{"id":537,"date":"2009-03-10T08:30:30","date_gmt":"2009-03-10T08:30:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localenterprise.wordpress.com\/?p=537"},"modified":"2009-03-10T08:30:30","modified_gmt":"2009-03-10T08:30:30","slug":"a-fresh-look-at-enterprise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/2009\/03\/10\/a-fresh-look-at-enterprise\/","title":{"rendered":"A Fresh Look at Enterprise"},"content":{"rendered":"

That is the title of a workshop I am running tomorrow for the Young People’s Enterprise Forum at a conference to look at Embedding Enterprise in Further Education.<\/p>\n

A fresh look at enterprise….Not an easy challenge when you have been looking at it for decades!\u00a0 How do we engage the history department and the art team?<\/p>\n

So how about if we look at Enterprise as a mathematical expression.\u00a0 How would you express it?<\/p>\n

I think this has a lot to offer:<\/p>\n

E = P x SI<\/strong><\/p>\n

E<\/strong>nterprise is the product of P<\/strong>ower multiplied by S<\/strong>elf I<\/strong>nterest.<\/p>\n

Power <\/strong>is the capacity to make things happen to get things done.\u00a0 It is about the ability to organise people, money and other resources to make things happen.<\/p>\n

Self Interest<\/strong> is the extent to which we know what it is that we want to achieve.\u00a0 It is about vision, ambition, goals, vocation, purpose, dreams, aspirations and hopes.\u00a0 But self interest is not selfish.\u00a0 Self interest is mediated through a set of relationships with others.\u00a0 With supporters, colleagues, investors and activists (who might have an interest in whether we are helping or harming).\u00a0 Self interest (rightly understood) is the driving force for making progress, for realising potential, for negotiating an interesting and worthwhile life.\u00a0 Increasingly self interest and therefore enteprise is associated with interest in global issues such as climate change, social justice and wellbeing as much as it is about financial wealth.<\/p>\n

If this expression has any merit then to embed enterprise in FE – or anywhere else –\u00a0 we need to understand it as an act of embedding the development of power and self interest – rightly understood.<\/p>\n

Enterprise becomes a genuine developmental process.\u00a0 It is about equipping people with the knowledge, skills, wisdom and experience to develop their power (capacity to act; to get things done) and really develop an understanding of what lies in their own self interest.\u00a0 It comes straight from the schools of Alinsky <\/a>and Freire<\/a> as much as it does from the beliefs of Branson, Sugar et al.<\/p>\n

Under this formulation the relevance of enterprise to:<\/p>\n