SCANNERS NIGHT

This little video about procrastination (brought to my attention by Jenny Jameson of Zero Gravity Life) made me laugh.

See if it rings a bell with you.

Do you recognise similar experiences of finding your day has disappeared before you’ve got started on what really matters?

Then join us at July Scanners Night when we’ll be discovering from Mark Walsh how to go Beyond Time Management and get the right things done, not just lots of ‘stuff’.

READ ABOUT JULY SCANNERS NIGHT

This week we ran our new look Scanners Night at a new venue with our biggest crowd yet. (See pic above – that’s me, John Williams, in the foreground)

The focus in our new format is on you and helping make your ideas happen – with the help of 60 other creative people who are writing books, building blogs, launching businesses, starting their own event, using social media to promote their art, or making their escape from the 9 to 5.

And instead of long talks, we lead you through an exercise to get help on your ideas so that you leave with new insights and new contacts to make things happen over the next month.

Plus we share the real-life stories of people who have launched some brilliant projects onto the world and even turned them into a lucrative business.

Rave reviews

Here are some great unsolicited comments we got on twitter after this very first “Scanners Night 2.0”:

Fantastic scanners night with @johnsw and @FreeRangeHumans yesterday – lots of inspiring people and ideas, lots of energy, whoop!
@bikinifling

I found it really helpful tonight. I have some very clear actions to take this week. Thanks.
@StuartUnited

Scanners night was really good tonight, really enjoyed it.
@MajiKandy

Newly discovered play project starts tomorrow thanks to a great scanners night!
@ScriptLady

We want your opinion

If you were there, let us know what you think: What did you get out of it? What was most helpful? What would you change? We’d love to know – so please leave a comment. If it helped you to pursue an idea or project, let us know that too!

If you haven’t experienced the new look Scanners Night yet, but you’ve been to our other events, leave a comment to tell us what you’d like from the night – and make a date to join us in February.

The next Scanners Night is 9 February. (Scanners Night is on the 2nd Wednesday of the month so put it in your diary as a repeating appointment if you’re a fan.)

Read more and book your tickets here (before it sells out!)

It’s dating time for Scanners Night.

We’re looking to pair our lovely, fun, creative event with a delightful and deserving venue. Can you help us match-make?

Here’s our check list for the venue that will be a perfect partner – note that attributes are listed in descending order of importance.

1. Fits 65 people, ideally up to 75, all seated with room to move around
2. We can have the space exclusively to ourselves – not shared with random strangers (what kind of event do you take us for?). Ideal is a gallery, a cool meeting space, or a separate room above or below a nice bar or restaurant where our fascinating speakers won’t be interrupted by noise or people making their way somewhere else.
3. A space with a cool, casual feel – ideally not a traditional lecture theatre. Think scattered, ad-hoc seating, or cabaret style. Funky interiors are welcome! Scanners love the new, the innovative, the unusual and will rave about you to everyone they know.
4. Central London location – Zone 1: the West End is ideal, Shoreditch at a stretch. Recently we have been just off Regent Street and then Great Portland Street.
5. A PA with a mic. Ideally input for a second mic too.
6. Occasionally, a projector and screen in situ would be very helpful. Ditto Internet access to call up websites
7. Ideally a bar for people to buy their own drinks in the break and possibly before and after (that don’t require pre-ordering).
8. Budget: some of our previous venues have been free but we are willing to pay a fee for the right spot

And in return, we bring you:

• 50-70 people every month on a night when you might otherwise have only a small number of people for your extra space. It’s a social/networking event with a speaker talking for the first half of the evening.
• Friendly people who get their own drinks before the event, at the break and sometimes after. Some will also buy snacks such as bar food.
• Publicity to over 1000 well connected people on an email list every month
• We are happy to do combined marketing such as offering a promotional voucher of some kind

If you point us to a venue we end up using, you are welcome to be our guest at all Scanners Night events for the rest of this year – and you will have our eternal gratitude to boot!

We are also interested in engaging experienced event organisors.

Please email john @ scanner central. co. uk [please type it in without the spaces – sorry it’s a pain but it’s the only way to avoid automated spam]

Getting yourself on TV to talk about your passion & knowledge can transform your fortunes: raising your profile, selling massive numbers of your books, products, workshops or consulting hours, and giving you the chance to help and inspire a huge number of people.

At April Scanners Night, Claire Richmond shared her 10 keys to getting yourself on TV.

Claire was series producer of some of TV’s most popular shows including the BBC’s Changing Rooms, Ready Steady Cook, and Don’t Get Done Get Dom. She is founder of findaTVexpert.com, the online database of experts for members of the media on the hunt for new talent.

Listen to her fascinating talk below.

If you can’t see the player above, here is the link to the MP3.

If you want to give yourself the best chance of getting onto TV, check out Claire’s site findatvexpert.com.

SPECIAL OFFER FOR SCANNERS:
If you decide to join findaTVexpert.com, quote “SCANNERS” to get 50% of the joining fee –  if you register before the end of April 2010.

Shed Simove is a TV producer, comedian, entrepreneur, and author of new book, Ideas Man. And he’s expert on making ideas happen.

After a successful career in TV (including Commissioning Editor of ‘Big Brother’) Shed has gone on to create a wide range of novelty gifts, executive toys, greetings cards, and books – with sales now approaching one million.

Shed has a rebellious sense of humour and loves to play with society’s taboos – whether it’s changing his name to God, or creating a confectionary product called “Clitoris Allsorts” that sold over 5000 packets.

At March Scanners Night, Shed shared his 10 tricks to make any idea happen successfully – whether it’s a toy, a sweet, a greeting card range, a TV programme, or a book.

Listen to his talk below.

If you can’t see the player above, here is the link to the MP3.

If you want to learn more about how Shed came up with such original ideas and turned them into a business, I highly recommend his book Ideas Man.

Read more about Shed’s entire range of products

At February Scanners Night, Marianne Cantwell gave us the user’s guide to the creative personality, and in particular, that of the scanner.

Listen now and find out:

• what particular creative personality type you are,
• what your strengths are (so you can maximise them),
• what your weaknesses are (so you can manage them or work around them),
• the ways of operating that really work for us,
• how to communicate with the non scanners in your life to gain their understanding – or enlist their help on your projects

Here’s a quick video clip of the Scanners doing the Intravert vs Extravert exercise:

Want to discover even deeper personality insights?

Marianne is offering a package to provide even deeper personality insights for your career change – understand who you are, your strengths, and where you can shine. Includes full 15FQ+ personality assessment with personal written report, MBTI assessment, and a Scanner career-change 1-on-1 coaching session.

Marianne is making a special offer to Scanners for this package if you book by the end of February 2010. Read full details of the Scanner Offer here

Listen to the founder of Scanners Night, John Williams and discover how to have your best year yet as a scanner or multi-faceted creative person.

Have a brilliant year as a Scanner without New Year resolutions, career plans, or SMART goals – and make more money than you have before!

Listen to the whole talk and you’ll go away with your own Back Of An Envelope Plan for the year that’s simple, exciting, effective, and doesn’t box you in.

Is this the year you make your own business work?

Do your plans for the year include finally making good money from work you enjoy?

Whether you’re self-employed and want to boost your business, or you’re in a job and looking to launch your own thing, don’t miss the chance to discover John’s Blueprint to do what you love and get paid for it.

Read about this month’s Scanners Night event here

We Scanners hate to focus on one thing for too long yet if we don’t focus at all, how can we ever bring all our great ideas to fruition?

At October Scanners Night Nina Grunfeld showed us the secret to “Effortless Focus”; how to find your natural way to focus without making yourself crazy with boredom! Nina Grunfeld is a Scanner and yet has created a business, Life Clubs, running weekly workshops in 12 locations around the UK and has still found time to write 3 great books.

Nina is a also an enthusiast of the Enneagram and explains why Scanners are “Epicures” and what that means.

Do have a listen – just click the play button below.

Nina runs an exercise in this recording with the balance chart. You can get your copy to fill on the LifeClubs website here.

Read more about Life clubs and find your nearest one here

NEWSFLASH: Scanners Night is running its first ever one day workshop called “Find your story” – read more here

At September Scanners Night, we met the superb Sarah de Nordwall, Professional Bard.

Sarah runs the UK’s only Bard School, was poet in residence at BBC Worldwide, and writes poems on commission. Sarah has performed as bard in locations from prisons to the House of Lords – and now Scanners Night.

Sarah captivated the audience with her ideas, stories and poems and she showed us the importance of story. Do have a listen to her – just click the play button below.

NEWSFLASH: Sarah is running a special one day workshop called “Find your story” – read more here

Creative people, particularly Scanners, tend to have a lot of different interests and run multiple projects simultaneously. This keeps life interesting but makes it difficult for us to easily capture what we do in a way that potential contacts, clients or customers can grasp.

At May Scanners Night, John Purkiss showed us how to pull the various strands together, using a simple model based on Jungian archetypes.

Are you the Caregiver, the Creator, the Explorer, the Hero, the Innocent, Jester, the Lover, the Magician, the Ordinary Guy, the Outlaw, the Ruler, or the Sage?

You can listen to his entire talk for free right now – just click the play button below.

Read the archetypes list

Read the complete list of archetypes in an extract from Brand You here.

Get the book

John Purkiss and David Royston-Lee, a business psychologist, have written a book entitled BRAND YOU – Turn Your Unique Talents into a Winning Formula.

The book will be published on May 18th. Find out more at www.brandyou.info.

John studied economics and has an MBA. He has worked in banking, management consultancy and software. For the past 12 years he has been an executive search consultant or headhunter. He occasionally invests in the companies for which he finds finance directors and other board members. As well as writing books, he takes photographs. See www.johnpurkiss.com

Come to Scanners Night

Scanners Night is an event for creative people who love to learn new stuff, have many interests and get bored easily.

Scanners Night is on the 2nd Wednesday of every month and each one features a different speaker on a fascinating topic.

Read about June Scanners Night with San Sharma here.