Mark Bowness creates.
If your an entrepreneur, a creator or an individual who is passionate about your ideas please feel free to get in touch.
Mark Bowness is passionate with a belief that ‘we live life, once’. As a result of this understanding Mark is an entrepreneur who develops inspirational projects using the web and TV, with the aim of using these forms of media to achieve positive goals in the real world. Mark also spends his time motivating others to do something profound with the life they have been given.
For those who are new to Mark’s work here is a 3 minute update, from start to present day:
Mark’s passion for people started at the age of 18 when he established a faith based ministry which comprised of motivational speaking, the publishing of a book, the publishing of two magazines (which were read by a combined 20,000 people per issue) and charity work in Africa. During a life changing trip to Kenya where Mark worked in the slums, spent time with people who lived on rubbish tips and helped out in an orphanage for boys as young as 5, the tears that fell resulted in instilling of a passion to both ‘make a difference’ and to seek to live a life that resulted in inspiring others to make their own life count.
At the age of 26, after a 7 year relationship Mark got divorced and subsequently moved away from the ‘church’ as he knew it. Mark had a life-changing experience which encouraged him to appreciate who and what he is and, as a result, he decided to take the skills that he had learnt and apply them to the real world which resulted in the launch of a project that changed his life, Tribewanted.com. Mark pulled on board a business partner, Ben Keene, to work with him to make this happen.
Tribewanted.com, enables the public, from all over the world, to become part of an ‘online tribe’ that developed a real world community on the island of Vorovoro in Fiji. Tribewanted gained worldwide media attention and, as a result, was filmed for 18 months and became a 5 part prime time BBC2 show.
With one success under his belt, at the age of 29, Mark was ready to aim for another. Just before news of a global financial crisis hit, Mark launched ‘thenerve.tv’ which was the world’s first crowd sourced production company – enabling members of the public to submit ideas for TV programmes. After gaining 300+ members and a very tough financial year for everyone, this business sadly folded. Mark acknowledges that this was not the best idea launched at certainly the wrong time! Nevertheless, still passionate, undeterred and knowing that he was still a young entrepreneur with a lot to learn Mark continued with his belief to chase every opportunity. You can read more on my thoughts surrounding the folding of thenerve.tv here.
At the age of 27, as a direct result of Mark’s many projects he was approached by one of the largest TV production companies in the world, Endemol, to work in their Digital Studio’s division with the best job offer in the world – to come up with ideas for TV shows and viral concepts, both online and traditional broadcast. Endemol brought Mark on board requesting that he did not follow the traditional ways of television but encouraged him to, ‘do what Mark does best’, creating unique and exciting projects.
Whilst at Endemol and, with their full support, Mark launched HijackFive.com, a viral project, with the intention of trying to convince the British TV Channel, Five, to hand over an hour of prime time programming to one member of the British public. HijackFive was featured in London’s press and resulted in 100′s of individuals wanting to take over an hour of Five’s programming which resulted in a meeting with Channel Five. Dawn Airey, controller of Five stated that when she read the article she thought, ‘cheeky git, I love it!’. However, due to lack of financial support from potential sponsors and it simply being another case of ‘wrong timing’ with Five it was not possible for them to give an hour of programming to the British public. A failed mission, but it certainly got Mark’s project strong press coverage and inspired him further to keep chasing crazy dreams.
At the age of 30, Mark began working in partnership with Traffic Digital and together they brought back to life one of Mark’s earlier ideas, ‘Rock Control’ (previously called V.I.P Band Manager). Rock Control enables the public to form and manage a band, from scratch, deciding which artists their want in their final line-up and making all decisions required leading to the release of one song into the charts. Rock Control was invited to participate in the Difference Engine, a UK based mentor led acceleration programme who made an early seed fund investment into Rock Control.
As a result of the Difference Engine, Mark and the Traffic Digital Team have pitched Rock Control to key players at YouTube, MySpace, Google, a number of record labels. Rock Control is currently in beta mode and is being pitched to various companies around the world. You can read more about the latest development with Rock Control here.
At the age of 31, Mark has not only learnt so much, but also appreciates that he has so much more to learn. Mark seeks to balance an entrepreneurial passion with a deep seated belief in the potential of people, and, using that combination seeks to do some awesome ‘stuff’. It is said that 90% of business and ideas fail and Mark was very lucky that his first project tribewanted.com became so successful. Mark will no doubt launch many more projects, some will fail, some will succeed, but, that is what life is all about, right? We live life, once.
Wow! You sure have accomplished a lot in such a short amount of time!
Best of luck with Rock Control…can’t wait to see how it progresses!
Jen
Thank you so much for your comments Jennifer, I really appreciate it! We live life once hey!