Podcast 16: Government grants, self-cleaning door handles and Hamlet

Listen to episode 16

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Show notes

News

• Government announces £35m fund to grow rural businesses
• 546 businesses have benefited from this scheme so far, totalling £99m and creating around 4,000 jobs
• The government is reducing the minimum grant you can apply for to £20,000
• Details are on the .gov website through the Rural Payments Agency section

Finance explained

• Small business grants: what's on offer and how to get it

Innovations

• James Dyson Award: Fish-scale plastic and self-disinfecting door handle could net award for top invention
• Twenty shortlisted international inventions have been put forward for the 2019 James Dyson Awards
• Sumo: A Swiss-made, biodegradable, reusable nappy made from antibacterial eucalyptus fibres and algae extracts
• 17 million nappies are disposed of across Europe everyday
• Gheko Tracks: A low cost tyre that can be clipped to wheelchair wheels to help wheelchair users navigate tricky terrains
• Peritone X: Device designed to facilitate at home kidney dialysis
• Cocoon (winner): Smart epileptic seizure protection and alert device that allows people to put it on when they experience the aura before a seizure, triggering alerts to carers if it lasts longer than 5 minutes
• Self sanitising door handle

Marketing explained

• The complete guide to creating customers with word of mouth
• Can you influence word of mouth marketing?
• Talk Triggers: How can you come up with ways to get people to talk about you
• Long term: how can you build it into your systems and processes
• Doctor Snip: Gives every patient who he gave a vasectomy a penknife with his name on it

Brilliant or bonkers?

“And thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought.”

— Hamlet

Modern translation – does overthinking inhibit action?