When I think back to my school and student days, the quality of careers information was sadly lacking compared to what is around today. Last week, I had the pleasure of compering an event at Hartlepool College which was simply inspiring.

A full lecture theatre contained students who were looking for advice in setting up their own businesses using Information Communication Technology (ICT). They heard gripping presentations from three very different businesses with local roots, and they heard a lot too about the human side of the story.

The session kicked off with Neil Boreland and Andrew Nixon of Hartlepool-based E-merce Services. They told us that their business idea started with a "Friday night Yates's moment", which certainly struck a chord with a student audience! Both men had worked in other careers and found that long spells on contracts abroad were necessary to pay the bills. With young children, they found this a real pain, and decided to use their skills to found their own firm in 1999. From their own Hartlepool premises, they now service over 3,000 regular customers in over 30 (yes, thirty!) countries. They've already won awards and are making fantastic progress. Find out more on www.e-merce.co.uk

We then heard from Alastair Waite, Managing Director of Onyx Internet. Rather than an ICT background, he came into the business from accountancy. Last week, he succeeded in changing the traditional image of that profession by being inspiring, knowledgeable and funny in turn. His very direct account of real business life was an eye-opener to the audience and sparked much ambition too. There's more on www.onyx.net

The final session was led by Neville Suggitt and Ken Groves, based on Huntsman Tioxide's local site. They were faced with a "simple" problem of trying to provide organised access to literally thousands of technical drawings and plans. Neville told a very good story of how Monday morning would often start with a broken door and a near-burglary scene caused by someone desperately trying to find documents over a weekend. Their solution struck me as being quite brilliant with the result that every worker on site can now access any document or design plan at any time. As they pointed out, wouldn't it be great if every doctor's surgery could run the same way, instead of the frequent mountain of scruffy brown envelopes?

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In a busy week, I was delighted to spend an evening at Darlington Civic Theatre to see Michael Frayn's classic farce Noises Off. I particularly wanted to be there because a good friend, Tilly Gaunt, was in the cast as the madcap Brooke Ashton. She comes from a fine theatrical family (you will know of her Dad William), and, like the rest of the cast, she was clearly having a whale of time. After the show it was interesting to hear many of the cast saying how much they enjoyed being in our part of the world: fine actors, and people of taste too!

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Last Thursday night I was saying a few words at a dinner at the Royal Commonwealth Club, just off Trafalgar Square. It was eerie when I emerged into the night, because the traffic had gone! It transpired that the police had had to close the Square because of a small band of anti-war demonstrators. In serious times, though, one of the police officers gave me the smile of the week.

It was eerily quiet and he wondered if they knew how to chant and demonstrate. "I've been to loads of these" the PC told me "and I was thinking of giving them a bit of advice." Now that would have been a story.

Published: 26/03/2003