After an introduction to entrepreneurship support at Edinburgh, six teams of students each came up with a new business idea and pitched it to the audience.

The ideas all fit into one of the six categories for the Business Idea Competition we’re running. This year, students will be awarded specific prizes for arts and culture businesses, social enterprises, e-commerce sites, product design, science or technology-based businesses (including software), and new ideas in retail. I’ve put up a page on LAUNCH.ed with all the details about the competition.

Anthony raised some interesting points, and clued us all in to some current trends in product design. Anthony’s lessons:

1. Don’t wait for your idea to be “perfect”. You’ll never get there, and while you’re busy perfecting, you’ll probably miss your market opportunity.

2. Prototype early. Your prototype need not be complicated. We all made paper models of the ideal wallet tonight. Paper was an excellent medium–it was easy to see new innovations (flip-out card holders, superslim styles, mini-organisers, etc.), and to get an idea of what it would be like to use such a wallet.

3. Business ideas are easy to find–ask anyone you know. Anthony pointed out to us that we’d all come up with a new innovation tonight just by talking to someone else about their problems. In this case, our conversation was restricted to their complaints about their wallets, but even that limited conversation contained plenty of fodder for innovation. Anthony said, “ideas don’t come out of thin air.” It was a nice reminder that a creative mind can find fuel for a business idea in many of the people, objects and systems around them.

I gave another brief Prezi presentation tonight too. I find it’s much faster to knock up a quick presentation in Prezi than in PowerPoint. Here it is.

I’m at work early this morning to pick up 500 fliers that we’re hoping to hand out over the next couple of days. We’re giving out a couple of modest cash prizes to induce students to register with our new website, and we’re trying to sign up at least 300 new students to our mailing list. All told, it would be excellent if we could reach 2000 incoming students this week.

Phil told me the other day that while he was at school, it never even crossed his mind that he could start a business, or work for himself. He didn’t think about freelancing or consulting, or working for a startup.

There are probably hundreds more students entering the University this year with just the same mindset. It’s not a bad mindset, but Phil describes it sort of wistfully, as if he might have made different choices if he had thought about entrepreneurship earlier.

That’s just the message we want to give to other students. Armed with SIE’s brilliant new “I’m an entrepreneur” posters, LAUNCH.ed beermats, chocolate coins and loads of other branded goodies, I’m off to spread the joy of enterprise.

I borrowed a snazzy webcam from SIE headquarters to take some footage of the Enterprise Expo, which was held in June. We’d worked for months to put the event together, to showcase 50 companies founded by University of Edinburgh students, staff and alumni. I was determined to get some of it on film so we’d have a record of how it turned out.

It took me hours of struggling with outdated versions of iMovie and sluggish machines to produce my two-minute magnum opus. I hope you enjoy it. Any movie-making tips for future endeavours are welcomed, as I anticipate I shall be doing many more.

We had the benefit of hot, sunny weather all weekend long, and the hotel was snazzy enough to host a wedding on Saturday afternoon. But that did not stop the food from being terrible. The worst offence was the oatmeal.

Though the staff made a game effort to provide appropriate food for a group with two vegetarians, a vegan and a celiac, they failed completely when it came to breakfast grains. I eat oatmeal nearly every morning for breakfast, so I know something about the subject. Here’s my two cents about how it should be properly made:

Hilary’s 9-Ingredient Oatmeal

1. 1/3 cup oats (“porridge” oats cook extremely quickly, but you can use whole oats as well)

2. 1 tsp polenta flour

3. 1 small handful of crushed nuts (or about 1 tbs peanut butter or almond butter)

4. 1 small handful of raisins

5. boiling water

6. 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

7. 1/2 tsp ground ginger

8. brown sugar

9. milk (or soy milk)

Method

1. Boil water in a kettle. If you don’t have a kettle, get one. The British have been ahead of Americans for years on this one.

2. Combine the oats, polenta flour, nuts and raisins in a small pot. The polenta adds creaminess and makes the oatmeal taste a bit like Malt-O-Meal, my favourite breakfast-in-a-box from home. Nuts and raisins are optional, but they add flavour and help keep me going until my mid-morning yogurt break.

3. Add enough boiling water to cover everything, and cook on medium-low on the stove. Stir frequently.

4. When the oatmeal looks like your desired consistency (this takes only 2-3 minutes for me), add the cinnamon and ginger. Stir, then remove from heat.

5. Pour into a bowl and top with brown sugar and milk.

Image credit: Graham Lewis

It was the perfect opportunity to use a new tool: Prezi, an amazing new PowerPoint alternative. It’s easy to use, free, and makes cool presentations. (PowerPoint is so ’90s. At least, it is now that I know I can use something else.)

Here’s the presentation I made for the weekend:

http://prezi.com/82606/

I’m afraid you’ll have to provide your own narrative, but if you just click the arrows, Prezi will take you straight through the images.

Prezi. Consider it recommended.