This is the business village people podcast. Hello, I'm David Markwell and welcome to the latest edition of the business village people podcast. If you've missed any of our other five episodes, all you have to do is to search for us on Apple podcasts or Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts from.

Just type in business village people and we should just pop up from there. Just press play. And if you like what you hear. Press subscribe, and you'll never miss another episode. This podcast is about the people, the businesses, and the services available at the business village here in Barnsley, South Yorkshire.

And our aim is to be informative, entertaining, showcase success, and promote collaboration. Have you got it? Okay, let's go In this episode of business village people. Many businesses are getting very excited about AI but how is your company with IP?. We chat to one of the country's leading Barristers about her role in IP and there's also details of how you can get free advice regarding intellectual property.

Plus, we chat to the village's senior administrator, Laura Morrison, discover how fireman Sam Pingu and Billy Bear helped her career. That's all still to come.

This is the business village people podcast. Now, as we all know, COVID had devastating effects on the business community. And how it operated. Events had to be canceled and many of them never reappeared. But that's changing here at the Business Village. Here's Kevin Steele. We've always held events at the Business Village.

I suppose the, the real crystal list for everything happening. The catalyst for this was that the pandemic really put a spanner in the works, our networking events. We used to have a First Friday club where people came along and gave us 35, 40 minutes of their time, and we put baked sandwiches on cups of coffee.

The pandemic happened and people fell out of a habit of getting into networking and events. There has been an appetite, I have to say, over the last year, perhaps for that to come back, but there is still a bit of resistance. Events, we do lots of them. If you look at the website, you'll see the full events page, but it struck me the other week that we should really look at getting back to tenant networking.

So from September, we're having a regular tenant meetup. That's all I've called it. Very, very simple, very straightforward. No speaker. Just come along and meet your neighbors is how I've badged it. I'll put some buns on, some coffee and cake. We're going to try different times. We're going to try different mornings, different days.

You don't need to register, but if you do want to give us an idea of how many people might want to come along. And it's all about collaboration. Doing business with your next door neighbor. We've got accountants, we've got aromatherapists, we've got... We've got copywriters, we've got photographers, all these people do work together, invariably I don't find out about it, so it'd be really good to see what is actually happening underneath the surface.

The business village has got five buildings across two sites. How difficult is it to keep it all in a oneness? Yeah, being located across five buildings does give us a bit of a problem. It's not like the DMC per se in Barsey where there's a central area where people can collect. We don't see everybody coming into the office, so it is hard to keep.

track of where people are and how often they're on site, especially at Cuddath as well. Uh, you know, we've got 15 businesses at Cuddath who, we do feel a little bit left out sometimes, so we need to encourage them to come along, participate in any event that we've got going on. But you're right, David, getting hold of people, dragging them through the doors, enticing them with a bun is probably the best incentive, is all I can think of.

Free snap, it always works. Free butties. Yeah, how important to business are events like this? I think they're vital. Again, pandemic put a spanner in the works, but people have lost that skill set, I think, of, uh, speaking face to face. Actually shaking hands and pressing the flesh, uh, and seeing actually what is going on in people's own minds.

And the one way of doing that is by networking. And what kind of things have happened in the past? People tend to forget who they know or what, what, what other people offer on site. So it, it's good to do a bit of a balance and a check and ask those questions. What do you do then? As I said, there's a huge variety and diversity of businesses on site.

Everybody can take advantage of a service that tenant businesses offer. I've got no doubt at all. It would just be nice to see that happening formally perhaps. So when's the first one? 19th of September. 19th of September in the afternoon. Yep, from two o'clock until three. I've got four more linked in as well.

So there's one also on the 18th of October, and that's in the morning. We're going to see what the flavour is and the morning or afternoon. There's one on the 16th of November, which happens to be my birthday. So I'll make sure. Yeah, thank you very much. 16th of December. 16th of November. January. Yeah, thank you.

November. And then also, and then on the 20th of December, and we'll put a Christmas theme on for that one. We did do a Christmas fair as well, just before pandemic. As I said, we've got lots of retail and online retailers, people with gifts for Christmas. If there's an appetite for that, I'm more than happy to look at reintroducing that.

That's good, isn't it? Show and tell. Yeah. Like, yeah, yeah. Like

going back to podcast now. What things have happened at the village? I think awareness has been a great thing. I mean, we've, we've, we've pushed this out everywhere we possibly can. I'm loving the podcast. We've had staff taking part. We've had tenants taking part who've really found out a little bit more about what we do.

They're into trading with each other. I know that Gmix has really enjoyed it. I know that you enjoyed that as well. That sketch up at Canon all went really, really well. Yeah. And getting a visual event over on an audible. Soundtrack sounded really, really good. I love the way that that happened. And he's opening people's eyes and ears, literally, to what goes on.

I've absolutely loved it because you see people and you meet people in a different perspective. Because I just see business people or staff, but then when you sit down with them, they're one to one and chat. you discover so much. I think there's lots of things happening as well locally. I mean, you, you and Caroline from clear digital understanding that you both went to the same college together and did similar things and scratching the surface and finding all these little things that are happening personally adds a whole new bit of credibility to what we do.

And it's all about building that business village environment that we're keen to keep going without giving too much away. There's another connection to that theater. Laura went to the same place as well. Okay. Okay. Eh? Small world. One born every minute. What are you trying to say? And, uh, Laura, who's business administrator is that her title?

Yeah, I've seen her administrator downstairs in reception. Without getting far too much away, she has got a bit of a show business background, and she ended up being working in a holiday camp. Yeah, Redcoat wasn't she? Yes, and... Oh, have I given too much away there? Just a bit, but don't worry about it. Don't worry, I can edit it.

But did you know that she's been inside Fireman Sam, as well as Pingu, and of course, Billy Bear. Fantastic. Fantastic. There's lots of Showbiz elements. I mean, Steve, uh, Steve Bates, the other, the last episode, Showbiz background. Yeah. Anything Showbiz, I love, because my, uh, one of my kids is into show business, so he's currently on a ship in the middle of...

The North Sea, I'm moving to the Med next month, so he sings and dances for a living, so there's another interesting element there. It's always nice to hear about people's hobbies. It's the backstories, isn't it? And maybe watch, when, when Steve was on, A Touch of Frost. Yeah. David Jason, I went and found the episode, and I saw it.

And you discover so much stuff, because there he is, dead, I think. On all these black bin liners, filled with chicken giblets.

Disgusting. There's Del Boy at the side of him, saying, Right, come on then, get out of the way. It brings a whole new meaning to the word co opsing, doesn't it? It does indeed. Kevin, how can people get in contact with you if they want to attend the event, or if they want to find out more about the business village?

They can do several things. They can pop into reception and ask for my mobile number. My mobile number's on the website. I'm always in the management suite, I'm walking around site, look me up at Steely Bob's on X or whatever it's called now. Website, email address, hello at barnsleybick. co. uk will reach me, or ksteel at barnsleybick.

co. uk. That's Steele with no E on the end. Kevin Steele, thank you for your time. Thank you, David. Never miss an episode of the Business Village People podcast. Simply subscribe and follow from wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. Now then, did you know that being a tenant at the Business Village gives you access to an innovation and branding clinic?

It's a free 30 minute consultation with intellectual talent. Property Barrister Jane Lambert, of course, along with Jay recently, and asked her the very basic of questions, what is ip? Intellectual property is the collective name for a bundle of legal rights, which protect investment. In intellectual assets, and intellectual assets are the things that give a business a competitive advantage over its competitors.

And they're b