If you’re feeling overwhelmed by Covid-19 you’re certainly not alone. Most people are feeling a little anxious, and concerned over what it may bring. Restrictions have been put into place right across the globe and many people face a period of isolation at some point. This comes with a lot of concerns including lack of essentials, no access to medication, the feeling a=of being trapped, and getting bored. ​

User research platform, Userzoom, says that companies should try to understand the needs of users before building a new product or service and then validate prototypes. This approach helps to reduce risks and ensure that there is a feasible market out, therefore, for the products when you finally decide to scale. 

Working out the size of the opportunity is, therefore, vital. You might have a product that a particular niche wants, but if there are too few people, you’ll ultimately wind up out of pocket.


Figure Out How You Will Develop The Product
The best way to work out how to develop a product is to look at how the market operates already. Look at the methods that companies already use to ship new goods and services to their customers and actually make it happen. Ask yourself the following questions: 

• Do they outsource production, or do they keep it in-house? 
• Which channels do they use for marketing their products? 
• How do they sell their product features? 
• What are the best materials to use for the product? 
• What safety considerations are there? 
• How will you scale production if sales take off? 
• What systems are in place to ensure quality control after fabrication? 
  
  
  

Ultimately, you need to work in a multidisciplinary team. You need a range of people, all of whom are familiar with different aspects of the product. Technical and marketing experts need to work in tandem to figure out how best to sell the product to potential customers in the market. 


Test Your Prototype In As Many Ways As You Can

Prototypes are an essential stage in producing a successful product. They are the point where you find out whether you will be able to deliver something the market will accept or not. 

Companies tend, however, to look at their products through rose-tinted glasses. They see them as to how they want to see them, rather than how actual customers will. 

Regular people are the harshest critics of what you sell. If there’s a slight weakness or flaw, they’ll find it and let you know in online reviews. Prototyping, therefore, is your opportunity to wipe out as many of these concerns as possible. 

Be brutal with your product. Test it to its limits. If you find a flaw, plot a course of action to fix it. Ask yourself whether the product is robust enough, fast enough, or sufficiently flexible. 

Be honest with yourself about whether it offers customers enough features, or if there are too many. 

Also, question whether you can deliver it to the market on time. Many companies work to strict time constraints. There is a window of opportunity that they must exploit if they want their enterprise to thrive. If they miss it, then the profit opportunity will vanish. 

A prototype, therefore, could have all the bells and whistles imaginable. Still, if it is going to take years to bring to scale, then it is not fulfilling the needs of the business. Long development cycles are often what kills new companies. The chance for the product to shine passes. 


Figure Out How To Position The Product

Once you’ve designed the product and studied your market thoroughly, the next step is to position it ready for launch. Companies need to have a good sense of where their product fits alongside the other options available in the marketplace.

Positioning the product is essential and usually requires some pretty savvy marketing. For instance, is your product designed for a premium audience? Or are you looking to target people on a budget? 

Does your product offer superior technology than its competitors? Or does it do the same thing, but at a lower price? 

Finally, how will you use your brand image to sell the product? Will you use a value-driven approach where you talk about the broader benefits of your product? Or will you tap into different customer philosophies? 

Remember, your advertising doesn’t have to focus on product features. Instead, you can simply focus on how your company makes people feel. Coca-Cola, for instance, doesn’t talk about the high sugar content of its drinks. Instead, it just associates its brand with having a good time. 

That, however, is changing. Sports clothes companies can no longer ignore the fact that the vast bulk of their customers are on the heavier side. And they can’t resist the cultural shift in the direction of being more inclusive and making everyone feel as if they can enjoy exercise. The marketing would have you believe that we were still in the 1950s when practically everyone was slim and toned. That world no longer exists. 

So what’s changed? Well, recently, Nike opened a store in London called NikeTown. As well as all the usual marketing material, the store featured large female mannequins, deliberately designed to show what the company’s products look like on bigger women. And we’re not just talking about slightly bigger either. These mannequins are at least triple the size of the regular variety and depict realistic excess fat distribution. 

Part of the push in this direction comes from the fact that Nike wants to be seen as supporting the current increase in female sports popularity. Women’s football has taken off in recent years, as has the idea that women should be at the gym with men, toning their bodies and increasing their strength. 

Nike, of course, isn’t the first company to take this tack. We’ve seen other brands, such as Old Navy and Debenhams, take a similar approach, placing plus-size mannequins alongside the regular variety. But this is a big turnaround for a brand that has traditionally associated itself with the body beautiful. 

How this change will impact health and female participation in sport remains to be seen. Currently, its popularity is on the rise, but whether Nike is upstream or downstream from that isn’t clear. What is obvious, though, is that the clothing industry is going to have to change. Customers no longer want to feel as if they have to fit into a particular mold. They want brands to represent them and provide them with just as many opportunities to buy clothes as their slim counterparts. 

Retail can’t afford to miss this opportunity. The high street is shrinking, and we’re seeing more clothing companies shift online. COVID-19 will probably accelerate that process even faster. Stores, therefore, need to take whatever steps they can to appeal to their entire customer base. They might have aesthetic preferences for slimmer people, but the reality is that most buyers are either overweight or obese. Only a small fraction of the population can identify with super-toned models wearing skin-tight clothing. 

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With the world very much upside down at the moment, finding a good news story isn't that easy.  But Thom Foodery shared a video of a game he created for his son during the Covid-19 lockdown which left his son's reaction as the best part!  The Mirror has the story..

You can post as much inspirational and motivational stuff as you can but sometimes, taking a look into what the real world looks like for someone that dedicates their day to being the best they can will have a bigger impact.  Mark Wahlberg revealed his daily routine back in December 2018, this followed after Wahlberg was named the highest paid Hollywood actor in 2017.  BBC News had the story back then..

Funny enough, apart from the Fortnite blog before this, I have been blogging via the podcast so the page has become a bit redundant but when we talk about new year new you and all that usual eye rolling jazz, it didn't really fit with inspiring stories, a health check or the careers advice, what if the changes you want to bring have nothing to do with your career?

I've read plenty about the best way to make new year resolutions if you want to at all but the other question is why do you need to wait until the new year to make the change, why not last Thursday or Monday afternoon?  But anyway, all that aside, here is a link from Forbes about why making less change in your life will actually bring you more in return.  Have a read and let me know what your new resolutions are and lets see if you can keep to them!  Good luck!

​If you’re a parent, chances are you’ve heard about Fortnite, been nagged about ‘Battle Passes’ and they haven’t stopped talking about the thing!
The free multiplayer has been available since July 2017 on both Windows and MAC as well as Xbox One, Playstation 4 and more recently the Nintendo Switch.  The more popular ‘Battle Royale’ version puts 100 different players onto a big island in a solo mode, duo or a squad of 4 to battle it out for survival until there is one winner! 
The bright colourful cartoon-like graphics have prevented a blood-fest that some shooters have given us over the years and this helps attract the younger gamer although its rated for mild violence.

With over 40 million downloads of this game, its safe to safe that the creator, Epic Games are onto a huge winner and although the game is free to download, it’s the in-game purchases that have let the creators have a holiday or two in the sun!

Like anything, the hype will begin to drop and recently with the arrival of ‘Apex Legends’, another free multiplayer battle royale adventure, the numbers may have taken a dip with the Fortnite servers.  As anything ages, the constant new content is key to keeping the fan base coming back, Grand Theft Auto 5 is an example that is in another league.  The game will be 6 years old later this year, but is still one of the most played online games across all formats.

So why are we still talking about games here?  As mentioned before, Fortnite possibly had a dip in active players and gave an incentive to all its players within the challenges that are set week by week/ by season.  ‘Complete 13 of the Overtime challenges to win a free Season 8 Battle Pass’, it’s a sure winner to have any of those Fortnite players that may have disappeared for a bit to come back and play/ make in-game purchases.  How much is this worth then?  The Battle Pass itself costs 1,000 V-Bucks (the in game currency) which is around £7.99, but the money that can be made by the other in game purchases that can be made is insane!  An outfit (or skin as the kids call them) can cost 1,500 V-Bucks which when you work out is around £12 in real money terms, different gliders can be bought as well different harvesting tools (which you start with), none of these things do anything different, just different designs!  Again, the latter two would be worth around £4 each!  Its reported that Fortnite made over £1.8bn in 2018 alone, you don’t need me to explain why its so important to keep players coming back!

Getting back to the subject, my growing-up-too-fast little girl, Kacey, wanted to complete the challenges to win a free Battle Pass and aside from not using the V-Bucks already on her account, I saw this as something that could be done.. and why not!
As a disclaimer here, I’ve tried playing Fortnite and can not get into it at all, I’ll stick to Grand Theft Auto but I do understand how it works and much rather just watch someone hacking down trees with a pickaxe!

So how did we manage to smash the challenges and end up doing 15 or so instead?  Well, the answer is simple and it was ‘focus’.  “Where focus goes, energy flows!”

In a rare moment where an almost near teenager (how did she get to this age so quick?) actually listened to some gaming advice, there was a bit of a change in her approach to playing each game.  Instead of trying to do part of a challenge like search a treasure chest in one place and then play until that character was killed, I helped install the mindset that each game played was to do one or two challenges and quit the game and start a new one.

Slowly, after a few hours of jumping out of the flying party bus and hacking away at trees, we had 12 challenges completed and hallelujah we unlocked the next season’s battle pass!
Probably the most rewarding part for me was that after the few hours on that Friday night and Saturday morning, the focus that was spent on looking at what the challenges were, what had to be done to complete them and then finally the happiness and fulfilment that Kacey had on her face was well worth the time.  It was rewarding to see that despite the time it took, the plan was stuck to, the idea that you can start a game, do part of a challenge and then just quit that game to help her cause was something I hadn’t really seen before in her approach with anything.  By the end of that weekend, there were 15 challenges completed, more than what was needed but again, take an approach, run with it and smash it!

The message is focus and this is something that you do every single day with so many different things without even thinking about it.  If you have a project at work, you focus on it and the project moves along.  The cupboards at home are empty so you focus on that and go shopping, if you didn’t, what would you eat, you can’t have a takeaway every night can you!?  Even when you need to brush your teeth before bed, if you do of course, you still need to focus some of your time and energy to be able to do it.  Whatever it is you want to do, plan what you want, how you will do it, stick to your plan unless it fails a little and change it to suit the mission and you’ll be surprised at how far you will get!

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So I took an unplanned week away from Instagram and then just social media in general, but it wasn't by choice!

One day I noticed a couple of my Insta posts weren't getting much love with the interaction, likes, comments etc and while I don't get hundreds of likes for a post, I do get more than a few over a whole day.

After working out that my posts were appearing and even the hashtags appeared with their search, I sent Instagram a message which obviously they didn't reply too.

A day later, the problem is still there so I started looking online for an answer and it didn't take me long to find out what it probably was.

Ladies & gentleman, boys & girls, I present to you, 'Shadow Banning'. It's a great title isn't it?
Now for those you who haven't heard of it, Shadow Banning, Shadow Banned, or one of the other many different titles is best described as when Instagram still let's you post but blocks you from new followers. 

The new algorithms that started in 2016 within Instagram saw peoples interaction sliced in half! Instagram acknowledged there was a 'hashtag glitch' or was it to cover up the fact they are flushing out the constant spammers?
If you are banned, you can still post but only your followers can see you're posting meaning any hashtag you may have used is actually useless!

If the interaction is down, you could ask a few people who don't follow you to see if they can see your posts within a hashtag you've used, if they can't, its a good sign you're banned!

So how do you fix it?  There is no clear way, people have tried different things and some people have been banned for a few days, others a few weeks.
I was banned for a week and tried different things, switching from a business account to a personal account, unlinking Facebook, taking out hashtags from recent posts, not posting for a day or two and constant 'Report a problem' within the Instagram app.
Whichever of those things that worked, if you do get banned, just try them all!

What has this taught us today then class? Well, if you have a problem, look to find out as much as possible about it to help solve it, the people's experiences you will read about, they were all like you once upon a time.

Share your experience with others, you will probably help someone somewhere!

Bonjour & good day!

Millions of people travel across London on the Underground everyday, miles below the surface of the world, it's probably the best reason it's described as the 'rat race', no offence intended.. I'm one of them!

While I play my role as one of the many sardines in the tin can they call a London Underground tube, you have few options to how you spend your time before your view becomes someone's big rucksack in your face!

Music or a podcast keeping you occupied, standing with your eyes closed (definitely a morning thing), no room to try and read that free newspaper you picked up or a favourite of mine is attempting to breath again with the whiff of body odour creeping up your nose (yes even at 5.30am!)

Sometimes it occurs to me that every single person on this tube has a 'story', everyone has got some sort of life experience, some happiness, some sadness and heartbreak to name just a few.

Imagine the experiences you could learn about from talking to just one of these people, not just squashed together on the tube but in world we live in!

A chance friendship started one afternoon on a tube platform at Euston London tube, waiting for the the tube to High Barnet.

A woman in her 60's at a guess was dressed in ripped jeans and leather jacket (really fit well with the Camden Town scene) with dyed pink hair (yes I was very jealous!)

This woman was offered a seat by a young girl as we waited for the tube, they started having a chat and ended up sitting with each other.

As I was close by, their conversation was in ear-shot, before you think it, I wasn't being nosey, I'm going to call it 'learning!'

This lady used to work in the theatre and loved It, the performance, the drama and the excitement the whole atmosphere were the things that drove her to that love.

The two chatted for 20 minutes or so before the young girl got off and it left me thinking, what does it take to drive people to what they really want to do?  Is it the love, the money or just fullfilment?

What do 'you' really want to do? Are you happy still working in retail, behind that desk everyday?  Are you stressed because your job makes you hate waking up everyday?

There is a strong chance you could relate to some of those questions, I was one of those people after almost 18 years in retail, yes 18 years clearing up after people, watching countless child tantrums in different toy shops, but it had to all change so I started to change that.  My story will appear at some point but right now this is about you!

So what do 'you' want to do then? What would you like to do with your life instead of the same old job that you currently hate and wish you'd never have to go back to?

The world out there is a big place and there is something especially for you but you need to work what you want to do!

I left retail and the 4.30am wake ups and instantly gained 10 hours of my life back a week, if you didn't count the 4 weeks for holidays) that's 520 hours a year gained! By not working in retail, working until 10.30pm at night, working weekends (the list of reasons goes on) I've been able to launch 'Learn Develop Live', you wouldn't be reading this had i still been in retail!

I could go on but how about instead, you think about yourself and what you want to change for the better, you're worth it and you deserve it!
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There is a lot of rejection around the world and the natural human instinct is to take it to heart, beat yourself up about it and for most, just give up.

So let's put a bit of a spin on rejection and why it can often be the better outcome than getting the result you want first time, yes as crazy as that sounds, it also makes a lot of sense!

I'm no love doctor and can't help you with ways of the heart, but I can help put your mind straight when it comes to sorting your head out with the world of rejection.  We've all been gone through all different levels of the rejection world, but let's use it for the positive vibes for a change and see just what it did to some people you may have heard of...

Walt Disney was fired from the Kansas City Star in 1919 because he editor said Walt 'lacked imagination and had no good ideas', that was Walt Disney!
Lady Gaga was fired from her first major record label after just 3 months!
Michael Jordan was cut by his high school basketball team!
Elvis Presley was told by a concert hall manager that he should go back to driving trucks instead of singing!
If Howard Schultz gave up after being turned down by banks 242 times, there would be no Starbucks!
Albert Einstein was unable to speak until he was 4, read until he was 7 and expelled from school!
Steven Spielberg was rejected from the University of Southern California School of Theater, Film & Television three times!
J.K Rowling had her first Harry Potter book rejected 12 times by publishers!

Each one of those people were hit by rejection, but they carried on, they tried again and again.  If you've been hit by rejection lately, take a step back, a quick break and start again, you could well be the next big thing!

A few years ago I rediscovered my 'chillout time' with the Xbox, now I'm not a competitive gamer, I don't scream and throw the controller at the TV if I concede a 90th minute goal playing FIFA, I'm not sure the TV would appreciate it and neither would I once the shouting had stopped!

I've also never really ventured into the world of online gaming and whilst playing Grand Theft Auto 5, I said I'd give it a go after completing the 'Story Mode' and go from there.

As the many people will know about the GTA train, it's a money making machine, the production costs were around £170m and that included marketing the beast.  While the game has a bigger budget than some films, the game itself took $800m in one day.  Whilst I'm not a mathematician (far from it!) its safe to say GTA paid for itself!

I'm sure people will agree, the GTA world is very different online compared to the normal game, all the players are loaded up with some serious hardware, speeding around in these flash cars and then there's me who's just standing there on a screen looking back at myself!

After taking out a few online players in a few different sessions and coming to my own death probably more times, it clicked to me that I am just not as in tune to this online gaming as most of the kids were who were sniping me from a distance!

While I will probably go back to trying to finish Assassins Creed Black Flag after this, my priority is definitely continuing to build the empire that is 'Learn Develop Live', but what about all those people playing GTA?  The majority of them are probably school kids, but what about the adults who could spend all day playing games?  Yes it's great that on GTA you have $5m, three properties, ten cars, a rocket launcher and a helicopter, but what about when you leave that online world?  Or when you move onto the next game?  What if the time you spent playing the Xbox was spent making something of your own?

​You have the power and energy to try and make something in the real world existence, I'm not saying throw your Xbox in a skip, but I want you to want more from yourself and make something that shows what you're capable of, not that you've got a pixelated private jet that you can only fly in GTA, what about having your own real jet of your own made of real metal.. why not??

​Originally posted - September 2016

I was at Borehamwood FC's Meadow Park last night to watch the Arsenal u23 team play in the newly formed Premier League 2.  I've been an Arsenal fan all my life which hasn't been easy at times I can tell you!  So, the chance to go and see the team you support surely can not be passed up.

It was a home match against the Everton u23 team and there was a bigger crowd than I thought there would be, it was free entry so that probably helped!

With Arsenal playing Nottingham Forest in the EFL Cup tonight, it is tradition that Arsenal play a second string side with some youth players mixed it and with at least eight or so involved, it that explains why so many of the regular Academy first team players weren't playing against Everton... they were sorely missed!

The story about the game is that Arsenal played like a group of 11 individuals whereas Everton were a solid team, they ran all over them, constantly moving forward, calling for every ball, working for each other.  When the final whistle blew, it's probably best it only ended 5-0 to Everton and not more!

Now I'm not saying I could have played any better last night (bad knee and all that plus I'm not under the age of 23!)  But last night was a massive opportunity for some of these kids who may not often get a chance but last night they did.

So what is the message here if you haven't already guessed, you are smart people after all!  If you are given a chance to do something new or an opportunity at work comes up or how about something towards your dream? As Nike would say, 'Just Do It!'  

If you don't take that chance, I can promise you, you will probably regret it and if you take it, the least you'll get is a bit of experience you didn't have before.

If I didn't take that chance, I'd have never started 'Learn Develop Live!

A Stage 3 Induction session for my recent job of 8 months, the power of learning is obvious and can lead to many possibilities.

Being sat at a table in a small group and getting 15 minutes or so with a Director or Deputy gave us the chance to fire all sorts of questions at them in a no holds barred Question and Answer session.

It was interesting to learn how people got to where they wanted to be, the ideas they had and how where ended up today wasn't in the plan at all!

The point of this is to say, why don't you go learn something new?  Network a bit and see what opportunities you can open up for yourself.
Does it matter how big or small it is?  As Spiderman has said, "With great knowledge, comes great power".  Thanks Spiderman for your words of wisdom!
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Broaden your horizons, build up your knowledge and see where you end up!

Life is short, life flies by, days roll into weeks, weeks roll into months and then years, and then all of a sudden, it's over.

In truth, very few people have any idea just 'how long they have' in this world, just how much time they have to make something of themselves.. or to just do nothing.

From the moment you are born and running around in nappies, playing in the park before becoming an emotional teenager and then the big world of being an adult arrives, just getting that far is an achievement in itself. Sometimes some people aren't lucky enough to even reach adulthood, everyday you wake up, you should see it as an instant win even if it is with some of those aches and pains.. I know them well!

As the tag line from Eminem's film, 8 Mile says, "Every moment is another chance." Take that advice because it's true, if you've got a chance to change the way you do something for the better, why not just start now? Don't leave it until a Monday because it's the start of a week, why not start to chase a dream now, go for a run somewhere if you want to get fitter, start small and getting bigger in your approach and the time you can give towards what exactly you actually want to do with your life.
If you want to start a business, do some research, learn how to do something, there are millions of videos on YouTube that can show you how to do something, if you want to learn how to do it, "Just do it", now we are getting Nike involved!

Sitting on the sofa watching the Kardashians isn't going to help you get anywhere is it, go learn something, go do something different, break your routine, to give your life a new dimension. At the end of it all, only you can get yourself going, unless you try, how will you now just what you are capable of?

​Life is a journey, go and find yourself a new adventure!
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