2011 - Winner Profile
Sponsored by
Student Innovator Winner Daniel Callan shares his thoughts on the competition:
How did I hear about it?
I first heard about the Professional Innovator Challenge through my college, they said “Danny I think you should enter this, you have a very good chance of winning!”. I left it a couple of days and then thought, what’s the worst that could happen! If anything I’m going to gain from this experience and could hopefully win!
 Stage 1 – The Application
When filling out the application I put a lot of effort in, if I was going to enter this competition I was ‘in it to win it!’ Part of the application asked 'how are you innovative?' I basically wrote down everything I’ve achieved so far with my business, I didnt want to miss anything off that list!
Stage 2 – Written Challenges
I found the written challenges difficult as I have dyslexia. It took me a lot longer to write the answer for the challenge because I didn’t want to give a bad impression with my grammar and spelling! When I was answering the questions I didn’t do any research on the topic I just wrote down the first two ideas that came to my head straight away, using my gut instinct. Rather then agreeing or disagreeing with a question I tried to answer the question a different way to show to the judges that I was thinking around the problem and coming up with hopefully a better solution than they expected!
Stage 3 – Panel Interview
When I received the email saying that I’d made it to the final 3 it was a big relief, writing was one of my weaknesses and I’d been worried about that. When I entered the room with the judges I was quite nervous, there were five of them and a video camera, but once I started to answer the questions I became more and more confident. My tip would be don’t let nerves get the better of you, once you start speaking you can’t stop! I got asked questions which I wasn’t prepared for, you do have to think quickly and come up with innovative ideas on the spot.
What I got out of it
Being a part of this competition really opened my eyes to what I can achieve in the future and it has really boosted my confidence about starting up in business. Before I won this competition I didn’t have much confidence when attending networking events but winning this competition has helped me enormously.
Winning this competition has helped a lot with my business because I have to be innovative to make my client’s website’s stand out from the rest, this could be from using different guerilla marketing techniques or coming up with other ideas what can make their brand standout. This Professional Innovator competition and the programme surrounding it has helped me become more innovative than I ever thought I could be before I entered it.
Icebox Designs
IceBoxDesigns is a Manchester Web Design agency specialising in fresh innovative ideas to make your website stand out!
IceBoxDesigns was created to offer profesinal but yet affordable web and graphic design and online marketing services to all different businesses in Manchester. We specialize in bespoke website design ,content management systems ,e-commerce and offer a wide range of business marketing strategies to help your businesses online. Our team is full of individuals who are very motivated and determined to make a difference to your brand and create an overwhelming professional service what makes your business stand out from the rest of the crowd! check them out www.iceboxdesigns.co.uk
| 
