Cut for the disinterested:


So, I decided to take the plunge, and I've registered a few domains for the business concepts. I'm halfway through the huge quantity of paperwork required to tie them all in together as a limited company.

As it stands, the structure seems to work as follows:

Ohm Group Ltd - the umbrella limited company, with the following divisions:

1) Ohm Electrical Safety (does what it says on the tin!)
2) Ohm Communications (Conversation recording & CTI)
3) Ohm Management (The consulting bit)
4) Ohm Publishing (Where the book stuff already lives!)
5) Ohm Innovation (The quiet little brother in the background which I'm going to use to develop the mad invention!)

What I really need is a brand design that's going to tie all of these together, and make them obviously part of the same project. I figured that the simplest way to do this was to keep all the stationery and similar gubbins in the same colours and fonts, but the other key element is a single logo.

I picked Ohm as a name for the following reasons:

1) The publishing house is already called Ohm, and is already registered with the British Library and Nielsen, which would be a ballache to change.

2) Ohm has 2 meanings - it's the symbol/unit in electronics by which you measure resistance (which is instantly recognisable, if only because it's also the greek 'omega' letter). This makes it suitable for the first 2 divisions. The second meaning is it's use as a 'sacred sound' in hinduism. A sacred sound is a mantra people repeat in meditation to exact a change of mindset. The idea in this case is that divisions 3 and 5 offer tools to provide a change in practice and mindset. The publishing side covers both - the titles are either about electronics or changing practices.

So far, so good. Except I'm crap at drawing, and worse at design ideas.

So, I figured the best way to harness the power of the skills my mates have is to run a competition. You know the concepts, so why not design a logo?

The winner gets bragging rights, the chance to have their design used for real, and a surprise pressie dependent on who the winner is (i.e. I'm not going to send a bottle of wine to a teetotaller, or some perfume to a bloke!)

If you want to enter, then draw your idea and email it to me at charley underscore downey at hotmail dot co dot uk by Christmas.

I'll then put all the entries on Flickr, send people the link, and Andy and I will pick a winner and email all the entrants (as well as show off the winning design on here).

Any takers?

Sod it.

I'm doing it.

If I don't have a pop now, I'll find myself sitting in a chair 20 years hence, watching Eastenders and wondering what the f*ck happened.

I'm going to finish up my contract, form an umbrella limited company with my more relaxed other half, take on the conversation recorder division from my boss, help Andy set up the electrical safety business, work what after this afternoon became 6 days a month - 4 for my soon to be ex-company as a consultant, and 2 days directly for my soon to be ex-boss as a consultant on a very cool (but currently must be secret) project.

I'm then going to flex my address book fu and network like the corporate whore I can't help being, and try to convince other companies they need me to kill their overheads.

While all this is going on, I'm going to bug the crap out of some of my business associates for access to their associates, and generally bust my ass in the persuit of a government R&D grant for my crazy little invention.

Oh yes, and I'm going to finish my second book (for charity), and hopefully whore out some articles on the back of it. I may even keep my promise and do a little bit of volunteer mentoring for young lasses on the Prince's Trust Youth Business programme.

Yes, It's going to be busy. Yes, it's going to be mad. Yes, it's going to be economically uncertain. But I'm going to love every lunatic, back-of-a-fag-packet, pants-on-head-bonkers minute of it.

And if I haven't got a halfway decent living out of it in 7 months time, when my existing consultancy work dries up, then I'll go back to reality and sell engineering or pharmaceuticals again.

It may end in glory, it may end in corporate 9-to-5 mundanery again, but my boss was right today in the car. I'm an entrepreneur, and no amount of pretending it's a dirty work is going to change my personality or my skill-set. If I'm not on my toes, I lose my patience.

I'm going out (of my mind?). I may be some time.

Well...the last couple of weeks have been an insane blur of general confusion.

I'm going to cut-tag what could be a long and complex post, but if you have 10 minutes, I would appreciate your input.

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OK...Alice Cooper is playing Sheffield on the last Saturday in November, and Nottingham on 4th December.

Who wants to come?

I WILL be booking tickets on Sunday as I want to go come hell or high water, so if you want in on this, let me know soon.

Well, the letter hit the mat this morning.

I'm a war pensioner.

It feels a bit odd, having convinced myself I was going to get a rejection letter.

So, the good stuff is.....

I'm now allowed to see a chiropractor privately.
I'm being given some money to pay for this.
I can cancel my prescription direct debit, as I have a veteran's exemption certificate for any prescription that's connected with my disability (which is all of them)
I'm getting the house insulated, and it's going to be free as it's considered that a warm house is an important part of keeping me mobile.

I've been given an interim assessment, which means that they think I'm not too bad now, but may get worse in the future, which sounds about right. This means that if/when it does get worse, I can contact them and ask for a re-assessment, and they will adjust things accordingly.

This is all good and important stuff, but I just need to deal with the stuff in my head about being disabled and a pensioner aged 31. I know that nothing's changed about who I am, but it just feels a little odd.

Well, my piece turned up in the newspaper today, which was OK, if a little bit scewed by an interviewer who clearly finds aeroplanes more interesting than economics (there's a shock!)

The podcast went out, too. There are a couple of cringeworthy moments, but it's otherwise OK.

http://video.jpress.co.uk/editorial/YPOS/soundbite-oct13c.mp3

BTW, does anyone know how to download and save a podcast to a computer, rather than just stream it. I'd kind of like to keep a copy, but I've tried following the directions on the website, and I can't seem to get an option that says 'save target as' when I right-click - am I being a luddite again?

It happened.

It was actually quite good, I think.

Around 20-ish people turned up, so not embarrassing.

I forgot my notes and made my speech up. I don't think I rambled or said 'erm' too much. I think what I actually siad might have been a little better than reading my notes. It's hard to be objective about these things.

I didn't take any of my meds to facilitate having a couple of drinks, and so this morning has been painful - it took me half an hour to stretch out to the point where I could get out of bed, but it was worth it, and I still made it to work on time.

What truly made the evening was the efforts a lot of people went to in order to be there. The wonderful Mr Southern booked time off work and drove up from Nottingham, my sister came all the way over from Manchester on the train, straight from work having dropped her son off with my other sister.

Extreme behaviour of the night had to come from Migget and Ruth though - who turned up as a surprise, having driven up from London to be there. I had to pick my chin up off the floor when they walked in! A couple of glasses of wine in the ever-pleasant Whitelocks in Leeds ensued, and I think a good evening was had by all.

Thanks to everyone who came, send good luck messages, and who were just generally supportive. I'll let you all know when the podcast goes out.

You may or may not know that I have a book signing for my book at Waterstones in Leeds on 8th October (next Thursday).

It starts between 6 and 6.30pm, at:

Waterstones
93-97 Albion St
Leeds, LS1 5AP

You'll be very welcome to pop by, bring a friend or two if you like, and join me for a drink afterwards as well if you'd like.

I appreciate that this is probably too far to come for a few of you, but the offer's there! If you'd like to come, please let me know so I can give Waterstones a rough idea of numbers (it's free of course).

The book's website is here: www.rejectrecession.co.uk to find out a bit more.
Anyway, hope you're all well.

In the traditionally accepted style....

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It's sorted.

My book has finally made it through the several thousands steps of beaurocratic nonsense that make up Waterstone's administrative system.

This means that the book can now be ordered at every branch of Waterstones, certainly in the UK, and probably worldwide.

This also means that, on 8th October, I will be signing copies at Waterstones Leeds. This is either going to be embarrassing, fun or completely petrifying, depending on how many people turn up.

If any of you Yorkshire based folk want to come, let me know, so I have an idea of numbers. Otherwise, photos shall be taken for the purpose of pointing and laughing later.