Monday:
I was taken on a tour of the building, and met most of the companies. My first task was to finish the reception room wall design. The design was all the company slogans lined up in rows on clip boards on the wall. It gives visitors an idea of how many businesses work with Accelerator. After I had finished, I went on Accelerator’s website and researched some of their companies. I was then given the task of coming up with some questions so I could interview one of the companies. I tried to keep the questions open because I did not know what company I would interview. I came up with some questions like: How are you reaching the needs of your target audience? What’s the biggest hurdle you have faced when running your own business? Where did your business idea originate from?
Tuesday:
The first thing I did was to help set up a room, by arranging table chairs and some refreshments. This was for Mr Simon from Accelerator to give a speech to some Belgian visitors about what Accelerator does and about companies in the UK. Afterwards, 3 companies gave a presentation on how they set up their businesses. My role was to take photos of all that was going on. I used lots of camera angles and different variations of shot types – in the end I ended up with some good photos. After the Belgian visitors had gone I helped to pack up the room. I was then told that I would be interviewing a company called Ethical Box. I had a little time to do some extensive research on the company. When I had a better understanding of the company I was able to write more personal questions like: In your opinion what is an ethical product? How can you prove that your product is in fact ethical? How do you decide how gets to sell things on your website? This is a small taster of how the interview went:
Mark: “How do you differentiate from your competitors?”
Quinn: “There aren’t many competitors in the market selling ethical products, so we sell vegan or organic products. And we’re first to market …”
Mark: “But there are quite a few?”
Quinn: “Competitors?”
Mark: “Yes. There’s Global Seesaw, Animal Aid, Oxfam…”
Quinn: “Yeah, you’re right. Oxfam is a charity obviously, and what we do is actually take their products and use them on our site. We do not make the products ourselves, so they list on the website. So actually – some say competitors, we say we can work together.”
Wednesday:
On Wednesday morning I typed up the rest of my interview with Ethical Box. The next task was located out of the building in London Metropolitan University. Mr Simon and I went there to promote the Summer Launchpad. The Summer Launchpad is a programme that helps students and graduates start up their own business, whatever the idea might be. We set out at about twelve o’clock. The bus driver did not care to stop and just passed us by. London Met was not that far away so we decided to walk down. My job was to hand out some leaflets and fliers. I also had to make sure to get good photos of promoting the programme and of the speech about how you can apply to start your own business. After we arrived back my final task was to sort through all 152 photos I had taken, and picked the best ones for the website. In my free time Miss Shaema helped me to use Movie Maker to make some animations.
Thursday:
I found out that students from London Metropolitan were coming to present their Graphic Design projects to a panel of judges. I was to be the photographer. The design presentations lasted about three hours, some of the students’ ideas were very interesting and engaging. After the presentations, I had to tidy up the room, put away all the chairs and set it up for a meeting that would be happening later on. I then spent the rest of the day starting to type up this report.
Friday:
The first thing I did was to conclude this report, apart from what I’m writing now obviously. Then Mr Simon let me try out a system called Lightroom, and then he even went as far as to burn the instructions of how Lightroom worked onto a DVD which was really nice of him, he did not have to do that. The system works a little bit like Photoshop – it lets you manipulate and change a photo. After fooling around with the system for a bit I then helped get some refreshments for a meeting going on. My final task at Accelerator was to go round the whole building and write the names of all the people for each company, so whoever is not on the list will get their key cards erased; it took about one hour and fifteen minutes. I have really enjoyed my time at Accelerator and it was unfortunate I could not be there longer.