It was a big decision - should I give up or carry on.

Due to illness, where I needed antibiotics, I could not donate a pint of blood for over a year. However, feeling fit and no signs of the illness returning it was time to get back to regular blood donations. I booked in to my nearest donation centre and was getting ready to attend. But close to the day the session was cancelled and although the NHS Give Bloodkindly booked me into a session the following week I couldn’t attend due to other commitments. So I reached for my trusty NHS Give Blood mobile app to rebook a session. But the next local session was towards the end of the year. Not deterred I searched wider but found that they were either full or were being reorganised. I eventually found a drop-in centre in a major city but that would have required about a couple of hours traveling and probably a long wait. I was feeling frustrated. I wanted to donate a pint of blood but it was proving to be a major logistics exercise and I started to wonder if it really was worth the effort. But the words “A pint of blood can save a life” found me walking into a north Shropshire Town Council offices to give blood.

The first pint of blood that I donated started where most of my adventures start - around the bar ( in this case in the Students Union ). There had been posters everywhere about the forthcoming visit of a Blood Donation Unit to my college, and over a pint of beer a friend asked if I was going to donate a pint. Thoughts of Tony Hancock’s The Blood Donor “… a pint! That’s very nearly an armful!” brought forward a number of excuses ranging from I felt a cold coming on to I needed to complete a project to meet a deadline ( the reality was that up to that point in my life I had very few things stuck in me never mind taking anything out and therefore I was frightened ). But my friend persisted and I successfully gave my first pint of blood over 40 years ago and have been giving every since.

The experience of donating blood has changed a lot from my first pint when we used to lay down on what appeared to be camp beds to now when state of the art ergonomic chair-beds are used to rotate us into position with relative ease. However one thing remains constant which is a drink and an excellent selection of biscuits after the donation. ( if you are interested in the history of blood transfusion then The History of Blood Transfusion is a quick read). Also, the mobile app is amongst the best because it is very easy to use.

Following the trouble I was having donating blood I dug a bit deeper into blood donation in the UK. I was surprised to find that there are only about 3% ( or 1.3m ) registered blood donors in England with the numbers dropping due to a range of reasons. To address the problem of falling donation volunteers and bring down costs to help with the NHS costs NHS Give Blood have produced an Blood 2020 A strategy for the blood supply in England and North Wales which outlines many positive initiatives.

Sitting waiting to donate blood I wondered what can be done to help increase the number of volunteers ( and therefore increase the number of donation sessions ) and came up with a few thoughts:

• Raise the profile of donating blood using celebrity endorsement ( I can never forget Vinnie Jones Hands Only CPR video ). Imagine Gary Barlow endorsing blood donations to his millions of fans or Peter Kay singing on video about the importance of donating blood. How about an Olympian jogging into a sessions around the country ?

• We are in an era where everything seems to be ‘pop-up’. There are pop-up shops, restaurants, gigs and so on. Why not pop-up blood donations say in a University, shopping centre or large company. The mobile app ( or the desktop version ) could be developed so that interest in attending a pop-up session could be registered and when there are enough volunteers then a pop-up session could be organised.

• “Follow the blood” - show how the blood donated helps people in their battle against illness. There is already @GiveBloodNHS on twitter where both people donating and receiving blood exchange stories which I find very up lifting. Also, NHS Give Blood send a message a few days after a donation about where your blood has been issued. All of these are excellent ways to keep volunteers involved and should be promoted further to get greater involvement in donating blood.

I am sure that there are many more ideas that can be developed to help people donate more blood.

As for my next donation - having used the mobile app to book a session at a different location than my normal one I will be using it again to lead me to new parts of the country - yes - I could be coming to a donation session near you !

Following the publication of this post the NHS Blood and Transplant very kindly responded to the issues that I raised, in summary:

NHS Blood and Transplant have made changes to their sessions and the times due to improvements in clinical practice and to ensure that blood is used appropriately within hospitals which means that blood use has fallen. This is a trend they are seeing globally. It’s important that they respond to this by collecting the right type of blood, in the right quantities at the right time as efficiently as they can.

Many donors now choose to book from one session to the next. As a result of this, a large percentage of appointments do get booked up in advance. On the one hand this is a good thing for NHS Blood and Transplant because it helps to ensure they are going to achieve the collection target for the sessions that they run and meet the demand of hospitals nationally. However, this can make booking an appointment more difficult as in effect it reduces the number of appointments that are available to book close to the session date. Also, they always need to ensure we collect enough blood for patients, we also have a duty to ensure that we do not collect too much blood at any one time. Blood has a limited shelf life of just 35 days, so if they collect too much in a short period of time, they would be unable to use it all.

In the past NHS Blood have attempted to hold blood sessions at shopping centres but unfortunately it’s rare to get the green light from the venues due to the risk of the public being exposed to blood. However they often hold large scale recruitments events at universities and shopping centres across the country to register new donors. A recent example of this would be at the Arndale Centre in Manchester where they held an Organ Donation event that included a life size game of Operation. The event generated a great buzz around the centre and resulted in them recruiting 265 new organ donors in one day. A great success for NHS Blood and Transplant.

NHS Blood and Transplant do have celebrity support and they continue to try and work with celebrities, especially those who are blood donors and whose lives have been contributed by blood donations. Celebrity supporters have included: Gary Lineker, Jayne Torvill, Jovian Wade, Rachel Riley, Sarah Beeny, Graham Bell, Greg James Twin B and Amanda Holding However they have discovered that donors are more motivated by the experiences of ordinary people, for example family members or just regular people in the news who they better relate to, so they try and work with them more than celebrities to emphasise how blood donation saves lives.

I find public speaking difficult. No matter how much effort I put in behind the scenes ranging from drafting and re-drafting overheads to rehearsing the words during a walk. But I still get very nervous and my speech can end up like a Dalek on steroids !

YouTube is a good source for learning about public speaking from a wide range of excellent speakers( for examples see John Cleese on Creativity, TED Talks, and Brian Walden’s Talk on Heroes ), in particular the impressive way they “work the audience”. Recently, I stumbled across an unexpected source to study, a clip with the great bluesman BB King playing a gig in Sing Sing , one of New York’s state maximum security prison, and his performance followed the key elements of making a good public speech.

Conditions in New York state prisons had been deteriorating during the late sixties and early seventies reaching its lowest point in 1971 when there was a riot at Sing Sing ( Sing Sing got its name from the Native American tribe “Sinck Sinck” (or “Sint Sinck”), who the land was bought from in 1685) prison and 43 people were killed. Against this background David Hoffman in 1972, a film and documentary maker, had been working with prisoners in Sing Sing to make a documentary when he organized a Thanksgiving Day concert, which included BB King and Joan Baez. The following YouTube clip shows BB King starting his section of the concert with the song How Blue Can You Get:

You can’t fail to be drawn into the performance. So what can be learned ?

First know your audience, and why they are attending, in this case the gig ( or in our case a meeting, presentation, conference etc ). In other words what are their expectations. Of course in BB Kings’ case most of the audience didn’t want to be in prison; therefore turning up for the gig they would have been looking for entertainment to relieve the tedium.

Next is to catch the attention of the audience, and then hold it. BB starts his section with a few jokes that makes a link between himself and the audience. He then quietly plays a solo on his beloved guitar Lucille that settles the audience down and draws their attention to the stage. The song that he plays has a direct contact with the audience; it touches on life outside of prison. He then pulls the audience further into the performance, by play acting the role of the woman in the song.

The last point that can be taken from the video clip is to continue pulling the audience into the performance. The song builds up in three stages with a ‘punch line’ at each stage. This continues to draw in the audience step by step. Any comedian couldn’t have improved on the delivery of the final punch line, and the resulting audience reaction is a riot of cheering and laughter.

In summary: know your audience – why are they there and what is there expectations, grab their attention and hold onto it, and finally build up their interest until the final few lines are memorable. BB King had refined his showmanship over many years, which gives the final point. Although public speaking is difficult it is important to keep going; presenting different material to a wide range of audiences in different venues, and grow in confidence by learning from each event.

There is always a point during the discussion of an idea for a new product, or service, when the killer question comes up: “But will it make any money ?” Stumble at this point and an onslaught of questions will follow: “Who is gong to buy it ?”, “Why will they buy it ?”, and so on until the idea is riddled and gasping. So what can be done ? - Preparation !

Over years of facing a barrage of questions about ideas for new products I have gathered the following series of questions that have helped me to prepare for those tricky moments:

What pain are you solving for the customer ? – Ideas about solving a customer’s pain are often more robust than those that address less pressing desires, therefore clearly identify how your idea is going to help.

What is the phrase that pays ? – The discipline of describing an idea and its business potential in a short phrase strips away the peripheral aspects and distills it to its essence. Your idea could be sumarised into an The Elevator Pitch for when you need to sell your idea in less than a minute!

Does the idea already exist ? - Enter Google search ( or other search engines of your choice ) - check that the idea is not already a product. My experience is that for every 100 ideas that I have had then 99 are already either under development or are products being sold. If the product already exists don’t give up ! Can your idea be adapted to be better than what is currently out there ?

What has changed to give rise to the opportunity ? – You need to point to specific changes in the competitive, technical or regulatory environment to explain the origin of your idea for a product. You need to be driven more than a simple desire to be an entrepreneur !

What do others think of your idea ? - It is important to get feedback from as many people as possible. But be careful. The feedback needs to be honest and constructive. One approach is The Mom Test which is a good way to ask potential customers about an idea in a way that gets constructive feedback. Similarly when you are asked for feedback think carefully what is being asked and how you will reply. When I give feedback on an idea I use the The Sandwich Feedback Technique: what is good about the idea, what isn’t so good, and what can be done to make the it better.

How big is the market ? – It is difficult to forecast the market for a new product with any real precision. However back-of-the-envelope calculations can provide a rudimentary estimate of market size and provide a check on overblown ambitions. Also, check out the size of the market that you are trying to enter and look at other products that are already there - why is your idea going to gain market share ?

If the idea involves new technology can it be developed in a ‘garage’ ? – How much of the new technology comes under your control e.g. software development, packaging, hardware, processes etc. How are the development costs going to be kept down ? A useful approach to minimising startup costs is the
Lean Startupapproach, an in particular the Minimum Viable Product where key aspects of the idea are demonstrated and learnings are gathered for further development.

There are many more questions that will help develop your idea into a new product but the ones above should help you prepare for a heavy storm of killer questions, and if it survives, then it will be strengthen for the next step in its journey to a successful product.

In the opening scene of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, the familiar characters are in position on the deck of the USS Enterprise: McCoy, Sulu, Uhura and Spock. All present except Kirk. There is a new captain in charge. Computer voices start to break out, controls are franticly and the ominous sight of Klingons start to fill the screens. The Enterprise is a sitting duck and they start to come in for the kill. All are doomed !

Suddenly a door swishes open and Kirk ( now an Admiral ) walks in to bring what we now realise is a training exercise to an end. As the film progresses hints are given that Kirk was the only person to have beat the simulated test. When he is facing what looks like his demise he is asked “How?”Kirk replied “I reprogrammed the simulation so that it was possible to rescue the ship”. He went on “I changed the condition of the test”. Kirk changed the rules of the game.

Back here on Earth, the history of business turns on people who have changed the rules. There are many rule changers and my list includes Henry Ford who developed the assembly line, which broke with the craft approach to production, and brought high value goods to the mass markets. The list would also include Jeff Bezos’ Amazon, which has radically changed the way that we shop, breaking with the tradition of the high street and bringing goods to our doorsteps. However, sometimes the most influential rule changers don’t require incredible advances in technology. In 1956 Malcolm McLean developed a large standardised box and created the shipping container which radically changed the transportation of goods around the world. Containerisation is still growing by 11% a year. Many more names could be added: Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Ray Kroc, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and so on ( I’m sure that you have your own list which could include Scientists, Engineers, Artists, Musicians …).

But what is the makeup of a rule changer ? They have some of the following characteristics:

• Intuition - have a sense of the wider business environment and the rules that are holding it together. They can identify which rules need to be changed to improve the market for their goods and services.
• Courage - an ability to stand up to the crowd and are not frightened to risk their own security to achieve their aims.
• Drive - filled with indestructible determination to achieve the changes that they went to make.

In Star Trek II, Kirk “received a commendation for original thinking” for reprogramming the training simulator so that he could beat the test. The people that change the rules of business have shown that they have the characteristics to ‘reprogram’ the business world. So what business rules are holding you back ? - how will you reprogram the rules so that you will succeed ?

Lack of leadership is the cry that goes up when a business starts to struggle or fails. It is cited as the single cause that has led to its downfall ( similar cries can be heard in public organisations: health and social care, police etc. ). But what is this panacea for all business ills ?

Business leadership is difficult to define. A quick search on the web shows that there are over 700 million hits for the word ‘leader’ which is halved to 350 million for ‘business leaders’. Web sites will describe a range of traits of a successful business leader: singular vision, powerfully passionate, fearlessness and most adjectives that suggests an other worldly being ! Throw into the mix Business School courses with titles such as: Leading change, Leading business in the future, Essential Leadership and so on, and it is clear that defining business leadership is like grasping a slippery bar of soap !

Of course the person at the top of a business is seen as a leader: the captain of the ship. They make the decisions about the future direction of the business and change tack through investments and re-organisations. But leadership can happen in any part of a business or organisation: production line team leaders, ward sisters, chief petty officers, football captains etc. all have their part to play in the leadership of a business.

The world is a messy place and it is no more less than in a business. Therefore a business has to live with uncertainty. This uncertainty permeates into the daily activities of its people: where will future orders come from ? - will they have a job after reorganisation ? - do I have a career ? and so on. The role of the leader is to make sense of the uncertainty and vocalise it in a way that clarifies and provides support to its people, and through their actions they reinforce the words that they are using.

Many examples can be put forward as good business leaders, but the person that stands out for me is Sir John Harvey-Jones . He first came to my attention on the TV series Troubleshooter with his larger than life character and straight talking ( favourite quote: “there are no bad troops, only bad leaders” ) where he gave advice to manufacturing companies. Also, his book Making It Happen: Reflections on Leadership remains one of the best books on Leadership, and his many articles and speeches ( for example see Turnarounds test imagination and courage ) give fascinating insight into business leadership.

However, it was a chance discussion that sealed my respect for Harvey-Jones. Many years ago I was in a businesses meeting that included three ex-apprentices from his old company ICI who had been made redundant during major reorganisations ( he had turned ICI from a loss making business to the first UK company to make £1 bn profit in 30 months ). I asked them how good was he really. The all answered in glowing terms that what I saw on the TV was what he was like and although his actions had made them redundant they still held him in high regard. Testament to his leadership skills !

Business leadership is difficult to define and yet it has a direct impact of the way that a business manages itself in an uncertain world. The uncertainty brings new demands and ultimately change. Against this uncertainty, business leaders have to spell out what needs to be done in clear and simple words that can reach all parts of the organisation. They have to give their people - who are the best at knowing about the work that they carry out - the responsibility to make the changes to meet the new demands. Finally, they need to behave in a way that reinforces the underlying values of the business which emphasises how a business conducts itself. If this can be achieved then business leadership may gain some respect rather than pointed to as the source of all problems.