{"id":1379,"date":"2010-11-05T08:19:12","date_gmt":"2010-11-05T08:19:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localenterprise.wordpress.com\/?p=1272"},"modified":"2010-11-05T08:19:12","modified_gmt":"2010-11-05T08:19:12","slug":"a-community-ecology-of-enterprise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/2010\/11\/05\/a-community-ecology-of-enterprise\/","title":{"rendered":"A Community Ecology of Enterprise"},"content":{"rendered":"
Enterprise is not just about ‘entrepreneurial types’ and ‘business ideas’.<\/div>\n
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It is not just about business and commercial endeavour.<\/div>\n
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If I want to make something happen to improve things in my community I may start a business, but I may start a campaign, or a festival, or a local action group. \u00a0I have worked with many people whose motivation was not to develop a business, but to make a difference, and in some cases setting up a business has been a means to that end. \u00a0No more than that. \u00a0It is simply a means to an end.<\/div>\n
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Well managed and run these kinds of community based activity all contribute to a more enterprising community and provide the kind of community ecology and practice ground from which commercial endeavours may spring. \u00a0They also help to build the social capital that is essential to building a sustainable and resilient local economy and community.<\/div>\n
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If LEPs were to think more about the kind of community ecology that supports enterprise and how this can be developed I suspect they would get a much greater ROI than on more traditional approaches of advice, managed workspace (we are awash with these in Leeds, mostly under-used and inappropriate for the communities they were built in) and access to finance.<\/div>\n
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Yes the web matters. \u00a0But it won’t be primarily because either a LEP or the national Business Link site offer generic advice and guidance (which to be frank just replicates what is already out there in most cases) but because local sites and sites of shared interest will provide highly specific and contextual advice – usually in the form of dialogue and conversation rather than factsheet. \u00a0The web will provide a platform for conversations that cannot easily take place face to face.<\/div>\n
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We have to start to think differently. \u00a0We have to innovate. We have to be prepared to try new approaches. \u00a0I hope LEPs are up to the challenge.<\/div>\n
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For me this means getting away from thinking about one to one advice for high growth, one to small group for lifestyle and start-up (in\u00a0deprived\u00a0areas) and one to many (content\u00a0led websites) for the rest, and instead seriously building the networks, social capital, self belief and self-reliance that will allow our communities to become much more enterprising.<\/div>\n