It was a great start to the Leicester Creative Coffee Club at the Graduate Bar of De Montfort University. I'd invited my colleagues Maxine Aldred and Karl Craig-West from the Federation of Small Businesses along and we had a great chat with Sue Thomas, Shani Lee and Toby Moores as to how we could engage the Small Business Community in Leicester into both the Creative Coffee Club but also the great events/activities run by the Institute of Creative Technologies (IOCT). It was really interesting to bring people from different viewpoints together to discuss how we could work together for mutual benefit. I feel really excited about being involved and the people involved have got such energy, passion and enthusiasm. My view is that Small Businesses need to be actively involved at looking at new ideas and finding where the innovation will come from. We know that Universities are potentially a great source for new thinking but bridging the divide between academics and business people can be tricky. What I like about Sue's approach is that she's very open to the thoughts of business people and how the resources at her disposal might be used for doing better business. Plans are afoot to run a first event which will be a hands-on workshop on Facebook for Small Businesses, so stay tuned!