Beautiful books, a podcast punt and a Gherkin

When recording interviews for the My Business Leader Secret series for Business Leader I usually start by doing a 30min audio interview for the podcast. This is a chance to explore ideas with the guest and often something is said which I think is different and intriguing, which becomes the focus for the 90-sec video.

In my interview with this week's guest, Joanna Reynolds of the publisher The Folio Society Ltd , it didn't work out that way. She said plenty of interesting things in our podcast interview, but when it came to recording the video she surprised me by saying she had something else on her mind - her dyslexia and how it has informed her approach to leadership. When someone is passionate about an issue and can speak from the heart, this always makes for a great video. You can see the results here. I decided to let this video run a little longer than usual because it didn't feel right to cut it down.

The video performed very well on LinkedIn and you can also read more about Joanna and The Folio Society in this accompanying written feature I did.

Podcast experiments

Me and Graham Ruddick , Business Leader's editor-in-chief, have been plotting this idea for a while: a short video podcast at the end of our working week, recorded in the office, where our team discuss what we've learned. We're both adept at recording with our iPhones, so we thought we'd set up an 'as-live' 2-camera shoot. What could go wrong! Well have a look at this!

Of course we can laugh at ourselves! As we try new things we're learning all the time. But despite appearances, we are actually pretty good at this. You can watch our final 6-minute podcast here, which is pretty polished if I say so myself (from a video point of view at least!).

We're also using AI to clip the chats up into more social-media-friendly clips, like this one.

• If you want some inspiration for the weekend, a round-up up of the week's news in business plus some suggestions for thought-provoking reads, you can sign up to the Business Leader weekend email, one of our three weekly emails. Check out the options here.
• And a reminder too that the Business Leader summit is happening in March next year. Check out the speakers and find out about tickets here, you can still get early bird ones. Lots more great speakers to be announced soon.

Out and about

A lot of business and indeed business journalism is about being curious, enjoying meeting new people and networking. On that front, I went to two great events this week.

I've never been inside London't iconic Gherkin building before. But thanks to Joseph Valente and his Millionaire Mastermind events series, I can say I've been to the very tip! It was like being in a huge gazebo in the sky, with an amazing view of London. Here's the view at 9.15am from the 34th floor on my way up.

MilIionaire Mastermind attracts mainly people from the trades, who are ambitious to scale their businesses. In these sessions they hear influential speakers, network and also share knowledge to help and inspire each other. I was there to see Richard Harpin (who owns Business Leader) give a talk about his time building Homeserve. People listened carefully and wrote down lots of action points for their businesses, based on what they'd heard.

There was one moment that showed how powerful these events can be. A member stood up and first apologised that his English was not great (even though it was fine). He said it was a poignant and proud moment for him, because he remembered 14 years ago queuing around the corner to the same iconic building when he applied for his first National Insurance card on arriving in the UK (I think he was Polish). He now runs a successful small business installing boilers and he's ambitious to grow further. Of course his story was greeted with generous applause.

Award shows

Well I can now call myself an "award-judging journalist", maybe I should update my profile and bio? This autumn I was asked to judge two award competitions, representing Business Leader. On Thursday night it was the awards dinner for the Flexible Space Association at the Landmark Hotel. I've done lots of stories over the years on co-working spaces and related initiatives, so it's a sector I'm familiar with. I handed over one of the awards on stage and it was nice to play a small part in someone else's proud moment. You can see all the winners here.

I've realised something, having been to quite a few business award shows now. Although winning an award and being a finalist is of course very nice, the most important element that holds it all together is that teams go along and have a night of fun together. They work hard and deserve a night of celebration. It's a chance to dress up and enjoy a sense of occasion, like going to their Oscars! Awards are as much about internal team-building as external recognition within your industry.

In the know

Here's some things that I found of interest this week, which have come my way as a journalist.

• The West Midlands is to get up to £5m under the Government’s new Get Britain Working initiative which will focus on getting unemployed young people across the region into jobs. The nationwide initiative, which was announced by the Chancellor in the October budget, will see the West Midlands become one of 16 trailblazer regions sharing a slice of the £240 million being made available. More.
• Santander has released its Autumn Trade Barometer. It shows that 52% of UK businesses are now prioritising international markets as a key growth driver and 39% of non-exporting businesses are considering global expansion over the next three years. Full report.
• The House of Lords Built Environment Committee this week released its report, ‘High Streets: Life beyond retail?’ Here's a key finding: "The dominance of retail on high streets is something of the past. Whilst shopping will still be a key feature, there is greater demand and opportunity for restaurants and leisure activities, as well as for more public services, such as health centres and libraries, in town centres." This has been noted in several studies I've seen already, we all know experience-led 'shopping' is the new trend on high streets. In fact I have a story on this coming out soon, about an Emirates travel store. Full House of Lords report here.

Thanks for reading, if you want to get in touch about a story you can contact me at dougal.shaw@businessleader.co.uk. I've got lots of My Business Leader Secret interviews in the bank, so won't be setting up any new ones until the New Year now.