This year the flagship course at Cambridge - Enterprise Tuesday which attracts over 1500 registrations and regular attendance of 300 - 400 is set to be a blockbuster! The main reasons is that we have made some radical changes to the format this year. In addition to the classic evenings of very high quality talks followed by networking we also have aligned with "Silicon Valley comes to Cambridge" and are part hosts to a debate at the Cambridge Union (on a Thursday!). We are also doing a networking only evening - having invited 20+ of the local successes - our Entrepreneurs in residence - to interact with the audience. This will be hosted in the magnificent setting of the Judge Business School over two floors.
There are also going to be "Live" rehearsals of elevator pitches and panel discussions on several evenings.
Beyond the format changes - the speaker line up - the headlines are as follows:
Plastic Logic founder Prof Henning Sirringhaus with his investment and management team members. This is a big current story as the research and the commercial ambition is to stimulate the start up - not just of a company - but also of an industry - in plastic electronics.
We then have Kell Ryan - to tell us about meeting customer needs. He recently retired from marketing position at Ryan Air (The name is no coincidence).
Sanjeev Bikchandani is coming over from India to talk about growing his business. It is one of the fastest growing internet companies around - and the biggest job site in India. He is a dynamic entrepreneur and is coming over just to do our talk!
David Cleevely and Andy Richards are highly successful Cambridge based Business angels and serial entrepreneurs. David is in wireless and telecoms while Andy is in biotechnology. Both are highly influential in the investment community and in their industries.
E T will be on a Thursday this year to make best connections to our regulars - and the guest line up includes the founders of LInkedIn, Twitter etc., The event has its own website - SVC2C.
Finally we hear from a panel of recent alumni of Enterprise Tuesday. People who have been inspired to get started with their own companies. They will share with us the why and the how on the evening. It is bound to be animated. The names are less famous - but the energy and the future prospects are fabulous.
Next term - we kick off with Prof Chris Winter who was co-founder of Cambridge Antibodies. He has done a number of other companies in biotech and is a hugely respected academic.
In order not to protract the blog - let me say that the last of the series is with Warren East from ARM - and I am hoping we will get as much of a public view as possible about the battle lines between ARM and Intel
Thursday, 1 October 2009
Wednesday, 30 September 2009
ethics in entrepreneurship
Two stories came my way recently and it made me think about what is or is not ethical in entrepreneurship.
One is somewhat trivial - the hissing and fizzing of pop stars about whether or not they support illegal downloads. What I liked within the article on Lily Allen's views is the statement by music critic John Dee that it seems the only thing that unites some pop stars into any kind of passionate debate is "the one that concerns their own personal fortune"
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/53938,news,lily-allen-quits-music-as-music-piracy-abuse-gets-nasty
So, what goes through my mind is ofcourse that as part of entrepreneurship education, especially for the next generation how does one position ethical attitudes and behaviours in the pursuit of entrepreneurial careers when the mainstream illustrations are about whether or not artists can make money from illegal downloads and how the music industry can survive.
These are important; reflecting changes to oligopolistic contracts between consumers and the industry. They are being shatered by fragmented responses based on emerging technology. Southwestern, Ryanair and Easyjet to name a few airlines have capitalised on breaking up monopoly behaviours in the airline industry. Firms that cannot or do not respond to such changes are eventually killed off. Meanwhile consumers have benefited from being able to travel around much more easily and in more affordable ways.
I am sure the music and film industry needs similar thinking and this is on its way. In other words it is time to be creative about solving a problem rather than trying to control it or complaining about it.
But to be honest - this debate does not fire me up very much although the underlying debate about how free - free markets are supposed to be is the more philosophical argument to have.
The story that does get me really angry is based on a very fundamental question posed by Aristotle back in 350 BC (approx - I was not there at the time) - Is a Doctor a maker of money or a healer of the sick? This question still has no real answer. I was reminded of the question by a story from one of my family who lost their son recently. A young man of late 30s early 40s went into hospital with Swine Flu symptoms and sadly died there. This was at the Apollo Hospital in Hyderabad. I do not have the full story due to the distressed condition of the family - but in essence the Hospital management refused to allow the body to be taken away in one of their vehicles, insisting that the family take away the dead son in their own car or hire a taxi. Whether this is due to swineflu panic, cost management, crass stupidity of the staff on duty at the time is all not clear. But one thing is for sure - Aristotle - if he were in India today and saw the conditions of healthcare for the poor and the profit centred hospitals for the rich - he would certainly have something to say.
As always values play such a strong role in entrepreneurship. What are your own positions on such topics?
One is somewhat trivial - the hissing and fizzing of pop stars about whether or not they support illegal downloads. What I liked within the article on Lily Allen's views is the statement by music critic John Dee that it seems the only thing that unites some pop stars into any kind of passionate debate is "the one that concerns their own personal fortune"
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/53938,news,lily-allen-quits-music-as-music-piracy-abuse-gets-nasty
So, what goes through my mind is ofcourse that as part of entrepreneurship education, especially for the next generation how does one position ethical attitudes and behaviours in the pursuit of entrepreneurial careers when the mainstream illustrations are about whether or not artists can make money from illegal downloads and how the music industry can survive.
These are important; reflecting changes to oligopolistic contracts between consumers and the industry. They are being shatered by fragmented responses based on emerging technology. Southwestern, Ryanair and Easyjet to name a few airlines have capitalised on breaking up monopoly behaviours in the airline industry. Firms that cannot or do not respond to such changes are eventually killed off. Meanwhile consumers have benefited from being able to travel around much more easily and in more affordable ways.
I am sure the music and film industry needs similar thinking and this is on its way. In other words it is time to be creative about solving a problem rather than trying to control it or complaining about it.
But to be honest - this debate does not fire me up very much although the underlying debate about how free - free markets are supposed to be is the more philosophical argument to have.
The story that does get me really angry is based on a very fundamental question posed by Aristotle back in 350 BC (approx - I was not there at the time) - Is a Doctor a maker of money or a healer of the sick? This question still has no real answer. I was reminded of the question by a story from one of my family who lost their son recently. A young man of late 30s early 40s went into hospital with Swine Flu symptoms and sadly died there. This was at the Apollo Hospital in Hyderabad. I do not have the full story due to the distressed condition of the family - but in essence the Hospital management refused to allow the body to be taken away in one of their vehicles, insisting that the family take away the dead son in their own car or hire a taxi. Whether this is due to swineflu panic, cost management, crass stupidity of the staff on duty at the time is all not clear. But one thing is for sure - Aristotle - if he were in India today and saw the conditions of healthcare for the poor and the profit centred hospitals for the rich - he would certainly have something to say.
As always values play such a strong role in entrepreneurship. What are your own positions on such topics?
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