SCANNERS NIGHT

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 55 people, ideally up to 65, all seated
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 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 - not a 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. A bar for people to buy their own drinks before event, in the break, and after (that don’t require pre-ordering). We’re not a heavy drinking event but we like a couple of drinks in an evening.
5. Central London location - Zone 1: the West End, Shoreditch perhaps. Recently we have been just off Regent Street.
6. It would be great to have A/V gear in situ - some kind of simple PA in particular and even better, a projector and screen for the rare occasions we use it.
7. Previous venues have been free of charge in exchange for the increased mid-week custom. Scanners Night is a low-budget event but we could consider a small booking fee in exchange for benefits such as the A/V gear above.

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 voucher for a free drink with food in order to encourage purchases

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!

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]

Watch this video of Suzy Greaves, named as “One of the top 10 gurus to turn your life around” by the Daily Mail as she interviews me, John Williams, about the challenges of being a successful Scanner and the secrets to conquering them.

It’s time Scanners knew how to become that very rare thing - The Super Successful Scanner.

Learn the secrets of the Super Successful Scanner

I’ve spent all my working life searching for the solution to the challenges of being a scanner.

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

One of my mentors, Suzy Greaves, has today launched her Big Love Experiment. As she explains it,

I’m Suzy Greaves and at 41, after 16 years of marriage, I’ve split up with my husband. With new figures showing that one in every two marriages fails – I’m not alone.

I’m part of a new army of people looking for love. The Big Love Experiment is a journey – over a 52 week period – to find it.

The Big Love Experiment is for anyone who believes that love is the answer, that all you need is love, that love is all around us, if only we could find it.

Over the next 52 weeks, I will be interviewing love gurus and experts, scientists and people who have loving long-term relationships – and with their help designing weekly exercises for us to embark on a journey together via my online community to help us discover -  is love really the answer? And if it is – how and where do we find it?

I’m a big fan of time-limited experiments because they’re ideal for scanners. Suzy will be immersed in this experiment for a year, learning from top gurus for herself and sharing what she discovers with the participants. And she might well produce a book out of it as she did for her Big Peace project. Once she’s finished she can reap the rewards of having something to show for it that furthers her business - and she is free move on to the next experiment.

Read about Suzy’s Big Love Experiment here

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

Bestselling author and entrepreneur Seth Godin outlines a common creative affliction: sabotaging our projects just before we show them to the world.

Godin targets our “lizard brain” as the source of these primal doubts, and implores us to “thrash at the beginning” of projects so that we can ship on time and on budget.

Make this the year you start turning your ideas into real world projects. Find out how at January Scanners Night

If you’ve never been to Scanners Night before, this photo collage of last year’s events should give you a feel for what goes on.

Don’t miss January Scanners Night: How to have your best Scanner year yet

A Guest Blog Post by Ian Sanders, author of ‘Juggle! Rethink Work, Reclaim Your Life’

The question ‘what do you do?’ is something many of us struggle with. An increasing number of us lack a simple one word answer to that question; we find it difficult summing up our role because we do more than one thing.

Many of us are carving out plural work lives where we juggle more than one role. Whether you work for yourself, for an employer or you’re seeking a career change, jugglers are busting the old myth that specialism rules!

Throughout our education we were always encouraged to do just one thing, to specialise in a narrow range of subjects and choose a singular trade or profession. I never liked that. So when I left school, I relished the ability to mix things up, working at a radio station, for a music business and taking a class in photography all at the same time. That gap year before I went to university was when I learnt to juggle and throughout my life, both working for organisations and for myself I have continued thinking and acting plural, juggling writing books with running a business. Advising a fashion brand one day, a rock band the next.

If you carve out a work life that reflects your multi-dimensional talents you can be more fulfilled and also more enterprising. My book Juggle! Rethink Work, Reclaim Your Life advocates that we bust those myths about what you should or shouldn’t do so that we can go beyond a fixed job title to create a role juggling our talents and passions.

Kevin Roberts features in my book. Kevin is CEO Worldwide of Saatchi & Saatchi, one of the world’s largest creative organisations, but he also blogs, writes, sits on the boards of other companies and guest lectures at business schools - there are no limits to what he does. He’s carved out a unique role driven by his passions where the ‘Work Kevin’ is the ‘Real Kevin’:

‘It all starts with knowing when you are at your best and playing there all the time.   I focus on those things I’m good at and try to get world class at them. The stuff I can’t do I ask others to handle and choose people who are brilliant at it, significantly better than me at least”.

But juggling is not just for successful CEOs. Rachel is a Commercial Director at a media company 3 days a week and makes handmade jewellery the rest of the week. Dave juggles being a photographer with working in a camera shop. Sam is a sales executive, but has a web-based hobby business he runs in his spare time. In a recession, juggling can prove to be a good survival strategy; if you have more skills to offer the job market or an employer, you can be more of an asset.

So if you’re stuck in a job you don’t like, try juggling; start by reframing your role to take on a new responsibility or task. Or if you have a desire to start your own business, a recession might not be the best time to make rash decisions and quit your job but why not start your business idea in your spare time to start?

Here are 5 tips to creating a Juggle-based career:

1. Be Flexible: Forget a rigid career plan, be flexible to embrace opportunities that fit with your talents and desires. Change your mindset and start thinking plural.
2. Stay Focused: being a good juggler is not about being a ‘jack of all trades and master of none’. It’s about being committed and dedicated in all you do. Manage time well to deliver on all fronts.
3. Shout about your talents: develop a personal brand and use social media to communicate your talents to clients, recruiters and employers.
4. Be Passionate: put passion at the heart of all you do. If you love what you do, work is less of a chore.
5. Go beyond a job title: carve out a unique you-role. Do it your way, be authentic. Let the Work You be The Real You.

Happy Juggling….

Ian Sanders is ‘Chief-Juggler’. He’s a writer, ideas-producer and business & marketing consultant. Ian is author of ‘Juggle! Rethink Work, Reclaim Your Life’ and ‘Leap! Ditch Your Job, Start Your Own Business & Set Yourself Free’.

Follow him on Twitter @iansanders

Videos, blog and more information at iansanders.com

Video of Ian talking about Juggle

Change This ‘Juggle’ Manifesto

If you’d like to meet 30-40 other Jugglers in central London,
come to the monthly Scanners Night