Jess Stephens, Managing Director at TagPoints blew away the judges to win the Silicon Beach Training Startup Competition in Brighton, Tues 22nd April 2014.

Director Jess Stephens and Business Development Executive Josh Wallman celebrate

Competing against two other strong finalists in Sweta Chattopadhyay (Localfunded) and Jenni Macdonald (Precision Paraplanning), Jess gave a strong presentation highlighting the potential for TagPoints to grow which clearly impressed our judging panel; Darren Fell (Crunch), Caraline Brown (Midnight PR), Lisa Reynolds (Let Me Do That For You) & Mike Herd (Sussex Innovation Centre).

The judges were "blown away by the capability of the business and how fast it could scale" and while impressed by the other finalists, TagPoints were the clear winner on the day.

TagPoints now has the support of sponsors Silicon Beach Training, Crunch Accounting, Midnight PR and Clear Business Development to help grow the business and realise their ambitious plans.

At some point during a career in training you'll have to train somebody for whom English isn't a first language. In this situation, it can be difficult to stick to your established learning methods and activities.

On our 2-day Train the Trainer course, we explain in detail how to cater for different levels and learning styles, and teaching non-native English speakers comes under a similar bracket.

With all that in mind, we decided to put together a guide to help you deal with this challenge. So what's the first you can do to make things easier for you and your delegates?

Limit the Jargon

For someone who has just learnt, is still learning, or who rarely speaks English, technical jargon can be a bit of a stumbling block. Words that have little meaning without deep context can be confusing to native speakers, let alone those with English as a second language.

At some point during a career in training you'll have to train somebody for whom English isn't a first language. In this situation, it can be difficult to stick to your established learning methods and activities.

On our 2-day Train the Trainer course, we explain in detail how to cater for different levels and learning styles, and teaching non-native English speakers comes under a similar bracket.

With all that in mind, we decided to put together a guide to help you deal with this challenge. So what's the first you can do to make things easier for you and your delegates?

Limit the Jargon

For someone who has just learnt, is still learning, or who rarely speaks English, technical jargon can be a bit of a stumbling block. Words that have little meaning without deep context can be confusing to native speakers, let alone those with English as a second language.

We often receive the same question about our PRINCE2® Training Courses here at Silicon Beach: "what's the difference between the PRINCE2 Foundation and the PRINCE2 Practitioner qualification?"

With that in mind, we thought we'd put together a handy table outlining the main differences, as well as our thoughts on which people and positions that are best suited to each course.

Hopefully, it will make your decision that little bit easier when booking your PRINCE2 Training, although if you're still struggling to decide, our sales team are always on hand to help!

So what are the main differences?

How to Comply with UK Health and Safety Legislation

Sending staff on accredited Health and Safety courses provide a wide range of benefits including reductions in insurance costs, increased productivity and profitability and an enhanced reputation for your organisation.

In addition - all businesses should take some simple steps to ensure you are compliant with HSE (health and safety executive) regulations.

To be fully compliant in terms of training - we'd recommend sending managers on an accredited course - the IOSH Managing Safely Course is available with us.

However here are our 10 Health and Safety tips to ensure that your organisation is compliant in the eyes of the HSE

Top 10 Health & Safety Tips

How to Comply with HSE Health and Safety Regulations

1. Conduct a Risk Assessment for your workplace and document it - you need to think about what could cause harm, and what precautions you will take to prevent it.
2. Any business with employees (so everyone except one-man-bands!) needs to take out Employers Liability Compulsory Insurance - you should display a copy of the certificate somewhere in your office.
3. Write down how Health and Safety is managed in your business in the form of a Health and Safety Policy (this is compulsory if you employ more than 5 people)
4. You need to have a person or people available in your organisation to provide Health and Safety advice to employees so that they can meet their responsibilities. This could be someone within your business who has received training, or an external consultant.
5. You should frequently consult employees on health and safety to ensure that they understand any responsibilities that they have and are happy with the measures you have in place.
6. Provide Health and Safety training for employees so that they are aware of the hazards and risks in the workplace and are equipped to manage them. The IOSH Managing Safely training course is a useful programme for all line managers to attend as it leads to a recognised health and safety qualification.
7. Provide basic health, safety and welfare needs for all employees. This includes access to toilets, washing facilities and drinking water. These facilities must be suitable for any employees with disabilities.
8. Provide Health and Safety Law information for employees to reference. This should take the form of a poster or leaflet displayed publicly in your workplace.
9. By law, there are some work related accidents and diseases that you must report if they occur. More details on these can be found on the HSE website
10. All businesses that deal with hazardous substances (e.g. explosives, asbestos etc...) or operate in an inherently hazardous industry (like construction) must register with the HSE

Hopefully your business already does all of the above.

If not, and you need some Health and Safety training or advice - please feel free to call us on 01273 622272 or e-mail info@siliconbeachtraining.co.uk

Much has been said about the usefulness of Social Media within Project Management, but a topic that as yet seems to have been left untouched is how Project Management can help in Social Media Marketing campaigns.

Many of the principles and techniques that we teach in our Project Management Training, as well as on our PRINCE2 Course, can be applied to Social Marketing campaigns in order to improve their effectiveness and efficiency.

In this post we'll be taking a look at some and how they should be enacted.

Initiating a Project

The 'Initiating a Project' stage of PRINCE2 can certainly be applied to a Social Media campaign. This process effectively outlines the reasons for and initial format of a project.

With regard to a Social Media campaign, it would require an understanding of the goals you hope to achieve by engaging on this platform.

It would also set out the preliminary ideas as to how to go about enacting this, both from a strategic point of view (what sort of things will you post, who are you targeting) and from a logistical perspective (which networks will you use and how much.)

There are many techniques used to provide good customer service. Our blog writer John A G Smith is a fountain of knowledge and using his experience tells us about just one of these. if you want to learn more enquire about one of our private customer service courses.

No problem. When you stay in ‘Business Hotels’ this is a familiar scenario. Each morning, in a very short time span, a hundred business people arise from a hundred (or maybe fewer) beds and head for the showers. The hot-water storage tank gives up its contents in short order and those at the back of queue, or the top of the building, go cold. But good hotels, understanding this high demand, will have boilers that can cope so within a few minutes a heater with the power of a small thermonuclear device will restore the status quo and my day’s business will be back on track.......

There are many techniques used to provide good customer service. Our blog writer John A G Smith is a fountain of knowledge and using his experience tells us about just one of these. if you want to learn more enquire about one of our private customer service courses.

No problem. When you stay in ‘Business Hotels’ this is a familiar scenario. Each morning, in a very short time span, a hundred business people arise from a hundred (or maybe fewer) beds and head for the showers. The hot-water storage tank gives up its contents in short order and those at the back of queue, or the top of the building, go cold. But good hotels, understanding this high demand, will have boilers that can cope so within a few minutes a heater with the power of a small thermonuclear device will restore the status quo and my day’s business will be back on track.......