VentureNavigator offer free and impartial business advice, allowing you to test your business idea and get some constructive criticism.  The service is funded by the UK Government and more info can be found on their website: www.venturenavigator.co.uk

If you work on various projects or collaborate often then bubbl.us might be right down your street.  This free on-line application allows you to create mind maps, brain storm and collaborate with others very simply.  Once done, you can save your work, embed to external websites or convert your work to an image – handy!

With job losses affected 1 in 3 and unemployment reaching near to 2.4 million (source: BBC) it is vital for small businesses to keep track of their accounts and credit, to avoid being stung by bad debts.  Cash flow has always been paramount to business survival and none more so than now… and without that cash you might has well of not got the job, or even worse you paid out non-recoverable expenses.  If you are having problems or want to just make sure your doing all you can then you can get the free Business Link guide here (PDF).

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I have now opted to include my photo, as the addition of the Facebook connect will likely display it in more places than ever.

Office suite

Writing letters, proposals and doing your books (yawn) may be your most typical activities, and are all covered by the excellent OpenOffice.org. What about compatibility with clients and other machines with Microsoft Office? Fear not, the Writer program for example allows you to save it a variety of formats including its native ODF Text Document (*.odt), but also as Microsoft Word 97/2000/XP (*.doc).

Visit www.openoffice.org

PDF Creation

Looking to create PDF’s from your office documents? Bullzip.com offer a free and easy to use PDF print driver.

Visit www.bullzip.com

Email

Mozilla offer Thunderbird as their full featured email client, which I have been using for a few years now and have found to be excellent.

Visit www.mozilla.com/thunderbird/

Calendar

Mozilla Sunbird offers a full-featured calendar application.

Visit www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/sunbird/

Graphics

GIMP (or GNU Image Manipulation Program) offers a great and free option for editing photos, working on your image files or creating artwork.

Visit www.gimp.org

Looking for a program to handle your Vector images? Inkscape is just the thing, utilising the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format.

Visit www.inkscape.org

Anti-virus

AVG offer both a Free and Premium anti-virus suite, with a comparison page to weigh up the features included in each.  The free version is still a very powerful tool and an alternative Firewall can be included free as shown below.

Visit free.avg.com

Firewall

Comodo offer a full suite, but of particular interest is the powerful Firewall application.  Easy to use and install, it offers protection and provides intuitive prompts to security questions, helping you to stay protected.

Visit www.personalfirewall.comodo.com

Many have taken the poor economic climate and job losses as a motivator to start that business they always planned in the back of their mind, perhaps while day dreaming at their desk or doodling on a beer mat.

Arguably smaller more versatile companies are better positioned to apply short term strategies to ride the downturn, whereas larger companies can become hard to manage effectively and can creak under the strain.  Others lose their way such as Woolworths, creating other sizable knock-on casualties.  To make things more positive than the doom and gloom of the moment, being your own boss is liberating and can allow you the creative freedom to bring your ideas to the market.  Flexible hours are mentioned in books, though in reality it may often be that when the work needs doing – you do it, but if it’s for your own development it often seems easier.

In a sole trader, partnership or small company, the business and management skills of the owner will be the key asset of the enterprise.  The jump is from being a skilled person providing a product or service, to combining that with being a salesman, strategist, bookkeeper and project manager.  The buzz and pride from all elements coming together makes up for any amount of hard work that you may need to invest.  You may find you have many hidden qualities, which previous employment left undiscovered, but fear not as there is help at hand.

Business Link should definitely be on your list of people to contact and can provide much support and knowledge.  The service is free of charge and they can help with all areas of startups, with a wealth of resources on their website.  If your thinking of starting up then why not take a look at this page with checklists, common problems and mistakes and information of your business plan:

http://tinyurl.com/d5kuhd

A final thought is that while business is complex, certain idioms appear time and time again, such as “don’t put all your eggs in one basket” and in moments of wild enthusiam, just make sure you take a step back and think opportunities through.  If you are starting out with your own venture then we wish you the best of luck and it goes without saying, are here for all your websites requirements.

“Kent’s largest business exhibition and conference enters its fourth year. Last year there were a record number of exhibitors (over 350) and 3,700 attendees.” Kent2020.co.uk

Kent 2020 Vision offers a great opportunity for Kent’s small businesses to network, get advice and get tips on surviving tougher economic times. The event is held at the Kent Showground (Detling) on 2nd April 2009, with a pre-conference to get your networking skills polished on 23rd March (Maidstone).

Registration is free and can be done via www.kent2020.co.uk and for those of you who like coffee – unlimited all day. We will be there all day, so if you know and spot us then come say hi.