Picture Perfect: Creative Moose Celebrate 10 Years of Growth

Video is now the number one form of content on the web and organisations are using it to connect and engage with their customers, relying on specialised businesses like Manchester based Creative Moose to help them out. Offering full-service video production and securing National and International clients, Creative Moose are entering their 10th Birthday with much to celebrate. 

Starting out in stockport in 2009, Creative Moose support organisations to discover the power of video, with services ranging from aerial filming to 360 virtual tours.  They aim to be able to offer a video for multiple platforms including websites, social media channels and presentations.

Prior to setting up the business, founders Scott Heslop and Anthony Beswick held positions in television for BBC and ITV, but with the rise in online video content, they noticed a huge opportunity to produce video for web and help organisations meet this demand. They told us: “We wanted to take the production values of TV and apply them to the web, ensuring that our clients can produce videos that they can be proud of”

Scott and Anthony both live and breathe storytelling with their passion for film and photography playing a huge role in the success of the business today. They now have offices in Stockport and Manchester City Centre, allowing them to offer their services to the wider Greater Manchester area which has given them the chance to work with businesses like The Northwest Air Ambulance Charity and The Christie NHS Trust. They are particularly proud of the relationship they've developed with the Northwest Air Ambulance Charity, telling us:

“We enjoy working with lots of charities of this nature and it’s great for us to help them use video to promote the life changing work they do”

Creative Moose is one of few companies offering medical video production in the UK and being HEMS passenger certified means they can film onboard helicopters to capture dramatic footage at the scenes of accidents. Looking to build a video strategy specialised for the medical and healthcare sector, they approached Excelerate Labs for support.

Working with senior advisor Mike Marsden, they have developed a long-term strategy to increase visibility in new markets “We really enjoyed using The Business Model Canvas, which helped us segment the business into key areas and set some achievable targets to grow in 2019”

Manchester is bursting with video production companies, but by offering the best storytelling through using the latest technology, producing 4k and HD video and only using industry standard equipment, Creative Moose stand miles ahead of their competition. Creating a lasting impact with their productions is also top of their agenda, Anthony explained:

“We place a huge focus on the story we are trying to tell and the emotional response that we want to create within audiences, we love the challenge that video production presents. It's a great feeling to craft a piece of video content that can that directly influences what people 'see', 'hear' and 'feel'. It's this unique focus that makes us stand out within the Manchester video production scene.”

This year Creative Moose are extending their services and launching 'The Moose Video Club', a service making it easier and affordable for organisation to produce regular videos throughout the year. We asked Creative Moose for advice to anyone looking to grow their business successfully

“My advice for others who want to grow their business would be to firstly establish a clear vision and a clear outcome of what they want to achieve and why? It's then about implementing the actions that you need to take to get your desired result.

Many times, businesses may need to change some of their actions in order to get move closer to their desired outcomes. That's certainly something that we've been working on, the 20% of actions that provide 80% of results.”

To learn more about Creative Moose and its video and photography services, you can visit their website http://www.creativemoose.com For specific information regarding Creative Moose's video production services, click here

Anthony is happy to speak with anyone that is interested in learning more about the power of video and storytelling. You can drop him an email on anthony@creativemoose.com or connect with Anthony on Linkedin

If you would like to benefit from the support received under the Excelerate Labs programme, then please contact: exceleratelabs@thewo.org.uk.

Maggie O’Carroll Celebrated in BQ Live Social Entrepreneur Index

BE Group has officially launched the UK Social Entrepreneur Index sponsored by UBS, a campaign designed to celebrate those entrepreneurs doing things a little differently to make our world a better place.

The inaugural UK Social Entrepreneur Index celebrates the social impact, creativity and innovation of 29 of the UK’s most inspiring social entrepreneurs.

We are delighted that our CEO, Maggie O’Carroll, has been recognised as an entrepreneur actively running a business with social purpose, promoting good practice and inspiring the next generation.

The campaign focuses on the entrepreneurs behind the businesses; telling their story and providing inspiration to thousands of others in the process.

BE Group’s commercial director Bryan Hoare, explained: “Over many years, BE Group has been celebrating and inspiring entrepreneurship across the UK.

“As part of this focus, we’ve launched the UK Social Entrepreneur Index - a celebration of entrepreneurs running businesses with social purposes who we hope will also act as beacons of inspiration for others to encompass positive social impact."

“We’ve been delighted with the response and quality of entries in this first year and we hope to grow the UK Social Entrepreneur Index in future years.

“Alongside the digital campaign, we held roundtable debates about the future of social entrepreneurship, the global challenges and how we can improve. The entrepreneurs are excited about the index and the opportunity for open discussion and we look forward to continuing the conversations at our celebration event in May and beyond.

See the full list ➡ https://www.socialentsindex.co.uk/the-index

Unique commercial space available to rent in L8’s Kuumba Imani Millennium Centre

An exciting new commercial space has become available for rent in the cornerstone Kuumba Imani Millennium Centre.

Ideal for growing businesses or community projects, 2,633sq ft is available on the ground floor of this multi-cultural, multi-purpose hub at the heart of the Liverpool 8 community.

Previously in use as a children’s nursery with outside play area, the space lends itself to another commercial or community use, or as a large office space.

The space comprises of a large central space with four additional smaller rooms, along with a kitchen, laundry, store room and toilets. To the exterior, there is an enclosed outdoor space plus parking area with additional on-street parking available.

With its own private entrance, there will be full access to the tenant.

Located on Princes Road, the centre is just a ten-minute walk or short taxi ride to Liverpool City Centre and its train stations, along with excellent bus links to the area.

The Kuumba Imani Millennium Centre was founded in 2000 by Liverpool Black Sisters – a pioneering charity with a vision to improve the lives of women in their L8 community.

It’s mission is to provide a resource to support and encourage the economic development, health and wellbeing, regeneration and sustainability of a neighbourhood, which has suffered from years of under investment and social exclusion.

Today, the centre provides an integrated community training, meeting and resource centre for residents of Liverpool 8 and Merseyside, particularly for members of Black and Racial Minority (BRM) communities.

Available from 1^st August 2019, a discounted monthly rate is available for community projects and start up businesses.

For more information please contact Michelle Charters on 0151 708 5278 or by e-mailing michellecharters@kuumbaimani.org.uk.

My internship at The Women’s Organisation

After my first year studying Events Management at Liverpool John Moores I realised my passion for marketing so set out to gain some real life industry experience in my second year. After looking through the University careers website I found an internship here at The Women’s Organisation advertised and then went on to do some research into the organisation. After a quick google I realised The Women’s Organisation is a social enterprise that I would love to be a part of, as a proud feminist myself and seeing the amazing work they do I knew their core beliefs aligned with my own. After an interview in January I received the news I got the role and would start a couple weeks after.

On February the 5th I began my first day at The Women’s Organisation, having never worked in an office environment before and in a job,  I wanted to do in the long term, so I was quite nervous. After the first day I felt so at ease and already had learnt so much and put skills I have learnt in lectures to real use, being in an office full of such inspirational women is really something special and unique.

As cliché as it sounds, every day is different. My role mainly includes content creation which can include blog posts, where I have completed case studies about the women we have helped and it’s so inspiring to hear how the women have overcome so much to better their lives. I have also helped run the Instagram and twitter platforms and have really enjoyed finding content to post for these.

My favourite day of my internship was International Women’s Day as we organised a talk with Marnie Millard and Sue Grindrod who are two inspiring women in business. Hearing their stories of how they have got to where they are, the obstacles they have had to overcome and having them offer me advice was a perfect way to spend my International Women’s Day.

The 12^th of April marks the end of my 10 week Internship and all in all I’ve had a blast. I’ve learnt so much and I have grown in confidence with the help of the Marketing team and really believe in my own ability now which I’ll take forward to my future projects.

I am currently looking to work a year in industry starting next semester to give myself some more experience and to be honest I’m not ready to go into my 3^rd year and having to write my dissertation. I am also going on a 5 week expedition to Fiji in June which I’m so excited for, to help and (aim to) inspire children through education and sports projects.

I just want to say a big Thank You to everyone at The Women’s Organisation for being so welcoming, helping me learn so much and overall, teaching me to stand up for what I believe in always.

How to attract more women to senior roles

It’s comes as no shock that the proportion of men in senior roles greatly outweighs the number of women, but what steps can recruiters take to attract more female candidates to senior positions? 

Chris Stappard, Managing Director of Edward Reed Recruitment, has taken to the blog to give us his best advice on the small changes we can make to attract more female applicants to senior roles.

Currently, there’s a record number of women in senior positions on FTSE 100 boards. But, this record number is still only 29% (gov.uk). Clearly, there’s still more we need to do internally to attract more women to our senior positions and promote gender equality throughout the workplace. In this article, I’ll be sharing my best advice on how to encourage more women to apply for your senior positions.

Check your job adverts

The first thing that could be prejudicing your recruitment process is your job advert itself. It’s certainly no secret that certain words evoke specific feelings, and research from the American Psychological Association published on the Heriot Watt University website has found that including gender-biased language in job advertisements can make positions less appealing to women.

When writing your application, you might already have an indication in your mind about what kind of person you want to hire for the role, which means you’re going to write your advert based on this. But be careful, because certain words such as “dominant” and “lead” are more likely to attract male applicants to the role.

To make the process fair, try to go for more neutral language in your job adverts and ask for qualities which are more likely to be attributed to both men and women. If you’re not sure if your advert is unconsciously prejudicing your recruitment process, you can run it through this handy online language checker.

Be upfront about salaries

One thing that female applicants are very put off by when it comes to applying for jobs is the gender pay gap. Even women in senior positions suffer from the pay gap, so it’s important to do your part as an employer to rectify this when hiring. Data collected by the World Economic Forum states that the UK is ranked 52 out of 144 countries in regards to wage equality for similar work.

When recruiting, be upfront about pay. Many recruiters are still in the habit of asking candidates about their previous salary but doing so only worsens the pay gap and is off-putting to female talent. If women have been underpaid in their previous role, this just makes it more likely that they’ll be underpaid in their new role, too. Make sure you pay your female candidates based on their knowledge, skill set, and what they bring to the company, and be transparent about pay at the very beginning of the recruitment process.

Offer flexible working hours

It’s important to remember that our staff, especially those with families, have other important responsibilities outside of work, so employers need to make allowances for this. Giving employees the option of flexible working hours means that they can easily work their career around their family and personal lives, and female applicants will be more attracted to your company because you give them the opportunity to achieve a better work-life balance.

In fact, offering flexible working hours is great for your business because it also improves the general wellbeing of staff. Research conducted by the Association of Accounting Technicians (AAT) found that 38% of people report feeling happier at work and 35% reported lower levels of stress due to flexible working hours. 38% of respondents also agreed that flexi-hours gave them more time to spend with their families.

Train your employees

Training your staff is essential to a productive work environment but it can also increase employee confidence levels. Offer training opportunities to your current staff to improve their skills and encourage your female staff to apply for more senior roles within your company.

Not only will training improve the expertise of your employees, but a company made up of highly trained women is going to attract more female applicants from outside the business. It shows that you value your female employees just as much as their male counterparts.

There’s still a lot to do to truly achieve equality in business, especially in senior roles. But just some small changes to our work culture and recruitment process can make a big difference in the long run. By removing any unconscious sexism and offering useful employee benefits, we’re taking a step in the right direction.

Get The 'Wo-Down' from some of the best business brains around

A champion of female entrepreneurs is set to broadcast, wide and far, the best business tips and advice for a new generation of go-getters.

Starting this Wednesday, April 3, 'The Wo-Down' podcast by established social enterprise The Women's Organisation, will be available to lisen to on SoundCloud, along with a behind-the-scenes video on YouTube.

The initiative is the latest platform offering support to business hopefuls by The Women's Organisation, which has supported the ambitions and personal development of more than 55,000 women over the past 23 years.

It will examine the back-stories of many of the region's most successful female entrepreneurs, outlining the why, what, and how, of their successes so far.

The Wo-Down aims to inspire as many women as possible to take the leap of faith and realise their ambitions and their business and personal dreams.

Introducing the inaugural broadcast of The Wo-Down this Wednesday, Women's Organisation co-founder and chief executive Maggie O'Carroll will explain the importance of collaboration and role models as she shares some of her core business values with listeners.

The podcast will return every month, on each first Wednesday.

Among the region's top female role models already lined up to talk about their own personal journey on the path to commercial success are Ngunan Adamu, founder of iWoman Academy, Lizzie Doyle, producer of football fans' favourite The Anfield Wrap, Lisa Pearson, head of marketing at transport group Arriva North West and Wales, and Rebecca Keegan, editor of Good News Liverpool, the alternative news source that was established as an outlet for purely positive stories from around the Liverpool City Region.

They, and a host of other inspirational businesswomen, will be taking to the mic over the coming months to provide support and encouragement for listeners.

Maggie O’Carroll said: “Liverpool is a city built on the stories of so many pioneering, inspirational women and promoting these role models is a major part of what we do at The Women’s Organisation.

"The Wo-Down is the perfect platform for us to continue this legacy and make sure that as many people as possible hear these stories.

“We will be getting some familiar faces from across the city region to take to the microphones, as well as giving a new platform for the unsung heroes of the city and the next wave of roles models to have their voices heard."

She added: "We want to hear from women of all ages, backgrounds and industries who can bring a fresh narrative and wealth of experience, delving into business, politics, the arts, social work and social activities.”

The Wo-Down will be available to listen to from Wednesday, April 3, on Soundcloud, at https://soundcloud.com/thewodown and an accompanying behind-the-scenes video can be found on https://www.youtube.com/user/TheWomensOrg with new editions available on each first Wednesday of the month.