I’m proud to say that at last my web-design business, Strawberry Designs, has launched. I am working on this with my partner Michael. The idea for this business is to accumulate revenue streams.

We will be working freelance on bespoke projects, create and sell graphics and templates and use affiliate marketing. Doing things this way means that we can continue to do this as well as our normal jobs, with more flexible hours and taking projects we feel we can best deliver on.

I have been researching the market for a while now and I am confident this is the best way for this specific business to go forward. This is indeed a crowded market but Strawberry Designs focuses on creativity and web communication.

I realize I now effectively have 11 years of experience creating websites. So far I have not capitalized on this skill, creating websites and designs for friends and personal websites. I now feel I want to use this skill more and capitalize on something I love doing. It is also fabulous to be working on this with my partner who is himself very enthusiastic in graphics design and produces great logos for example (I love the one he made for my business card).

If you are looking for web graphics, a new website or webdesign, need a good looking business card, please contact us, we’ll be delighted to help. If you would like to help a start-up, follow us on Twitter or Facebook and send our link to your contacts! Your support is greatly appreciated.

I will also be posting updates on this blog when we publish new templates etc. Our marketing strategy is indeed rather straightforward: creating links on many social networks, efficient SEO (which we offer as standard when building websites) and great service.

Visit: Strawberry-Designs.com

Finally, all these years of school and university have, at least for now, stopped. I graduated on the 19th January at the Barbican Centre and now I finally shed away the dreadful ‘student status’, frowned upon by many when you try to rent an apartment, borrow books or get a job. However, I was a proud student for one last day. I made it happen and studied what I wanted to study where I wanted to study it and I was very proud to graduate alongside my classmates, who are all very interesting and all so different people who I feel will accomplish a lot in their lives. I’ve not taken enough time to see them outside of the university (I blame my working full time outside of my studies and the commute to London) but I will enjoy hearing from them and staying connected.

So as I mentioned in my last post Michael and I went to the Harry Potter London Premiere on Thursday 11th November. It was awesome and I’ll share the experience without ruining the fun for you when you get to see it this Friday.

From start to finish this movie was a different experience from any previous Harry Potter movie. Some have called the pace slow, I’d say it is considerate, intricate and well calculated if you consider that part 2 will be full of action. For us fans it was the right way to do it, it was delightfully subtle in the way it explored the characters’ development and prepared us well for a grand finale.

As usual scenes were omitted or changed but this movie did it exceptionally well. The story flowed well even at the times when it was told in a different order than in the book. There were also enough occasions to explain the context for those who may not have read the book or needed a reminder without the explanations sounding overkill.

Most happily, no one obviously called Harry ‘Harry Potter’ when they’ve heard his name a thousand times (this ticks me off every time I see Sirius say Harry Potter in the Order of the Phoenix, for example).

The visual quality was simply astonishing. Although it is sad they could not produce a good enough quality 3D version for the release you will certainly appreciate the visuals and filming ingenuity. Many scenes are of the characters being isolated so the backgrounds surrounding them take a greater part than you’d imagine, and you find yourself glad that they are beautiful. Especially, by now we are used to seeing Hogwarts castle, which is beautiful in itself,  yet none of the usual locations feature in this movie.

The scene in the ministry of magic was simply brilliant though it is also where the distortions bothered me most (mostly relating to Mad Eye’s eye… you will see!). Finally I was sad that we heard nothing at all of Kreacher’s story. In the book that was certainly one of the most interesting and shocking parts that always made me feel like I was allowed a greater insight into the world of Jo Rowling’s characters.

Voldemort was better than ever. Of course we expected him to be more present but Fiennes was brilliant in portraying him, now back, cruel and powerful yet at last with a more concrete personality on the screen.

Out of the wholes series so far, it is not my favourite. I truly think Half-Blood Prince is simply the best, followed closely by Prisonner of Azkaban. I will award a 8/10.

Bellow are some random pictures of the event, we got to meet the Xfactor contestants who happened to seat behind us at the screening:

Last Thursday 3rd June, after my first day at my new temp job in telemarketing and finally finding a new apartment for August with my partner, I had to dash to London King’s Cross and catch a Eurostar train to Brussels in order to get to Maastricht, where my parents have been living for the past 3 years. I have days like that when my success relies on everything working as it should and me being really on the ball: in other words, there’s really a bit of luck in success, always. I prefer taking the chance and I find it usually works.

The reason I am posting about this trip is because this is my last trip to Maastricht before my parents move to Paris and I have come to learn that this is far from your usual city. My father is in the French navy, currently working for NATO (located in Brunssum, nearby). One thing that struck me about this city, which is southernmost in the Netherlands and the capital of the province of Limburg, is that there is always some huge event going on. Other than being a city of historical richness attracting a lot of tourism, the many shops and cafes everywhere, the beautiful setting and the current fervor of its football supporters, I find that this city is the liveliest I have ever been to.

The history of this town has its controversies: Maastricht is possibly the oldest city in the Netherlands. It has a wealth of old buildings especially from the Middle Ages, such as its fantastic 13th c. city gates called the Hell gates. The St Servaas Church and St Jan’s Cathedral are simply beautiful and though I decided to see what a mass is like there I admit I ran away after 30 minutes when I realized that the pace of the mass was a lot slower than the average and also more dramatic. To my embarrassment I had a close encounter with the fabulous and huge doors of the Church, which, once shut, are much harder to reopen than you can imagine.

Nowadays, on a hill on the outskirts lives a very rich and very loved man locally, Andr? Rieu, who plays in the beautiful Vrijthof, the town center and whose music I can hear from my parents’ house. I am not a fan of his but it certainly is nice to hear his music everywhere in town, you can hear what I heard if you look up Rieu/Maastricht on Youtube. As I write right now, out of nowhere tambourine resounds from that same place and I have no idea why. The house is really 2 minutes away from the Vrijthof so we can hear everything. During the famous carnival days in February/March everyone goes past the house in costumes and it becomes very difficult to live your daily life. Some inhabitants prefer to take time away from the city when it happens. They go on most of the night and throughout the day.

Other events such as the New year celebrations particularly are also unmissable: I was celebrating the New Year here two years ago and it was incredibly fun although also incredibly dangerous: I have never seen or heard so many firework displays anywhere, not even under the Eiffel Tower (somehow Maastricht struck me more!!). Everyone in town brings their own in huge quantities and as the weather was good that day, it went on all night. Walking through the town felt like walking through a war zone, some even take pleasure in randomly throwing the fireworks at you. It was all really beautiful but I admit I was scared.

I have been to the Winterland each year though and the amount of preparation and effort put into it is phenomenal. The city changes quite a lot and offers an impressive array of activities for all ages, cuisine of varying quality and games and shows and anything you could ask for. Another great outing is to go check the markets, but you might be surprised to see people swallowing raw fish whole so early in the morning…

Although the Maastricht calendar is confusing to its visitors, finding out what events are going on is actually achievable: Most events are advertised around the Vrijtof and are also available online at Crossroads, in English. The budding university which offers courses in English is also a great source of events and activities around the city and while it is full of older inhabitants enjoying their retirement, there is also a fair share of youth looking for parties.

Strangely though, what I will most remember is that I have also had the luck to be granted access to the NATO bases where, until recently, families of those working for NATO were allowed to use facilities and indulged in some duty free shopping of all sorts. I think I really just liked being able to do it and especially driving through the bases. The diversity of people working there is striking of course but one thing I always noticed was how no language really seems to survive this hostile multi cultural and expatriate environment. English is not English anymore and appears in barely recognizable forms, heavily impregnated with the user’s own dialect. It makes for very funny situations when, to everyone’s embarrassment perhaps, say, a French person might end up telling an Englishman that he speaks English very badly (surprisingly I didn’t do it). One thing is for sure, I would not rely on either my French or my English being understood there and I have been actively discouraged from learning Dutch by a Dutch friend because ‘I can never say it right’, which seems the common opinion. To enjoy this beautiful city and the kindness of its inhabitants you have to just let all that is alien to you rain on you, jump in and admire the sights with as little prejudice as possible. You also need to be keen to party…too bad I only ever visited when my batteries were flat. Also, by the standard of Netherlands visitors I’m no fun because I am against any form of smoking. I hope to have shown that there is much else to do in Maastricht.

Finally, during the three years my parents lived there, as I said, what marked me was how very lively and busy Maastricht always seems to be. I made it my personal quest to find a time when it is empty, and one day last winter, the 1st January when everyone is exhausted and nothing is open, rather early I finally found all streets I went to empty, allowing me the most exclusive excursion into town almost anyone can experience there. No more of all those extremely tempting shops, cafes and terraces and events around, just for an hour or so. I took this opportunity to appreciate its beauty even more and to take a few pictures:

Photography by David Tett

Last Tuesday, 23rd March was the final of the Lion’s Den Competition at King’s College London. My team, Good Food, was a finalist in the Big Idea category and won. I’m the one with the blue top on the photo above. This competition was running over 6 months and finalized with each team pitching their idea in front of a panel of investors who had read their 3 years business plan.

I learned about this opportunity through internal email and because it was open to anyone I decided to attempt it. In the beginning I came to the seminars that were given to us by various successful business people from London who support the competition. By the end of the first ten weeks we had to form teams and present a business idea we felt confident we could go forward with and were then teamed up with a business mentor interested in our idea who is an alumni of the university.

The official announcement of the results of the competition can be found here. This blog only reflects my personal experience and thoughts on my experience of this competition.

There were not as many competitors as I had anticipated when I went to the first meeting. Most people were on their own to begin with or if they had a partner already they were most likely looking for an extra person. Many already had an idea in mind and were secretive about it but it really was all about team playing, so you could not go through on your own.

The lectures were very helpful in general and they told us exactly what was expected for the competition. Although I could not go to the launch meeting I went to every single seminar through the competition, making a point of never missing any of it. I truly think that by sticking with things through good and bad is how you make the most of it at the end. That is what true determination is about. Showing up every single day, bright and early gives me confidence.

By the tenth week we were to hand in a team proposal. I had met many interesting people but I had not yet managed to settle with a team. There were a few other people in my situation: we each had an idea we felt strongly about but we were on our own. We decided to team up and discuss our individual ideas in order to go for the one we thought had the most potential together. There were 5 of us to start with and no need to say we each fought quite hard for our ideas. In the end we went for Good Food, Lilia’s idea, because we realized it was the one we could all relate to and that our individual skills could most contribute to. Mine was too online based and geeky for the other team members. Sometimes you have to see when your idea is not the best in context and work with other people to create what is best. I’m really glad we teamed up.

The idea is to provide top quality meals to independent schools in affluent areas of London. With some of the margin made we would run a food and taste education program to allow for a better integration of healthier food in the schools we cater. This is important as healthier food has been rejected by some families and children when Jamie Oliver attempted to introduce better food to UK schools. We argued that by targeting our market more precisely and offering food and taste education we would integrate our services much better. Such programs are already in use in some UK schools and Lilia who has worked for Slow Food for more than 10 years has hands on experience of it and knows just how efficient it is. We were extremely careful in planning the business because there are so many touchy points to tackle when dealing with schools. We have a very social approach to the whole idea as well which does not usually make for a winning recipe in a business competition, but we seem to have confidently demonstrated otherwise. Such a business needs to align its branding with that of its clients and thus have a charitable status. We thought of creating the Robin Food Foundation in order to help underprivileged children who cannot afford school meals. You get the gist of it. We wrote a whole business plan, I could easily go on!

It didn’t take much time before the team became smaller. Soon there were only 3 of us left: Lilia, Ade and me, who would stay until the end. This was anything but easy. We did it all on top of our studies, jobs and other activities and because we did not know each other before the competition it is a wonder how we worked so productively together for so long and until the very end. Of course not everything went well, it’s never like that, but I’m impressed at how professional we all were. None of us had any such experience in business prior to this. It really makes me think that I can do anything I truly set my mind to.

Writing the business plan was the hardest thing. It really pushed us to become more realistic about our ideas and find better ways to make them work rather than letting them go. I feel this was really a strong point in what we did: we never gave up on anything, we kept going, perfecting it until it was the best we could make it. Thanks to this, had we lost I would still be happy with it because it feels like we did everything to the best of our current ability. We were very eager to learn and it showed. We made a point of taking in everything we were asked and facing every problem we were exposed to so we wouldn’t leave anything to chance. It was nerve wracking sometimes when faced with something we had not thought of at all we spent all our energy solving the problem. I soon figured out that however difficult it seems there is always a solution, it’s only about how much you want to find it and how creatively you are willing to think about it. If you are reluctant to face problems then you won’t do your best.

Doing the pitch was when our team was most tested. When writing the plan, we didn’t have to be together as much. If one team member couldn’t do what they were supposed to another would always end up doing it and it would work because we just really wanted it to. For the pitch, we all wanted to speak and we had to really trust that we would each do our part 100%. It’s great to see that we did it.

There isn’t a side of team work, creative thinking, will, dedication etc that has not been tested in this competition. It was just how I hoped it would be because you don’t want to go through it all having put all your might into it and then leave with the feeling that you did it easily… at least I don’t want that. Many competitors gave up through the process which is a bit of a shame but ultimately to our advantage. I feel that sometimes you gain something simply from not giving up on things and that winning is just an incredible bonus I feel extremely happy to receive.

I would like to thank my team mates for working on this with me and making this happen. I am really glad we teamed up.

I must say the competition organizer, Harriet Robinson, was excellent and that from the beginning to the end she provided the competitors with the best opportunities, the best support and tools to make it happen. Learning from her and her networks, such as Janet Howd who provided us with excellent voice coaching for example, was a great opportunity in itself. If you are a KCL student considering to enter the competition in the following years, you shouldn’t need to think twice about it.

I must also thank Obi Abuchi, our mentor who is a KCL alumni for his incredible support and expertise. If you are looking for great consulting in talent development, training and coaching, you definitely want to check his website: Motivatem. His latest book is also coming out in June.

I will also have to thank my family, friends and my wonderful boyfriend for their incredible support through this adventure. You make things happen by your own will and determination but it is amazing to see how much the help you receive from close ones gets you that extra mile farther when you tire.