I said `Look this business is hard enough for people to understand

I said, `Look, this business is hard enough for people to understand. "I helped Richard Branson put together the high-yield financing for his new record label, V2 It was a fantastic learning experience. At 25, she revelled in the opportunity to put energy and enthusiasm into things. She never replied, but it made me think about a lot of things, and in February 1996 I answered an advert for a job with Virgin."She subsequently became head of new business in the company's media arm.

The amounts of energy and motivation required to make it successful are huge."Building hydro-electric power plants in Turkey was "too remote" to satisfy. She read about a woman who had set up a company to finance films "I decided I was going to work for her So I wrote to her. "I learnt early on that if work becomes such an integral part of your life, it's got to be something that you love. There were only four Brits on the course; we were the cynical ones, and always came top. It paid to be questioning."After five years as a banker, Lancashire remembered an old maxim: that work should be fun.

"You've got to be positive all the time; there's no room for self-doubt. As Britons, we don't find that easy - even if you're good, you're never as optimistic as an American. "We had exams every week for nine months, and if you failed two you were out - the pass rate was 75 per cent." It also gave her a glimpse into the American mind. A year's corporate finance training in New York was "very rigorous," she recalls. My mother was a partner, and our nanny was company secretary. But my sister and I were the only ones who could work the video recorder."Lancashire fast-tracked through university, leaving with an economics degree to work for Chase Manhattan Bank. "My father taught me the language BASIC because he was convinced that operating systems weren't going to catch on.

He had his own management consultancy and did everything from the accounts to the IT systems. When Internet companies advertise on television, it starts becoming something that you trust a bit more." Lancashire, 29, was an early adopter of technology As a child, she loved playing Space Invaders. Christmas will be a testing time for Becky Lancashire. Will visitors to her giant music website, Clickmusic, and its online store in particular, be willing to pay over the Internet for 1999's seasonal selection on CD? Will shoppers forego a visit to Santa's Grotto to sit at a screen? Lancashire believes that the key to successful e-commerce is to persuade customers that they've found a better deal via the Web - a combination of better information, choice, availability and prices "This Christmas will be the important one for e-commerce We'll see whether people are convinced. I'm not just talking about QVC's service, I'm talking about the way broadcasters can develop their own interactive response areas behind the programming, not just put something in the standalone interactive area.Remind me exactly what Open does, that others can't? Perhaps it should lower its tenancy fees and try to lure more competitive retailers to rent space on its service. How else is it going to soon be in a position for a successful floatation on the stock exchange?amyv qpp.co.uk.

QVC's shop window and transactional facilities will sit behind its TV programming in a way not dissimilar to Teletext. Of course, to put all its 12,000 products on to QVC Directory, as it calls the service, it will need to buy additional bandwidth from Sky and whichever other digital operator it manages to sign up with.The service, which works in a similar way to Sky Sports Extra, where data is stored in the set-top box and navigation is through the remote control, has great potential. QVC, long considered a bastion of kitch, naff goods and tanned smarmy presenters, raised a few eyebrows last week when it revealed its plans for interactive TV shopping.Most press reports claimed it was developing a service to rival Open but didn't really grasp the concept of enhanced TV where the interactivity is built into the broadcast stream. I had to mention this because, for some unfathomable reason, since I heard this, I've not been able to get the vision of Tom Cruise screaming "show me the money" out of my head.QVC's tech savvyHome shopping channel QVC may not instantly convey images of technical savvy, but look beneath the surface and you may be pleasantly surprised by the scope and breadth of its interactive plans. While this may be exclusive, it also means that the core business and skills incubator won't be diluted by fly-by-night ideas.The company likens itself to a "digital [Hollywood] studio" where it takes scripts, if you follow the analogy, vets them and, if they're deemed good enough, a movie (website) is made.