In his autobiography, Losing My Virginity, Sir Richard Branson tells the story of how his mother was once a little concerned that he was not developing a suitably adventurous streak.  To remedy this, she drove him several miles from home in the family car, dropped him off, and encouraged him to find his own way back.  He was four years old. 

These are uncertain times for Enterprise UK.  For months, the future of the organisation which has existed to promote entrepreneurship in the UK  has been unclear, as the team waited to hear what support they would have next year from BIS, the government department for business.  The department has now decided on a nice round number:  Zero.

Just last month, Prime Minister David Cameron declared that we were (and hopefully still are) on the brink of “the most entrepreneurial and dynamic decade in our history”, saying;

“The future of our economy depends on a new generation of entrepreneurs coming up with ideas, resolving to make them a reality and having the vision to create wealth and jobs,” 

At the launch of Global Entrepreneurship Week (co-founded an co-ordinated by Enterprise UK), Vince Cable and Mark Prisk lined up to celebrate this message. 

The board of Enterprise UK, (chaired by Peter Jones and including the Director Generals of the IOD, CBI and Chambers of Commerce) will now meet to decide the future of Enterprise UK, without Government funding.

I should declare a number of interests here. 

Firstly, several of the team at Enterprise UK have become trusted colleagues over the years.  Two great examples include Peter Grigg (policy and research) and Richard Strudwick (head of education).

Secondly, I have known the organisation (in its various guises, from Enterprise Insight) since 2000 and worked with them on projects including The Connectors, Speednetwork the Nation and Speednetwork the Globe.

Finally, when I first came up with the idea for Tenner, it was Enterprise UK that I approached as a trusted partner.   Thanks to the entrepreneurial spirit of Scott Cain (now running his own venture), and of course the cash of Andrew Reynolds, we made it happen, and have done so for three successful years. Thanks to the support of the Big Lottery Fund, and previous private donors,  we will make it happen again in 2011. 

I don’t know what will happen to Enterprise UK beyond April next year.  Whatever happens, Tenner will need great partners for many years to come. 

It seems to me that, despite the uncertainty, this is a great time for anyone with practical ideas about how to create a more enterprising UK to connect with each other and to share what works. 

Some will hear the tale of the abandoned Branson Junior as a lesson in being cruel to be kind.  They assume that, despite the challenge set, young Richard found his way home.  According to one version of events however, Mrs Branson’s endeavours had mixed results.  In the long run, of course, they must have contributed to the entrepreneurial legend that Sir Richard became.  In the short term though, he was found playing in a field by a local farmer, who alerted his family, inviting them to take him home.  Even the mighty Branson needed a bit of help along the way.  

Whatever role you want to play in fostering the next generation of Bransons (or pick another entrepreneur to suit you!), now is the time to throw your hat (and ideas!) into the ring.   

 

This is exactly the sort of post that you are supposed to write at the beginning of Global Entrepreneurship week, rather than the end.

The fact that I’m tapping away on a Friday, and not a Monday means a couple of things.  First of all, that the week – which celebrates entrepreneurial activity across 104 countries – has been action-packed.  Just yesterday I hosted not one but three Speednetworking sessions, for The Marketing Society, for BIS AND for EO, the Entrepreneurs Organisation.  All over the world, over 40,000 events have been taking place, from London, to China, to Australia. World leaders have lined up to lend their support and  here in the UK, Prime Minister David Cameron urged us Brits to “Make a job, and not just take a job”.

The other benefit of penning something at the end of a week, is that you can come up with a couple of reflections.  Here then, for what they are worth, are five themes which I would like to see discussed and acted on a bit more in the months ahead.

1) “We need to get the banks lending again”. This is the refrain I have heard at almost every event.  It is also the one-liner used when discussing how to get more people starting up. “If only banks would lend to start-ups”.  Why?  Is this the role of the banks?  Lending money to high risk ventures?  What’s in it for them if the company does incredibly well?  They get their money back and earn some interest.  I think that we have got a bit confused about the role of banks.  We need to explore other methods of getting cash into start ups, be that including angel funding or otherwise.

2) “If every small company in Britain employed just two people, we’d wipe out unemployment”.  This is your Buzzword Bingo Phrase number two.  The thing is, thousands of entrepreneurs are being encouraged (by their peers and advisors) to do the opposite.  NOT to employ people.  To outsource everything.  I don’t have a strong view on which is the better option.  I’d just like the changing shape of companies to be explored a little more.

3) We Brits need to get out more.  For a Global Entrepreneurship Week, I’ve heard precious few international examples shared of what works. Maybe I’ve been tuning in to the wrong things.  From time to time, someone will mention Silicon Valley or the American’s attitude to failure.  That’s not enough.  I want real examples from Singapore, from Sweden, from Germany, from Brazil.  How do you choose which red tape to cut?  How do you change enterprise culture?  If we’re not careful, we’ll be an island nation in more ways than one.

4) “Government needs to get out of the way”.  Congratulations!  You have won the Buzzword Bingo Grand Prize.  This is the phrase most often used at entrepreneurial events when discussing Government.  The trouble is, it’s wrong.  Of course, Government shouldn’t be IN the way – it’s just that the call to ‘get out of the way’ suggests that they have no role to play.  This, I think, is nonsense.  Aside from the obvious need for business to interact with the state to fulfil its legal duties, Government has an amazing potential to convene, to cross-pollinate ideas and to point people towards solutions on the ground.  This might not involve ‘delivering’ stuff themselves, and may sometimes involve funding others to do things.  To command them to leave the scene completely misses a big opportunity.

5)  “Schools need to change”. Yes, this may be an overused phrase.  But I’m not awarding it ‘Bingo’ status, because it is the one closest to my heart.  As long as we keep treating children like buckets to be filled with facts, we’re going to have a problem.  They need to learn by being active, not passive, and by engaging with people from outside the classroom.  Passing on facts is one tiny piece of the puzzle.  The job of school is to prepare young people for the world, to prepare them to change the world and to unleash their potential.  Yes, that sounds corny, but it’s true.  Yes, we need to evolve enterprise education.  That’s just the beginning.  We need to redesign school.  Any takers?

Two years ago I flew around the world, visiting 12 countries in under a month to promote Speednetwork the Globe.  It was exhausting but amazing.  As I rush to blow my final whistle of the week, at the GEW Wrap Party, I’m thinking about the hosts and participants in the other 103 countries, and hoping that we (the Brits) will cross paths with you more often in the years to come.

For now, Happy Global Entrepreneurship Week, and see you next year!

 

I have good news and bad news for Richard O’Connor.  The bad news is that the box of chocolate bars which he gave me to distribute to my most influential colleagues is sitting, half eaten, in my kitchen cupboard.  The good news is that he and his co-founders at Chocolate and Love have a new customer for life.  Seriously, do yourself and your Christmas Stocking-filling friends a big favour and buy some Crushed Diamonds for your best friends tomorrow.

“Short is the joy that guilty pleasure brings”.  So said Euripides.  (Incidentally, a friend of mine had a Greek dry cleaner called Euripides Eupayforthese).  Someone who really does know a thing or two about the finer things in life is that Fleur Britten.  She has just written A Hedonists Guide to London, a beautifully-bound tome which disguises its contents well.  Fleur explains;

“Now that ‘tourist’ is a dirty word, no one wants to stand out as a newcomer. Unlike any other city guide, A Hedonist’s guide to London boasts a design that whispers discretion, not ‘TOURIST!’; no wonder it’s designed for visitors and residents alike.” 

It’s good to see Fleur getting outdoors a bit.  Her last book was dedicated to Couch-Surfing, something she describes as “free friendly, new way to travel”.  For the uninitiated, couch-surfing is “a global community of over a million people in 232 countries that offers couches, beds and body-sized horizontal surfaces via the internet for fellow members to bunk down on for the night”.  Sounds fun, doesn’t it?  The best thing about this outlandish definition is that the National Geographic reckons that there are only 193 countries in the entire world.  This means that couch-surfing COULD (but will not necessarily) lead to adventures in 39 countries which don’t even exist!  Just imagine THAT. Neverland.  Narnia.  Middle Earth.  Xanadou.   Fantasia.  Where will it all end?

It’s the place where Never Ending Story is set.  Fantasia.  Don’t pretend you knew that.  And I won’t pretend that I knew, before checking Wikipedia, that the boy in the film was played by a little chap called Baret Oliver.  He was. 

Speaking of Never-Ending…this financial crisis is dragging on a bit isn’t it?  Good news last week though.  Apparently the economy grew during the last quarter.  Stop nodding.  Do you know what that means?  Does anyone really, actually know what that means?  Yes, I’m sure that the Clevor Trevors in the economics department know, but would you really want to turn out like one of them?  The ‘economy grew’ is a clever phrase though, because it allows us to gaze at the thermostat and breathe a sigh of relief.  It saves us some rather trickier questions about whether we’re any happier, better-off, safer as a result.  Don’t worry about THAT.  The economy GREW.  And breathe.

Mintel reckons that sales of chocolate have grown by 9.2% over the past two years.  We’re cheering ourselves up with a few chunks before bedtime.   The research firm (which, incidentally, sounds like a sweet), predicts that the market for chocs will grow to a Willy Wonking £4.1bn by 2015.  So you see the recession hasn’t been bad for everyone has it?  I don’t feel so bad about Richard O’Connor after all.

 

Back in 1997, I spent a massively enjoyable 6 months working at Walt Disney World, in Florida.  I had just completed my A-Levels and this was a chance to spend part of a gap year earning some money, meeting some amazing people and working for an organisation which I had always admired.  The experience culminated with a graduation ceremony from the Disney University, complete with gown and, brace yourself, mortar board adorned with a rather fetching pair of ears…

I quite literally have a Mickey Mouse Degree.

After Disney, I went on to drop out of not one but two British universities, first in Edinburgh, then in Leeds. So I have a couple of views on the subject.  When someone asks me whether they should bother going to uni, you would think that I would have a speedy and negative response. I don’t. You see, the time I spent there was incredibly enjoyable. It was where I met life-long friends.  It was where I developed some of my strongest passions, from the radio show I presented to the musical I produced.  For me, university was where I decided that I wanted to ‘start things’ for a living.  It was where I started my first company.  Would I have been better off heading straight into a job? I don’t think so.  My reflection then is a bit odd.  Yes, I’d go again.  Yes, I’d drop out again.  Sadly, not very helpful as a piece of advice.

Of course, today the calculations involved are rather different.  Recent proposals by Lord Browne could see students paying £7,000 per year to attend university.  They would start repaying that when they begin earning £21,000 a year (the current amount is £15,000).  On average, students would graduate with £30,000 of debt.

I don’t want to get into the rights and wrongs of tuition fees and payments. Frankly, I don’t know enough about the subject.  Instead, I want to make a more basic point;

University is in serious need of a re-design.  For many people, it borders on being a complete waste of time.  Yes, I know that if you have decided upon a particular path (dentistry for example) then it works very well.  For millions though,  it’s too expensive, it takes too long and the experience just isn’t good enough to justify the investment of time and money.  You leave having learned very little of any use in the outside world, in no fit shape to hit the ground running.  So I suggest that somebody invents an alternative.  This would be a shorter, cheaper, more valuable experience.  Here are a couple of ideas;

• It lasts one year, not three. 
• It costs the student closer to £3,000 for a year’s programme.  The rest might be co-sponsored.
• You meet fantastic people.  Not just randomly, at the bar, but in a more structured, thoughtful way.
• You learn things.  But not just facts and figures.  You learn how to DO things.
• It’s not all ‘practical’.  There are seminars where you can discuss important topics.
• It has the backing of some named employers, who help to design the experience.

Imagine designing and testing something which sat between a three year degree and going straight out to work.  Something cheaper, better, faster.  The Alternative University.  Praised by Government for being daring.  Supported by business because it helped develop qualities they deem valuable.  Helped by experts (from philosophers to historians) because it delivered, in punchy sessions, stuff that matters.  Most of all, enjoyed and valued (at the time AND with hindsight) by students for being enjoyable, valuable and effective.  Effective at helping them to clarify what they are good at, what they might want to experience in life and how they might make their first moves.  Valuable because it left them feeling good about themselves and the world, and connected them with interesting people.

Target for the first year’s national intake;  1,000.

One way to do this would be for a couple of respected universities to co-create a one year course in something suitably provocative;  Interesting Studies for example.  Involve The Week, Ideo,  Channel 4.  Make it massively desirable to get on, so much so that the surrounding PR would make its graduates stand out. 

I would enrol for a year of Interesting Studies.  And with a little bit of persuasion, I think I’d stay the course.  Would you?