realisedevelopment.net

Just another WordPress site

Starting with People not Enterprise Targets

by

Many programmes designed to promote more enterprising cultures make the same mistake.

Because they are funded to create business starts and VAT registrations they use this as their starting point.  They lose track of the fact that they are being funded specifically because the communities that they serve have had a historically low level of start ups.  For sure they will find some people who respond to the offer of help to start a business.  And they can help this tiny minority to make progress.  But they would almost certainly have done it any way.  These are the enterprising exceptions.

For many in the community a lot more work will be required to build trusting relationships, nurture confidence and develop aspirations – based on the clients context and their perceptions of what constitutes progress – not the policy goals of the funders.  We have to engage our clients where they are in the enterprising journey – and not where we would would like them to be to fit neatly with our policy goals and our carefully designed programmes.

So instead of asking ‘Have You Got a Fantastic Business Idea’ we should be asking:

  • ‘Do you feel that there should be more to life?’ or
  • ‘Frustrated? Angry? Want things to Change for the Better?’
  • ‘Feel That You are Wasting Your Life Away?’

People who answer ‘Yes’ to these questions may not yet be ready to start a business – but they are likely to be open to support to become more enterprising.

And if we can start them on an enterprising journey, who knows where they might end up?

Share this Post

Why Do I Work In Enterprise?

by

‘We pass through this world but once.

Few tragedies can be more extensive than the stunting of life,

Few injustices deeper than the denial of an opportunity to strive,

Or even to hope,

By a limit imposed from without, but falsely identified as lying within.’

Stephen Jay Gould

Share this Post

John Hegley – Enterprise Poet!

by

The Price of Art in Luton

On the bridge approaching the railway,
the man was begging.
I said draw me a dog
and I’ll give you a quid.
So I gave him some paper
and he did.
And I said, there you go, mate,
you can make money out of art!
Will you sign it?
As I handed him the one pound thirty-odd
I had in my pocket,
he informed me that the signed ones were a fiver.

More John Hegley here and here.

Share this Post

Wasting the Web in Enterprise Support

by

There is so much great on-line training for people who wish to start, or are thinking about starting, or are looking to develop and existing business.  I wonder why we don’t encourage our clients to make more use of it.  (Could it be because we are too focused on bums on OUR seats and hits to OUR websites).

On-line learning does not suit everybody – and much of it does originate from the USA – but it is a wonderful resource that the engaged and committed would use AND it can be a tremendous vehicle for establishing client commitment and learning styles.

Here is a page with 85 FREE online learning resources for entrepreneurs.

Wouldn’t it be great if advisers and coaches could use on-line learning management systems with a  full range of on-line and off-line resources that allowed us to help clients to manage their own learning – and ensure that what we taught actually was correlated with later success?

If we could help connect would be entrepreneurs with sources of advice and support through social media networks.

If we could provide regular ‘nudges’ and opportunities to engage through applications like Twitter and Facebook?

When I was looking at this a few (10?) years back the technology was expensive and unreliable.  Now most of it is free/low cost AND more or less ubiquitous.  Most of the publicly funded business support sector is so digitally illiterate (the ranks are not exactly swollen with digital natives) and focused on old bums on seats/intensive assists metrics that I don’t expect a web 2.0 revolution in this sector anytime soon.

Anyone up for a Digital Britain?

Share this Post