4:00pm - 7:30pm at Bishopsgate Institute, 230 Bishopsgate, London EC2M 4QH

Whilst few businesses are unaware of the importance of developing a social media strategy, the key question which too often remains unanswered is: How can we actually make money out of it?

Our keynote speakers will be addressing the relevant issues, not least:

• How to aggregate our messages to a quantifiable audience

• How to engage with social communities and ensure that engagements remains in perpetuity

• How to map messages around products and services for an effective "call to action"

• How to create and manage a branded social media environment and facilitate community growth

• How to monitor real-time conversations

• How to bring the above tactics together to ensure a positive impact on the bottom-line

Keynote speakers are:

Nick Tadd, founder of Social Media Graffiti, widely regarded as one of the foremost authorities in this field, having spoken at over 500 events on social communications.

Yann Motte, CEO of Webjam, a Guardian Tech Media 100 Company. Webjam's social media platform is being used across a variety of sectors and corporate customers include Random House, WPP and Unilever.

Our Chairman, Geoff Morris, has spent the last 35 years as the President and CEO of various international software businesses. He has both founded and raised capital for many businesses and helped them develop and protect their Intellectual Property.

Following the presentations, we will be running a Business Clinic with representatives from the Entrepreneurship Panel whose brief biographies are listed below. This will give you the opportunity of posing questions on broader issues facing entrepreneurs, such as making first sales, organising a marketing campaign, financing the next stage, managing growth, etc.

The Panel discussion will be followed by an informal networking session with drinks provided.

Click here for full details and booking.

Dress code: Business/Business casual

Admission: £25

Guest Speakers: Eric Swain, Social Media Director, Spice and Rupert Ashe, Chairman & Co-Founder, Videojug Corporation.

Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Myspace, Linked-In, Ecademy, etc, etc. Are these phenomena of relevance to entrepreneurs and businesses or are they mere noise which will prove passing fads? What, if any, opportunities do they present to today's entrepreneurs and how can they be exploited to commercial advantage?

Attendees of this seminar may not leave the session bent on tweeting and retweeting their days away.... but at the very least, thanks to speakers who live and breathe these technologies, they will leave better informed with regard to what competitive advantage can be derived from the various flavours of social media on offer - and what pitfalls should be avoided!

Eric Swain is Director of Social Media at Spice. Spice is a digital agency helping companies grow by maximising the effectiveness of their online presence through social media, Search Engine Optimisation and digital design. Spice specialises in helping companies formulate bespoke strategies for exploiting today's technologies.

Rupert Ashe is Chairman and Co-Founder of Videojug Corporation. Videojug is one of the world's largest self-help websites, with over 125,000 professionally-produced videos to help users Get Good at Life. Rupert will focus on how to differentiate your online presence through content.

Our guest speaker was Craig Redbond, the Chief Executive of Executive Change Group - an organisation which provides high level sales and marketing services to the world's leading IT vendors. One of the Company's USPs is that it knows, or has access to, the vast majority of the national and international corporate CIOs and, indeed, involves many of them in its various activities.

Craig's presentation (pdf)

Here is an account of the evening by Almira Ross:

"Last evening I had the pleasure of attending a seminar at the Information Technologists Hall, where Craig Redbond of Executive Change Group, gave a very informative and interactive talk on How to Get to Key Decision Makers. Given this was presented to an audience of ICT entrepreneurs, he was referring to the CIO. However, Craig's message can be applied to any B2B business.

The first point to note is that very few businesses succeed in getting to the 'right person'. Craig's view was that more than 95% of ICT suppliers fail at this first hurdle, resulting in a huge opportunity for those few companies that get it right.

Getting to the 'right person' isn't enough. Nurturing that relationship and building trust is crucial to your success. And the reason is simple:

Executives (in our case, CIOs ) trust their peers and look to them for advice, recommendations and working proof. They don't usually trust a supplier. However, if they trust you, because you have delivered on their agenda with integrity, then they will recommend you to their peers. This wonderful state of affairs should be your goal.

From the CIO's perspective, the claims of suppliers all sound pretty much the same, because they miss the mark - they talk about the technology, the great product or service, and not the CIO's issues. So, when you talk to their agenda, and in their language, you'll easily differentiate yourself from the same-old, same-old 95%.

The homework is in understanding their agenda and delivering solutions to the real issues they face. Unlike many other executives, whose roles are strategic, the CIO's role may be strategic, tactical or both. They work strategically by delivering new business process that improves the bottom line, and tactically, in making sure day-to-day operations are secure and cost-effective. In certain industries, like financial services, the role tends to be more strategic; in others, like manufacturing, it tends to be more operational. So you'll need to do your research and adjust your marketing material accordingly.

And when you do, and develop a good working relationship with one CIO, the door is open to their networks. All you have to do is ask.

How to Get to Key Decision Makers is just one in a series of seminars hosted by the ICT Entrepreneurs Forum. We are a group of IT professionals, entrepreneurs and business angels with a shared interest in encouraging and supporting early-stage entrepreneurs - who either provide ICT products or services, or whose businesses are built primarily on information technology platforms.

If that's your business and you think you could benefit by having a mentor, please visit www.ictmentoring.com to register your interest. There is no charge for our mentoring."

On February 3rd The Entrepreneurship Panel was privileged to host an event in the Hall with guest speaker Modwenna Rees-Mogg who owns and operates Angel News. Modwenna is also the author of "Dragons or Angels: The Unofficial Guide To Dragons' Den" and a handbook for people wanting to become, or raise money from, business angels.

The event was chaired by Geoff Morris, Chairman (elect) of the Entrepreneurship Panel, and was followed by a question and answer session where the audience of Entrepreneurs could pose questions to Geoff, John O'Connell, Simon Williams (introduced as Master Mentor), Barry Fludgate and Nic Birtles, outgoing Chairman of the Panel.

Modwenna advised the Entrepreneurs on how to navigate through the fundraising minefield and helped them to understand the motivations of potential investors. She reminded the audience to get in to the potential investor's mindset. Top tips included:

• Don't take the money if you don't think you can deliver a decent return
• Find an investor who is very sector focussed and who really understands your business
• Solicit references on your investors
• Get an introduction, cold calling is a route to misery
• Don't just write the business plan; make sure you are ready to follow up with more information promptly if requested
• Remember it's the Investment Committee who makes the decision, not the person you are dealing with
• The process to secure funding can take up to nine months so make sure you allow enough time and don't get distracted from the day-to-day business
• Remember you can't get rid of your investors easily, there is no divorce!

Despite the scarcity of investment funds in the UK, Modwenna confirmed that we are all hooked on Dragon's Den. The programme enjoys over three million viewers in the UK and over 2.3 million references on Google. There are spinoffs all over the world, even in Nigeria. So it's not just The Entrepreneurship Panel who are frustrated Dragons!

Roy Norris providee a fascinating insight into the practical application of psychology to improve every aspect of the sales function, discussing new techniques to select and motivate your sales staff and how psychology can influence the outcome of sales negotiations.

Geoff Morris chaired the event with Paul Finch and Simon Williams taking an active role in the speaking sessions. John Blowers from Pre-X was the first external speaker, advising the entrepreneurs that "It's the combination of horse and rider that creates winners".

Sally Goodsell, CEO of Finance South East announced that despite the apparent lack of funding they were intending to make 150 investments this year and David Carratt, MD of Kennet Partners Ltd told the audience that they had invested 40 million Euros in the last three months and were very excited by bootstrapped companies funded by money from "friends, family and fools". John O'Connell, who described himself as a failed retiree represented the view of the angel investor having had personal experience of, "being turned down by every VC fund and having had the ability to make almost every mistake possible and survive".

John summed up what the Panel is trying to achieve, very aptly when he said, "The odds against surviving are phenomenally high and most entrepreneurs in this room will fail. The aim of the Entrepreneurship Panel is to help reduce the rate of failure."

Here are the speakers' presentations:

Introduction - Geoff Morris

ITC Mentoring - Simon Williams

John Blowers - Pre-X

Sally Goodsell - Finance South East

Simon Williams - Angel investor

On 20th January, the Entrepreneurship Panel organised a speed dating session at the Hall to bring together entrepreneurs with potential mentors. The Meet the Mentor event attracted approximately 20 entrepreneurs from 14 different companies to meet with 12 volunteer mentors who are members of the ITC. The evening was hosted by Paul Finch and included presentations from various members of the Panel. Simon Williams, heading up the Mentor Group highlighted what the company could expect from a mentor and introduced the mentors from the ITC. People were encouraged to move around the room at 5 minute intervals to ensure maximum networking could take place. Feedback indicated that the evening was a huge success and as a result we have at least five Entrepreneurs who are being mentored on a regular basis.

One of the entrepreneurs was heard to comment that he hadn't seen such sharp elbows since he went skiing last year; as he likened the rush to get to the mentors to the queues at the bottom of the ski lifts in Europe! Another said, "Very impressive that so many people have given up their time to mentor small companies."

Nic Birtles, Chairman of the Entrepreneurship Panel commented, "I am delighted to see so many entrepreneurs attend our first speed dating event, especially given that we deliberately kept it so low profile. Given the excellent feedback, we have organised another similar event on 30th June and intend to open it up to a wider audience.

Here is the presentation that chairman Nic Birtles used to introduce the meeting.

"Is There a Funding or an Entrepreneurship Gap?"

Our debate at the City offices of K&L Gates on 8th October 2008 was a great success, with more than 80 delegates in attendance.

Charles Hendry MP (Shadow Energy Minister and fgormer Shadow Business Secretary) opened the proceedings with some apposite and entertaining remarks.

John Blowers of Pre-X spoke for the motion: "This House believes there is a shortage of early-stage funding" and David Carratt of Kennet Partners spoke against.

A Panel comprising Felda Hardymon, Professor of Management Practice at Harvard Business School, John O’Connell, a technology entrepreneur, Howard Flight, Chairman of the EIS Association and Simon Reeve of FlexFS commented on the Speakers' arguments.

There were also many engaging and intelligent remarks from the floor.

The moltion was put to a vote: 44 voted for the motion; 26 again and 5 abstained. The motion was thus carried.

Here are the various speakers' presentations:

• Nic Birtles
• John Blowers
• David Carratt
• Simon Williams

Here are notes of the major contributions kindly provided by John Riley:

• Debate notes