. Stuck with boring people? Remember the comment of the late Queen Mother when told she must have met lots of boring people - "Oh, no! It just meant I had not worked hard enough to find what made them interesting!"

Collect visiting cards. If you have promised some follow-up material, write it down on the back of the card and make sure you do send it quickly. Keep in touch. There are a couple of good books by the self-styled Queen of Networking: Carole Stone: "networking: the art of making friends" and "the ultimate guide to successful networking" - or write to Roy Sheppard for a free copy of his: "Meet, greet and prosper."Roy@royspeaks.com

3. A BRAND CALLED ME - MARKET YOURSELF

Networking and effective follow-up is one of the most effective ways of marketing yourself. A few years ago, Fast Company magazine ran a cover story - "A brand called me!" - now google that phrase and you will find a whole series of articles from Business Week etc. More of us will have to market ourselves as freelancers.

What are your key messages? Who are your key target audiences? What do you want people to think / feel / do as a result of your communications. That does mean:

4. KEEP IN TOUCH - COMMUNICATE

If you spot something in a newspaper or magazine that you think will be of interest / help to a friend or someone you have met, then pass it on. Use your e-mail.

5. CONTINUE TO LEARN

All of us need to update our knowledge and skills regularly. This is why Diversity Works's access to Ashridge's Virtual Learning Centre is so good. Make the most of it.

Think creatively about where you can broaden your horizons and experiences. Don't be afraid to contact people and ask them if you can work shadow etc. I was listening to Chris Evans on Radio 4's Desert Island Discs last weekend. He described how he got his first break in radio as an unpaid assistant by hanging round outside the studio of his hero and asking if he could interview him for a hospital radio which at the time he did not work for!

6. DEVELOP YOUR OWN KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES

The amount of knowledge in the world is growing exponentially. Dr Oliver Sparrow of The Challenge Forum explains this in terms of the volume of information produced each year: measured in exabytes. An exabyte = 1 million million megabytes (so if 1 megabyte covered an area one metre square, 1 exabyte would cover one million square kilometres).

If the knowledge available to mankind could be expressed physically, then it would have covered the equivalent of the island of Mauritius in 1920, Madagascar in 1940, the Congo in 1960, all of Africa in 1980, all the continents by the Millennium, the whole of the planet now; and be on track, to cover 1700 planets every year by 2020.

So it is going to be more and more crucial to have good Knowledge_management (KM) techniques. I am involved with something called BLU. We have developed a number of KM Tools - they are intended for people working in small business development - but they are free - and you can download them from www.blu-horizons.com

7. DEFINE AND REGULARLY REVIEW YOUR LIFE GOALS

My first job after university was with Procter and Gamble. In my first month at Procter and Gamble, the new brand management trainees were all shown an old training movie called "The Time of Your Life." Years later, I found the book on which it was based, completely by chance in an airport bookstore in America. It has been hugely influential on me. It gives you some great tips on time-management - but crucially about some exercises you can do to help you work out your life goals.

Lakein suggests you sit down with a blank sheet of paper and write down all the things you want to achieve in the next 12 months. After 20 minute or so, get another sheet of paper and repeat the exercise, this time describing all the things you want to achieve in the next five years. Then all the things you want to achieve in life. Then finally, imagine you have six months to live, all the practical things have been taken care of. What would you want to achieve in those six months. If your answers to this final question are different to what you answered to the previous questions, you need to do some more thinking about what really are your priorities. I have done this "Lakein" exercise at regular intervals during my adult life. Of course, some elements remain consistent - but what is also fascinating, is how one's key goals change over time. Lakein's "The Time of Your Life" has worked for me. There are a number of similar books which I have also found useful such as "The Best Year of Your Life Yet" by Jenny Dilzer and Philip McGraw's "Life Strategies." What they all have in common is that they force you to think through what are the key things you want to achieve.

8. WORK OUT YOUR PERSONAL VALUES

I have also found that it helps to clarify what your personal values are - what are the principles by which you want to live your life. Again, this is an intensely personal and individual thing. For some, it is heavily influenced by a religious faith or at least by a spiritual dimension. Whether or not it is, understanding your "North Star" helps enormously in making the tough decisions - the difficult "calls."
We all need our North Star - key values by which we live; help us to make our key decisions etc. It is worth spending some time working out what yours are.

9. FILL THE UNFORGIVING MINUTE

But that includes taking "time to smell the roses" - "what is this life if full of care, we have no time to stop and stare." The harsh reality is that as Britons with disabilities, we do have to work harder to get on. You probably feel the need to do more to prove yourself to family and friends and work colleagues. Lots of daily chores take longer. That makes keeping a sense of balance all the more important.

10. KEEP THINGS IN BALANCE AND KEEP SCANNING FOR THINGS TO HELP

Which is why it is important to be aware of all aspects of life, to work at being as fit as possible - physically and mentally and emotionally. And why it is also important to keep checking for practical things that will make life easier. Eg AbilityNet: provides advice and help with adaptive technologies -it is a free service. It is also worth regularly checking for new developments and technologies that might help you. To share a trivial example of my own - I've had a raised shoe since I was 12. I have bought the same make of leather-soled shoes ever since, because I was told that that was needed to build the raise. I had never checked whether the techniques and materials technology had moved on massively - they had. By chance, the other day I met someone who makes orthopaedic shoes who explained all this to me and so I can now have a raised trainer - which has transformed my time in the gym and made social life easier!

WHAT COULD SCOPE DO TO HELP YOU?

My challenge to you today. Debate these tips. Are any of them relevant for you? If they are, what are you going to do about them? And then discuss what a powerful organisation like Scope could do to help you and hundreds / thousands of other talented young Britons do to help you with them? And when you do that, think about what can Scope do:
- Itself - steal good ideas / schemes with pride as Tom Peters the management guru says
- To help other individuals and organisations to do things
- By partnering with others?

For example, could Scope recruit volunteers from its corporate supporters, company members of Diversity Works, from its Business Board etc, train those who want some additional training as a mentor, and then offer a twinning arrangement to link these volunteer mentors with talented young Britons like yourselves who would like to have a mentor?

Eg: The Daily Telegraph and BBC are investors in a great new small business called 50 lessons where top business leaders share their key lessons. These are 5-6 minute films. You can get a DVD or access via a password protected website. Could Scope persuade one of the corporate members of Diversity Works to negotiate a special package deal for 50 lessons? (www.fiftylessons.com)

ENTERPRISE WEEK SEMINAR

This seminar is being organised as part of Enterprise Week... As you may have seen from some of the publicity in the media already, this takes a broad definition of being enterprising - making ideas happen. This may be a conventional for-profit business or a social enterprise or being enterprising in the way that you run a campaign eg for better rights for disabled Britons. Egs:
- Greg Burke - Disabled-Go social enterprise
- Robert Orford - business - wheelchair independence
- Simon Stephens - Enable Enterprises

The Government has given a lot of help to improve the quality of business support for women, Black and Ethnic Minority Britons and social enterprises in recent years. Rightly so. But by contrast, help for disabled entrepreneurs has been conspicuous by virtual absence. Especially with the 2006 Public Duty requirements, it is timely to tackle now. Ideally, every single business adviser would undergo disability awareness training. But with all the other changes going on right now, that is probably unrealistic. So I would settle, for starting with having one trained adviser per Business Link who understands and is sympathetic to the extra, specific issues that a Briton with a disability will face in starting or growing their business. Nationally, the Small Business Service needs to work with the DWP to explore the specific issues around access to disability allowance and benefits for disabled people trying to start a business etc.

THE YOUNG BRITON BURSARY

I am delighted that Scope are adopting this Bursary and going to continue with it. I hope we can expand its reach and impact. I am pleased that already everyone who applied for this year's bursary, have been given free access to the Virtual Leadership College run with Ashridge. I am also incredibly grateful to a number of friends who have connected with individuals who applied for the bursary in the same field as my friends. I know it is the convention to say on such occasions that the judges found it very hard to choose the winner - but they honestly did. The judges: my cousin Sue Briggs; Sue Cheshire of the Oceanus Foundation and previously CEO of the Academy of Chief Executives; Bob Wigley - chairman of Merrill Lynch Europe; and Sandy Ogilvie - director of Project North East - all said they felt humbled by the applications they read.

In the end though, the judges were unanimous in awarding the Bursary to Karen Sutherland. Karen has already proven her passion and skill in her chosen profession of TV and film documentaries. This has been recognised by the BBC and Channel 4. We all wish her every success and hope that this gift will be a little extra boost.

I hope in future years that you will also be role-models for younger people with disabilities as they grow up, to dare to dream and to aim to become all they can become.

FOR MORE DETAILS ON THE DAY VISIT SCOPE WEBSITE

David Grayson: david.grayson@bitc.org.uk

www.davidgrayson.net