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intelligence


(Photo of Penny Power)

Name: Penny Power

Career: Founded Ecademy in 1998, building it into a network across 230 countries with more than half a million members.

Previous career was in the IT industry as a sales and marketing director. Author of online business networking guide Know me, like me, follow me.


"I think the new economy isn’t about finding a job, it’s about finding work that uses your skills from business"


Postscript: Penny Power

The digital grape vine | by Harriet Mellor

The inspiration for one entrepreneur’s social networking site was the business done after hours at the wine bar

IN THE FREE and fabulous world of gargantuan social networking sites, there is something of a backlash going on. A return to making business contacts through a smaller but trusted brand – with users willing to pay for the privilege.

Penny Power is the founder of Ecademy, which has deliberately cultivated a loyal scene to give her site its USP. “When I’m asked to compare, I always say LinkedIn is like the exhibition hall where you walk around with a tie on and pass around your business cards and Facebook is the nightclub where you go with friends. Ecademy is the local wine bar. In the old days that’s where business was done; you’d all pile in there on a Friday evening, chat and end up doing business. Except local now means global,” she explains.

KEEPING ACTIVE

Ecademy has all the facets of its big competitors, plus others that make it more intimate. There are different levels of membership, but users have access to Accelerated Business Development with professionals in private clubs, mentoring groups, exclusive events and one-to-one meetings. The offline network is just as important as the online, with members running 500 events every month.

Power also writes articles, has recently published an informative book titled Know Me, Like Me, Follow Me and consults with large brands which need help engaging with British audiences.

The site currently has half a million registered users across 230 countries. Apart from the loyal UK membership, America and Australasia are the fastestgrowing converts. These numbers might seem small, but when you consider the majority are paying a £5 monthly membership fee it is rather a nice earner. Of those registered, 300,000 are active members, with 41 per cent accessing the site every day and a further 38 per cent each week.

The site was set up after Power, 45, left a career in the IT industry. The penny dropped when she saw the isolation her husband Thomas went through after becoming self-employed. Bringing the idea to fruition gave the couple a home-based career with the flexibility to bring up their three children. “Working side by side as husband and wife has been great, we complement one another’s skills,” she says. “However, it’s not all been easy. We’ve had to endure massive financial stress and we’ve done it together which is very important. We still work from home, with no offices. We’re really living the life that our members are living and we know what they need and what their lives are like.”

BRAND VALUE

With this domestic work/life balance set-up you’d expect Ecademy’s members to be predominantly female start-ups. But surprisingly, it’s a very masculine membership. “Actually 70 per cent of our network are male,” explains Power. “ It is a white-collar professional network of people who in the old days before social networking would have joined the Chamber of Commerce.”

But why are they logging on? Is it to get a job? Power believes that we should network as a necessity for professional investment. “I think the new economy isn’t about finding a job, it’s about finding work that uses your skills from business,” she says. “Instead of looking for one employer you look for six people as clients, so you spread the risk. We have a responsibility to learn how to market ourselves and to become a brand in our own right – people might not want to employ you, but they might want you as a supplier.”