realisedevelopment.net

Just another WordPress site

The Idea Obsession

by

Do you have a fantastic business idea?

Why do so many efforts to engage ‘would be’ entrepreneurs start with this question?

My ideal client would answer with a resounding ‘No!’ to this question.

I want clients to be hungry and passionate about trying something new- but they definitely do not have to have a fantastic business idea.

Or even any ideas at all.

The ideas are the easy bit.

And the truth is that most new businesses are not built around some fantastically original idea but are a variation on an already proven theme.

So my ideal client has not yet found the idea that they want to turn into a business.  This way I get the chance to shape the process that they use for developing and evaluating ideas.

The alternative – a client who has what they think is a great business idea – even though they have not really thought about either the marketplace or the industry is a much more difficult proposition to work with.

However most of the enterprise support programmes that I see are based on an assumption that the client has an idea and we just need to help them work it up.

Is your service designed to help the client who has not yet got a fantastic business idea – or any ideas at all?

The E-Factor

by

Had a great morning yesterday when I got to meet some of the team responsible for the development of the LEGI programme in North East Lincolnshire – and got to enjoy the splendour of Cleethorpes!

So what impressed me about the e-factor approach?

  • The enthusiasm and belief about what could be achieved in North East Lincolnshire
  • The commitment to real outreach work (facilitating an understanding of enterprise rather than trying to sell services and facilities)
  • A commitment to develop the demand for enterprise services before investing in too much infrastructure (an ambitious property development programme is underway – but only after the outreach and adviser teams have already got some hungry and ambitious clients)
  • The functional, astute and prosaic approach to developing property – this is about affordability, commerciality, sustainability and flexibility – not about signature buildings and grand statements
  • The close integration of all parts of the delivery team – most of the key staff work for a single social enterprise.  They share an office and have a close commitment to, and history with the communities they serve
  • There is a real sense of ‘shared destiny’ across the various strands of project development – a real recognition of how success in all aspects will be critical to the success of the project as a whole
  • Some really great case studies of significant progress already made to transform the lives of clients – these will provide a strong platform for developing an excellent reputation where it matters – in target communities.

Big thanks to Charlotte, Tony, Matt and Paul for spending  time with me. I am really interested to see how things develop in North East Lincolnshire.

efactorheader03

Ripples from the Zambezi – Introduction

by

Sirolli introduces his book as the results of years or practice in the art of economic development through person centred development or facilitation.

He describes the growth of Enterprise Facilitation™ through word of mouth advertising and client testimonials.

He describes how current interest in entrepreneurship has made the work of spreading his methodology more straightforward. As more women join the enterprise market and more people become interested in flexible and home working through self employment the market place for Enterprise Facilitation™ in just about any community seems to be a growing one.

A Diverse Client Base

Clients come from a wide range of backgrounds and one of the founding principals of the methodology seems to be that help is available for anyone living or working in the community. Building social systems that ensure that a diverse client base is:

A) Recruited, and

B) Provided with a high quality and relevant service, is perhaps a key Sirolli lesson.

He describes the client base as “in the market right now looking not just for employment but also for a way to make a living without compromising their need for dignity”.

How does this description fit clients for your enterprise services?

What about people who are not ‘in the market’ but who already make a living through benefits and/or the gray economy?

What options do they have ‘to make a living without compromising their need for dignity’?

Indigenous Growth

Sirolli also claims that ‘civic leaders are accepting much more readily the notion of indigenous growth’.

What does he mean by the concept of ‘indigenous growth’?

How does it contrast with other approaches – such as:

  • business attraction/inward investment or
  • developing social infrastructure to attract the ‘creative classes’?

Sustainability and Human Scale

Sirolli also makes the point that 1000 home based business in a community ‘cannot even be seen’ while a factory employing a 1000 people will ‘change the physical landscape, even the air a community breathes’.

How is this a compelling reason for person centred economic development and indigenous growth?

Ubiquity of Passion, Intelligence, Self-motivation and Energy

This is one of the founding assumptions of Enterprise Facilitation™. That in every community there is the passion, intelligence, self motivation and energy to plant the seeds of economic development.

Many of the communities targeted by economic development programmes appear to have lower levels of passion, intelligence, self motivation and energy than their more prosperous neighbours.

Why else might levels of ‘enterprise’ be so low?

Are these human qualities somehow missing from economically failing communities – or have they just gone underground?

What are the mechanisms that cause some people from these communities to hide or apparently lose their passion, intelligence, self-motivation and energy?

What can be done that might help them to re-connect with these qualities?

You can can comment on any part of Ripples from the Zambezi by joining the Enterprise Reading Group.

Arts, Crafts and Enterprise

by

I recently spent a day touring some of the enterprise development projects being supported by LEGI (in whole or in part) in Leeds.

The variety in the physical spaces that we visited was incredible:

  • an old warehouse that had been converted to shared work spaces rented by the hour by aspiring artists (screen printing, wood working, jewelry making etc)
  • two ex middle schools that have been refurbished and are about to opened as mixed use incubator/work spaces with restaurants, bars, gyms etc
  • a brand new modular building with funky furniture and desk space in one area and what looked to the untrained eye like a very well planned and equipped building training environment on the other
  • and a couple of generic office spaces that have been rented in the community to provide drop in space for potential entrepreneurs and administrative bases for outreach workers.

What struck me on the day was how some of these places seemed to ‘fit’ with the local community that they were situated in – and for whom one could see a demand. Indeed they seemed to have evolved as a natural consequence of local peoples passion, skills and interest (in jewellery making, screen printing, etc).

In contrast some of the others appeared to be quite out of context with the immediate environment (you know how you recognise the ‘new build funded by the public purse’ in the middle of a run down estate) with funky furniture and expensive fittings that on on the one hand send a clear message of valuing local people (YOU DO DESERVE THIS) but may provide easy targets and ammunition for the cynics as well as making them quite intimidating to some local residents.

Underlying each of the projects there is a strategy based on a set of assumptions about how enterprise development will work in the locality and with a certain target group.

I personally believe that much more work remains to be done to clarify these assumptions and strategies so that they can play an effective part in project development.

Share this Post

Success Built to Last

by

Success in the long run has less to do with finding the best idea, organizational structure, or business model for an enterprise, than with discovering what matters to us as individuals…For the most part, extraordinary people, teams, and organizations are simply ordinary people doing extraordinary things that matter to them.

Success Built to Last – Porras, Emery and Thompson

cited in Make the Impossible Possible by Bill Strickland pg 120