For those of you reading this, you may not know much about the individuals who make up the teams at Beyond. There are many of us, and while each of us has a voice here on the blog we don’t often bring what we do after hours onto this blog – and here I am to do just that thing.
Not only do I work at Beyond as Heal of Search but I am the volunteer coordinator for London Girl Geek Dinners, a blogger at Mostly About Chocolate and I am a part of the everywoman Modern Muse project as one of 100 founding Modern Muses (“Rebel With a Cause” section). Our goal as Modern Muses is to increase the number of woman-owned businesses by 100,000 in the next decade and to inspire one million women. Seems ambitious but really with 100 of us to start the project off it is eminently achievable. It is a Big Society Project. It has no public funding and no corporate sponsorship yet. It has been underwritten by the founding Muses and the project Patrons – it is personal for all of us.
My specialism may be search but in the past I started and ran my own giftware business. I chose to go to utilise my skills within businesses in London after handing the giftware business off to my husband. I truly believe anyone can start and succeed at their own business as long as they are willing to seek help, read up on how to do things correctly, research their vertical and understand their audience. Small steps and always remember that obstacles are temporary – I live by the motto that “this too shall pass” and so I try and remember not to get stuck in the minutiae.
Tonight I will gather with dozens of other powerful, influential women and we will start the push towards our goal. The women in the launch publication (available from www.modernmuse.co.uk) are just a snapshot of the hundreds of women who stepped forward to be involved. Many more will come on board when the website launches tonight. The 100 women therefore were chosen because individually they each had a great story to tell and collectively they represented the rich diversity of British business success. These founding Modern Muses come from different backgrounds, educational paths, industries and job roles. Their stories tell of many different journeys to success. They encompass a vast range in age, region, ethnicity and come from all walks of life.
… and one of those women was me. I was humbled by the offer and can only hope to live up to the challenge of being one of the 100 founding Modern Muses.