Press coverage - Yorkshire Post
Former pop star finds novel way to raise children's expectations
There's no attitude, no bling and the only hint of a showbiz lifestyle is a shirt with brighter stripes than you would expect from a typical Yorkshire businessman.
But you can tell quickly that Andy Pickles has had another life in the pop music industry: the remarkably fluent way he talks about himself, his career and firm shows he has spent half a lifetime dealing with interviewers.
The former Jive Bunny & The Mastermixers star admits he has fielded a lot of questions from journalists over the years – but he isn't here to talk about chart-topping tunes such as That's What I Like or Let's Party. Instead, he is going to tell us more about u-xplore, the educational software company of which he is chief executive.
The 39-year-old hopes that its product, u-xplore interactive, currently on offer to more than 70,000 students in secondary schools in Doncaster, Sheffield and Rotherham, will transform the way children look at the world of work.
Whether the teenagers want to become chefs, engineers or lawyers, the programme will allow them to see and hear how people in those careers got there and what the job involves. The list of jobs profiled is expanding, and Andy is still looking for more to add, although he's looking for occupations which are more accessible than that of a popstar.
His Rotherham firm is an offshoot from the Music Factory Entertainment Group, which in 1983 was developed from the Music Factory studio which went on to spawn Jive Bunny, a dancing animated rabbit.
Andy became deputy chairman of the group, with his father as chair. In 2004, u-xplore was set up and earlier this month it broke free of its parent firm with the backing of a new investor.
Despite the recent major change to the business, while raising three children with his wife, Lissa, Andy still has just enough time to pursue his other musical interest – as one half of The Tidy Boys, a hard house act which has played at top clubs in London, Ibiza, Hong Kong and the US.
But this will remain merely a sideline – albeit one of globe-trotting glamour – as Andy's software has become his passion. It has been signed up by The Royal Society of Chemistry, Rotherham and Doncaster's Borough Councils, Sheffield and Hull's City Councils as well as by local authorities in Sunderland and Ayrshire.
And he has plans to expand further. On the day we met, Andy was about to go to London to negotiate with Pearson Education, the world's largest education publisher, and is going to begin selling u-xplore software to the Middle East.
"What started in Rotherham is going to Bahrain," Andy said. "From the back streets of Parkgate we have done well. When we started doing Jive Bunny, people said it would never work, and when we went into education, our bank said, 'What are you doing'?"
One vital early encounter set Andy on the project that would become u-xplore, however. At Dinnington Comprehensive, he asked the pupils what they wanted to do in their careers and got talking to a pupil, Laura, and told her what he did for a living. As she got an insight into his world, she convinced him that he was on the right track.
He began to do a series of pitches to local authorities and at the start of each meeting he got the "awkward part" out of the way by telling council members and officers about his previous career in pop music.
But Andy believes that what might have embarrassed some people actually helped him – he had been a success in one industry and knew how to make it in another.
"At the end of the day, it was an enterprise job. It is a legacy and I have never shied away from that. My profile gave me a huge advantage (in business]. I knew how to engage people and we need to make education equally as engaging.
"Entertainment was, in a lot of ways, easier to sell. Kids aspire to be pop stars. But for me it was a good way in (to education].
"I have sold 10 million records and been around the world. But I am more excited about what I am doing now."
He said he learnt how to do pitches to local authorities as well as reading up on the contents of the National Curriculum, giving him the credibility he needed to persuade councils that his project was worthwhile.
"When you are accessing public money, it has to be accountable," he said. "And with local authorities, there are lots of layers to get through."
The business developed as Andy won more contracts from local authorities. And in January this year he even earned a recommendation from the Earl of Wessex, after he visited u-xplore and had a demonstration of the software from three Rotherham schoolchildren.
Weeks after the visit, Andy had a call from a school in Pendle, in Lancashire, which had told the Prince they were struggling to raise their pupils' expectations. Prince Edward's solution? "Meet Mr Pickles in Rotherham."
See the article here: www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/and/Former-pop-star-finds-novel.4425395.jp
There's no attitude, no bling and the only hint of a showbiz lifestyle is a shirt with brighter stripes than you would expect from a typical Yorkshire businessman.
But you can tell quickly that Andy Pickles has had another life in the pop music industry: the remarkably fluent way he talks about himself, his career and firm shows he has spent half a lifetime dealing with interviewers.
The former Jive Bunny & The Mastermixers star admits he has fielded a lot of questions from journalists over the years – but he isn't here to talk about chart-topping tunes such as That's What I Like or Let's Party. Instead, he is going to tell us more about u-xplore, the educational software company of which he is chief executive.
The 39-year-old hopes that its product, u-xplore interactive, currently on offer to more than 70,000 students in secondary schools in Doncaster, Sheffield and Rotherham, will transform the way children look at the world of work.
Whether the teenagers want to become chefs, engineers or lawyers, the programme will allow them to see and hear how people in those careers got there and what the job involves. The list of jobs profiled is expanding, and Andy is still looking for more to add, although he's looking for occupations which are more accessible than that of a popstar.
His Rotherham firm is an offshoot from the Music Factory Entertainment Group, which in 1983 was developed from the Music Factory studio which went on to spawn Jive Bunny, a dancing animated rabbit.
Andy became deputy chairman of the group, with his father as chair. In 2004, u-xplore was set up and earlier this month it broke free of its parent firm with the backing of a new investor.
Despite the recent major change to the business, while raising three children with his wife, Lissa, Andy still has just enough time to pursue his other musical interest – as one half of The Tidy Boys, a hard house act which has played at top clubs in London, Ibiza, Hong Kong and the US.
But this will remain merely a sideline – albeit one of globe-trotting glamour – as Andy's software has become his passion. It has been signed up by The Royal Society of Chemistry, Rotherham and Doncaster's Borough Councils, Sheffield and Hull's City Councils as well as by local authorities in Sunderland and Ayrshire.
And he has plans to expand further. On the day we met, Andy was about to go to London to negotiate with Pearson Education, the world's largest education publisher, and is going to begin selling u-xplore software to the Middle East.
"What started in Rotherham is going to Bahrain," Andy said. "From the back streets of Parkgate we have done well. When we started doing Jive Bunny, people said it would never work, and when we went into education, our bank said, 'What are you doing'?"
One vital early encounter set Andy on the project that would become u-xplore, however. At Dinnington Comprehensive, he asked the pupils what they wanted to do in their careers and got talking to a pupil, Laura, and told her what he did for a living. As she got an insight into his world, she convinced him that he was on the right track.
He began to do a series of pitches to local authorities and at the start of each meeting he got the "awkward part" out of the way by telling council members and officers about his previous career in pop music.
But Andy believes that what might have embarrassed some people actually helped him – he had been a success in one industry and knew how to make it in another.
"At the end of the day, it was an enterprise job. It is a legacy and I have never shied away from that. My profile gave me a huge advantage (in business]. I knew how to engage people and we need to make education equally as engaging.
"Entertainment was, in a lot of ways, easier to sell. Kids aspire to be pop stars. But for me it was a good way in (to education].
"I have sold 10 million records and been around the world. But I am more excited about what I am doing now."
He said he learnt how to do pitches to local authorities as well as reading up on the contents of the National Curriculum, giving him the credibility he needed to persuade councils that his project was worthwhile.
"When you are accessing public money, it has to be accountable," he said. "And with local authorities, there are lots of layers to get through."
The business developed as Andy won more contracts from local authorities. And in January this year he even earned a recommendation from the Earl of Wessex, after he visited u-xplore and had a demonstration of the software from three Rotherham schoolchildren.
Weeks after the visit, Andy had a call from a school in Pendle, in Lancashire, which had told the Prince they were struggling to raise their pupils' expectations. Prince Edward's solution? "Meet Mr Pickles in Rotherham."
See the article here: www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/and/Former-pop-star-finds-novel.4425395.jp
