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Chapter 19
Mark Sinclair, James Kirk, and Paul Stanley
Graeme Codrington, the futurologist from Tomorrow Today introduced me to Your Business Channel, this fundamentally changed our business.
Mark could see that we had access to an extraordinary group of “Brilliant Minds” and we decided to collaborate and produce a big library of editorial clips of HTL’s top speakers and experts. This meant we were able to reach more clients and contacts, more often, it was transformational. No one was doing this in 2014 as many speakers had no digital content and were reluctant to share any of their intellectual property online.
So much so that by 2019, we had over 1250 video clips from a range of Brilliant Minds. Paul Stanley drew our attention to this incredible data set that we had “accidentally” captured primarily because Mark and James insisted on producing transcripts of the interviews that we did – this was the lawyers in them! Paul Stanley on our behalf conducted a study which is quite high brow taken from 86 interviews that contained relevant narrative content about leadership and performance. I will always hold a debt of gratitude to Mark Sinclair and James Kirk for unlocking what they did from the transcripts.
By Harvey Thorneycroft
Chapter 19: Mark Sinclair, James Kirk and Paul Stanley
On the 5th June, we ran our summer showcase at the Emirates Stadium, and the event was kicked off by Graeme Codrington, who, like Professor Ian Goldin, was a specialist on global trends and was one of the first futurologists that we had worked with in his capacity as a director of Tomorrow Today.
This South African was a heavy weight and had been operating in the speaker world for over 20 years and was a published author and expert on the future of work. He gave me a recommendation which fundamentally changed our business. His email was on 4th July 2014, shortly after the showcase, and he explained and I quote, ‘there’s nothing in this for me, and no obligation on your part, but I really do think it would be well worth you and Mark Sinclair of yBC (yourbusinesschannel) meeting to chat about video and digital engagement. You’ve probably already got your own agency or inhouse assistance with both video and digital channels, but I still think you’ll be impressed with Mark and his team’s approach.’ Tomorrow Today has been involved in some of their digital channels for a few years and was working with them on their digital engagement strategy, including his websites and videos. He confirmed that their approach was different from that of other people they had seen in this space. Up until this point, we had no digital engagement strategy and, if I was being honest, were not planning on doing anything other than a website. This was indeed a very timely intervention; the business was in great shape but was highly reliant on me bringing in opportunities and looking back these were acquired in the most archaic way i.e. face to face meetings with senior business leaders that would very often be in London and would take an inordinate amount of time to acquire. I was knackered, had young children, was staring down the barrel of 10 years of school fees and needed a break.
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