Thursday and offers...

It has been a rather interesting week with the focus of attention changing on a daily basis, or should I say a distillation of opportunity.

Today saw an increased interest in the Occasional Use model in that two more outfits have asked for a rate card, which I still need to update to reflect our new approach. Time is now, more than ever, against me with today a milestone on the Astrium calendar. If Chris can stay as a contractor for a little longer then Cerberus only has to support me in the short term, with the UKTI refund for the recent South Africa trip and the few gigs we've already secured.

It's difficult to maintain the UK momentum as well as to keep the South Africa opportunities ticking over but our potential (probably more than that now) partners in SA are finding their feet and ratcheting up the attack from Johannesburg. Plenty to do.

Wednesday...am I failing miserably and deluding myself?

Sorry, a negative heading generally draws people in. Feel guilty if that applies to you ;-)

A good day today after a rather wasteful start. Let me explain.

I saw the way forward, for us, and the real means to get the income flowing, as either production support or disaster recovery solutions. Now, both are equally viable and boring solutions but not
immediately likely to help. As mentioned yesterday, to a certain extent, the production world is so far up its own arse that they generally believe that the level of service they require exceeds that of the blokes fighting for us in Afghanistan and similar. I have very little time for that and as such stopped talking to them.

The other, disaster recovery, saw me sending a emails to every race course in the Uk and beginning to follow them up by phone. This took all morning and the end result was a contact with a lady who runs the ATM machine in Great Yarmouth, on race days only. I realised that the whole approach should be based on return against effort and they way it seemed to be proceeding I was taking a whole day to secure a £50/month contract, not too great. I decided to go back to what I know, the original idea, video contribution over cost effective means. Within ten minutes I had interest, a possible booking. £1000/day over £50/month? Which way to go?

I was bad today though. I let the negativity get the better of me and coerced Emma to accompany me to the pub at lunch for a quick couple glasses of wine, large ones. That's half a litre of wine each...Never again, I found it very difficult to focus. Fridays only I promise.

Nothing on the sad retained, contract job front yet but fingers crossed.

Tuesday

After a rather despondent end to the working day yesterday things took a turn for the better when it was announced that we nave secured the London 10k road race. That means that we are supplying two satellite units to provide video connectivity to the event, good news. This was improved when a further 'demo' event was secured.

The identified approach, for me, to call as many TV and film productions worked in as much that I got through to nobody and failed to connect at all. This approach is a great idea and we only need one major production to support ourselves for some time but the input and effort required to penetrate this rather woolly and indecisive world of the broadcast industry is too much. Instead an approach is needed to markets that need and indeed require immediately our services.

Saying that, there is still a very real and immediate need for video contribution at a rate and service cheaper and better than the established, conventional providers such as SIS or Arqiva, we can do that.

I now have a better idea of what is required to succeed.

In the words of Madness...'Tomorrow is just another day'

First major gig secured...

So happy and encouraged. Nice one Chris and Cerberus and k'you nay sayers...there is hope.

Monday

Having a safety net, a means of an income without the need to tax yourself or indeed try at all, is not fully appreciated until you are walking on the high wire without one Today proved to me how truly unprepared I was, am, to begin trading in earnest. Until today I feel that I have been playing at business, going through the motions without amy real consequence, without any real need to succeed. I realised today that I am woefully prepared to begin pushing our identified products and services.

The plan today was to throw together a couple of product sheets, sufficient, I thought, to get the show on the road. From this elevated position it would just be  case of making calls and sending out the relevant information. In addition to this I aimed to make a start on the documentation required to progress the South African opportunities. How wrong I was. In the background I was applying for short term contract jobs to tide me over, this also took time.

I sit here attempting to get a plan together for tomorrow. I have the product sheets finished, it was after four when I reached this point. I made the essential calls and began writing some of the stuff for SA but I feel that I have barely made a dent in what I need to do. I haven't even looked at drumming up new business. I need to get a list of calls I need to make tomorrow so I can make those before leaving for a meeting with UKTI at 1330.

Shit man, I'm so close and have put everything into this, I just hope that I have the energy and drive to see it through.

A day of preparation at the office and the shoddy approach from GC

Still trying to remain calm and mild about the recent turn of events with my previous employers but, I must admit, it is difficult. Lewis Page, the author of 'Lions, Donkeys & Dinosaurs' would be fascinated to hear about the approach taken by Atrium and the other actors within the Skynet 5 PFI. Critical communications for our troops around the world have been compromised by financial decisions which have ensured that an inferior product has been delivered late, untested and not working. Corners have been cut, issues shelved, ignored and massaged. I sincerely hope that the current bunch of idiots at Astrium or GC or indeed whatever they rebrand themselves to confuse and confound their customers, fail spectacularly and fall by the wayside allowing more professional organisations to bid for the next MoD satellite project.

That said it's been a rather odd day. I've been trying to get as much organised to hit the ground running tomorrow. Setting attainable targets and goals are paramount. Half a dozen tasks, all achievable, have been identified, giving me the morning for the creation of documentation and the afternoon for calls.

I will be in the office all day so if anyone wants to give me a call please do:

+44 (0) 208 133 3630

Hopefully more to tell tomorrow night.

The reason for no further blogs from South Africa

I managed to get the first blog out from Johannesburg but then, on the morning of day 2 I received a rather situation changing telephone call. My on-going contract with Astrium had been terminated, at the end of the week, in three days time. No explanation, no notice period no remorse and certainly no real sympathy. This came in the middle of a rather important meeting and skewed my mind somewhat. I rang my line manager back on-site and received a rather embarrassing, stumbling apology with no real substance or, indeed, sense. The spineless buffoon has ignored the employment situation since he took the job a year or so ago.

I realise now how it is easy to descend into a bitter diatribe towards those who have wronged us but not today, not for me.

Thankfully my exit strategy, the new business that offers communications from any remote location is almost at the point where it could, potentially, support at least one full-time member of staff. I would have preferred another two weeks at least with the safety net of an additional contract but Roger and the monkeys have now made my way forward clear.

With this in mind I have decided to ratchet up the whole approach and to give it a go.

I have a week, or more precisely six days within which I have to secure sufficient business to prevent a catastrophe. I will keep a record of the proceedings in this blog, it may end up as 'car-crash' blogging but alternatively it may be more positive than that.

Planning the next few days has taken some time today and will be completed tomorrow.

I have a lot of balls to throw at a great many coconuts, let's hope I win a fish.