Looking for jobs or creating jobs! We need the jungle cry of a new Tarzan!

There had been a perfect storm in the 1970s, just as the UK economy had started to recover in the post war era. The perfect storm included the oil crises of 1973 and 1979 when the price per barrel of oil shot up by 400%. The Coal miners went on strike and this led to a 3-day week. I can remember that quite vividly, as I started my working life during the cold winter months, working in the office with lanterns and coats on!  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-Day_Week

This led to a sense of an urgent need for a new agenda and Mrs Thatcher came to power in 1979 on a strong right of centre agenda to reduce government’s role in industry and to take back control from the Trade Unions. Privatization followed and capitalism took root. There is another story to be told another time. The point here is that the decimation of the publicly owned dated industries in coal and  steel (in particular) meant that something had to be done to cope with the mass unemployment that resulted from the new policies.

With a strongly held philosophy of individual responsibility, the Government, together with big businesses began to establish support for start-ups. They also introduced subsidies for small established firms to assist them with marketing, training and various Awards were also born at this time to help create a positive atmosphere and help celebrate success (however it was defined).

At regional levels Agencies were created to direct the funding from Government towards all the various campaigns of activity (I can recall evaluating 22 of them), while social enterprises were created such as Business in the Community; Prince’s Youth Business Trust and Shell Livewire.

The Government’s iconic Dept of Trade and Industry was led by Michael Helestine who was very active in promoting a strong message. His demeanor and golden hair bobbing about in interviews earned him the nick name of Tarzan. There was no question – his drive and passion pushed along the free market agenda and support for SMEs, as did the energy of Lord Young and numerous others.

The point here is to learn from the lessons of history – and for Government which is being amazingly proactive in supporting firms to hold on to talent and families’ survival – might consider directing some of the unemployment benefits and regulations towards enabling individuals into self-employment or the creation of new businesses.

Owing to the effects of the period of austerity (by the Conservative Party) we have been left with Agencies that are dehydrated and lacking anything other than boxes they can tick. From national agencies that existed in the 1970s and 1980s, policies changed to go regional and have since been further localized with Local Enterprise Partnerships. So, we are now in a position when no one can take a big picture view of what to do. For local, I also read parochial and this is where the disconnects can arise between what we need now to recover from the shock of Covid 19 and what exists as infrastructure to help solve the problems.

Employment protection and shielding the economy from bankruptcies is crucial for now but I suspect we will all change the way we do things and so entrepreneurs need to be encouraged to come forward with creative and sustainable solutions.

Over the past few decades Universities had become hubs for new venture creation through investments in the Higher Education Innovation Fund and a variety of other resources being directed to them. But – the main source of funds have been international students and that is going to be very hard hit, compounded by narrow views on the issuing of student visas. This means that what would otherwise be strong regional institutions with the capacity and capabilities for stimulating new venture creation are vulnerable.

The Government, especially the Chancellor seems to be jumping from one policy tree to another on job retention but who is there are the senior policy level to put out the Tarzan like jungle call for job creation? Does the Government expect job creation to be from state and established enterprise. What will fuel their growth to create those jobs? We are back to the debates of the later 1980s when Business Growth became the focus on policies – in search of the magic 4% of firms that were so-called Gazelles. These were due to create the jobs, but in reality as policy makers abandoned the search for Gazelles and more recently for unicorns, private sector business angels, accelerators and incubators have been filing the void. And they too are now challenged by what has happened to financial markets and rental incomes.

Having checked with the Chairman of Enterprise Educators UK – Gareth Trainer – we agreed that it is time for a flagship business creation agency or campaign to go beyond enhanced career prospects. The reality of trying to find apprenticeships with companies struggling to survive just seems unrealistic if worthwhile.

As Gareth pointed out: “The Government has rightly identified that youth unemployment and career glass ceilings are going to apply. Why not stimulate youth entrepreneurship?  They commissioned the Prince’s Trust to review youth entrepreneurship policy ages ago and the Government still haven’t allowed their report to be fully published… what are they waiting for? Meanwhile Ofsted have removed from the inspectorate the role of national lead for business, economics and enterprise, leaving the remaining subject heads to “look out’ for enterprise in schools… I think without expert help that is likely to be challenging. I guess, in summary, there doesn't seem to be comparable levels of Government noise about self-employment and entrepreneurship as there was following previous economic crises." 

There is some good news on the horizon, in the sense that policies are going to be put in place for a Green agenda that is going to make a difference. We are also likely to see other measures for the enhancement of science and technology and perhaps various rescue packages for certain industries.

We clearly need new ideas and solutions at this time. This would be good news at macro levels together with any fiscal and economic policies to support the movement.

At meso levels we need regional and industry sectors to be strengthened to cope with what happens on the ground. Many of the agencies that exist – just exist. Austerity has affected them all and we need them to be empowered and skilled up as well as scaled up to cope with what is needed.

And at a micro level, COVID 19 has made us look both inside and outside for how we not only come out of the crisis, but how we recreate the future. At Universities(for example)  – can placement years in universities be converted to self-employed placement years; fewer businesses will have the funding or environment to support traditional placements so this seems like a fix that could have broader impact.

We need fresh insights in policy and a new discourse needs to be created from the Billions being put into the economy for job protection towards job creation, turbo charging the agenda through new venture creation and appropriate work experiences.

And, can we get a modern day cheer leader, a new Tarzan, whose word counts for something working with a community of people who know what they are talking about.

Business Angels and Investors need to step up, not run for the hills!!

Covid 19 is hitting all of us really hard. On many levels we are in a period of uncertainty. While we struggle with supermarket shopping or going for walks in our favourite locations, the (dare I say it) tsunami of distress is yet to come in countries that can barely afford regular health care. The projections from Imperial University of possible deaths in the region of 40 million on current trends and with no mechanisms to halt the spread of Covid 19 are scary to say the least.

Governments can do what they can do. In the end they are slowed by their procedures, political posturing and various bottlenecks.

So, is it time for investors and business angels, perhaps with philanthropic organisations and individuals to step up and provide the resources and inspiration to make a difference – at speed?

From what I have seen and heard recently; investors have run for the hills. They have discounted valuation on new investment opportunities because all they can see is risk. Fair enough – but they are not in as much trouble as the average homeless person. Come on, guys show us that empathy and a long view is possible and that at a time like this we can show some vision. Some VCs and Business Angels may well have stepped out on to the streets and clapped and cheered for the NHS. How about giving us a reason to clap and cheer for you?

I could make this a really long and reasoned blog (or rant) but let us stick to some basics for UK for now and make it wider for other countries.

How about – as part of fiscal reforms the HMRC looks at making SEIS and EIS even more attractive for Business Angels. Sharing risks a bit with them. Afterall for many it could be their pensions we are asking them to risk.

And how about Business Angel groups coming together to raise a single fund to address the needs of Covid 19. These could be with diagnostics, ventilators, social enterprises and physical infrastructure. And not just for UK needs – but look more widely at global requirements.

But here is the thing guys – let us set IRRs and terms and conditions that look more like grants than they do for mythical Unicorn returns.

How about setting a modest target of £100m to call for 10 – 15 potentially breakthrough innovations in cracking the Corona Virus.  There is an entire community of scientists and researchers who have potential solutions and nowhere to turn.

Let us see some leadership – not so much running for the hills as stepping up to the plate.

MBA ranking for Entrepreneurship - do they tell the real story?

MBA ranking for Entrepreneurship – Do they tell the real story

I returned to Cranfield School of Management as Director of the Bettany Centre for Entrepreneurship. Having been away in other Institutions for a number of years, my abiding memory was that it was a strongly entrepreneurial School, with many distinguished alumni. Afterall this is what drew me back, in order to work with the alumni base to develop a strong set of programmes and activities to engage the rest of the University which is strong in aerospace, transport systems, manufacturing, energy environment and of course defence in new venture creation.

I was in for a shock if the FT ranking table is to be believed. Cranfield are in 43^rd place for entrepreneurship. Well numbers don’t lie do they?  Maybe we have not played the ranking game well enough – but what I can say is that the entrepreneurial alumni base is strong. Here is a bit of unashamed trumpeting of some of our MBA alumni.

Robert Wright – started Connectair, eventually sold it as CityFlier to BA – for a nice profit. He invested in Wizzair and helped the founding entrepreneur – Josef Varadi make a huge success of the airline.

Sarah Willingham – Made her fortune in the restaurant business. Her big success was with the Bombay Bicycle company. Most recently she was on Dragons Den and is now a mentor and investor.

Nick Jenkins – most recently on Dragons Den – but is on several boards, is a serial investor and that is because he made a great exit from the firm he founded - Moonpig

Patrick Caiger Smith and

Simon Anderson – formed their alliance at the Cranfield Regatta and their company has grown on the back of providing the hardware for smart meters in the home- selling via British Gas.

Steve Joliffe – Has worked tirelessly to develop Top Golf – now a world leader in indoor golf. The company has huge venues in Las Vegas among other places.

Harry Clarke – has founded many companies and is mainly known for pioneering the car parking payment app - RingGo

Glenn Collinson – co-founder and Director of Cambridge Silicon Radio – which brought us Bluetooth

Warren East – grew ARM from a small tech company to a giant before leaving to take up the role as CEO of Rolls Royce

There are ofcourse numerous others and not only has Cranfield been instrumental in the lives of these successful entrepreneurs, we have had the Business Growth Programme running quietly for some 30 years now and the alumni on that came with flat lined business which subsequently accelerated to supergrowth levels of expansion. There are many household brands that we would recognise.

The point about this blog is not so much to list all the successes – simply to indicate that the entrepreneurial DNA is strong at Cranfield and we take pride in it.

To mooc or not to mooc – that was the question

When, puzzled about the value of MOOCs, I carried out a very simple experiment – by enrolling on a MOOC in my capacity both as academic and entrepreneur..

What I now think of as ‘My MOOC’ is an experience that has transformed the way I think about online learning and given me huge insight into the experience of my students. But before I declare myself a convert or a malcontent, I should start with a bit of background.

I head up the Centre for Entrepreneurial at Cambridge Judge Business School and our emerging flagship course is the Post-graduate Diploma in Entrepreneurship (www.cfel.jbs.cam.ac.uk). The PGDE is the only one of its kind (the old adage that you can’t teach entrepreneurship is still alive and well) because we firmly believe that excellent entrepreneurial skills can, and should, be learnt in the academic environment. This kind of learning (in the main, we use entrepreneurs to teach entrepreneurs) can help new venturers to avoid a lot of mistakes, as well as helping established entrepreneurs to turn around or enhance their existing business.

As our clientele for this course are necessarily an international bunch, we offer most of the Cambridge PGDE programme online, to allow them to do it from wherever they are in the world and to continue to run their business while they study. Since I did my own education long before all this sophisticated online learning, I have often pondered what the experience is like – especially for a busy entrepreneur (as I have been myself). When MOOCs came along, I pondered even more about the efficacy of online learning until at last, looking for something to do during a recent sabbatical, I decided to find out what all the fuss is about and enrolled on one myself.

At first, enticed by the thought of performing really well on something I knew lots about, I considered the range of excellent courses on offer from big US Universities on topics like innovation, entrepreneurship, strategy and leadership. But then it occurred to me that my experiment really called for me to go out on a limb and try a subject completely foreign to me. Why? Because if you are a manager or a technology specialist or a member of a family business – what must it feel like to enrol on a course on entrepreneurship? As there is only this one PGDE on offer – it must feel entirely alien at first to the people enrolling on it from around the globe.  So I chose something that felt alien to me – a 6 week MOOC from the Shakespeare Institute at the University of Birmingham - on Hamlet! It’s on the www.futurelearn.com platform.

To the extreme hilarity of my children, who instantly offered me Letts notes and patronised me mercilessly with offers of help, I embarked on something I had never read and which is positioned in the minds of most non-arts people as a secondary school bit of torture.  I dutifully prepared by buying the play and reading it – when the ensuing headache would let me!  Hamlet is one of the longest plays and getting into it was tough.  However, Week 1 on my MOOC passed with great excitement until I reached the first multiple-choice quiz.

This was a terrifying moment when I realised that I absolutely had to get it right or crash and burn in front of my hawk-eyed offspring, who were circling like cute vultures, waiting for me to fail. Luckily, I managed a five out of five for the test and progressed into the following weeks. More and more drawn in, I threw away the aspirin and learnt, enthralled, about the play, its context, the actors, nuances of interpretation, the never-ending centuries’ old debates about Hamlet and his motives. I especially enjoyed how it it took me off on fascinating tangents, like diving into Youtube where there are some wonderful ‘to be or not to be’ speeches. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7TgTb_0wsg

The most serious challenge posed along the way was a peer reviewed 500-word article.  It took a while to break through the blank page on a subject I had never written on, but the ‘peers’ were gentle on me and it proved one of the most rewarding things I did. The many quizzes were easy enough – but I needed the multiple attempts the programme offered!

 What did I take away from the MOOC?  It was like opening presents at Christmas as each module unfolded and I educated myself about a fascinating subject far from my usual sphere. This is one of the nice things about online learning – the sense of achievement as you effectively motivate and educate yourself. It also gave me a whole new topic for dinner conversations!

As for MOOCs – their time has come and academic Institutions had better embrace them.  We are still on a hype cycle with MOOCs and their demise is already being predicted, with articles about how severe the drop-out rate is. I don’t know what the drop-out rate was on my Hamlet MOOC – But I know I’m sold. The key things I loved were the fabulous content with excellent delivery; the easy navigation; the good quality discussions on the platform – i.e. a good peer group - and, at 6 weeks, it was just the right length.

Downsides? There is still work to be done on the discussion forum. I am not convinced that the current platform makes this easy; you have to scroll through hundreds of participants or you end up only seeing the top 5- 10 posts and might miss an excellent post that’s too far down. Some of the quiz questions and the written assignment came as surprises – there were a few complaints about that. But, even with glitches, it was already hundreds of times better than not having access to some of the top people on Shakespeare, helping you to navigate a course on Hamlet, and without having to go anywhere or do anything other than sit in my lounge in my slippers. 

And so the moral of the story is – MOOCs work if they offer excellent, well-considered content, access to some of the top minds on the subject, a high quality peer group and a well-designed platform. If these fundamentals are in place, students will forgive stray errors. Perhaps in the end in was no surprise to find that, no matter what the delivery mechanism - whether it’s books or MOOCs -  content is still king. After all, it’s what has been keeping a weird play about a neurotic Prince set in Denmark consistently in the top most read and watched for four centuries.

That Will Shakespeare – he knew a thing or two about keeping an audience on line.

If your motive is only to make money

.....you are more than likely to make very different choices than if you want to change the world Enterprise Tuesday has had its next inspirational speaker – Dr Darrin Disley – parallel biotech entrepreneur and founding CEO of Horizon Discovery. His talk was focused on motivation and mindsets. Darrin talked about two basic mindsets – one that says I have what it takes and now I shall go forth and leverage that (fixed) and the other which is growth oriented that says I shall keep on learning and adapting. Of course Darrin is British – and I am kind of with him on this – there is a third way – the transitional mindset – whereby if we accept we are who we are then we begin to realize what we need to do to change – but if we are delusional about our mindset being completely open – then we may well actually be stuck!! There is an irony – and only your own strong sense of self-awareness and a reality check from people who care and are honest will affirm this. Why is it important? Entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial behaviours require us to have an appreciative mindset; where we always see opportunities for new things, see possibilities in events, people and actions. A strong analytical mind that looks for pitfalls and problems will too quickly focus on narrowing down options when in reality we need to be open and adapt to changes. We need to be agile, alert to opportunities and be able to listen to customers and general feedback. Of course this does not mean you park your common sense or critical ability. This kind of mindset turns problems into opportunities and perhaps reduces a fear of failure too – which is so important in entrepreneurship. I think it is only when the desire for success out weighs the fear of failure that we can act. On the topic of motivations – Darrin set out the literature on the topic of the hot buttons that exist to get people moving towards a purpose. In his case – a strong sense of independence, desire to help, need for recognition were among the drivers. Until we know what ticks our boxes and those of our team members we will not have a united team that functions towards a common purpose. Darrin told us his story via the “good, bad and ugly” companies he had started and worked on. In the end – it is very clear that in the case of this entrepreneur – vision and values are the bigger drivers than economic gain – although economic gain is also finally important – after all how do you measure the eventual ability to give back unless you make something in the first place. His current success is Horizon Discovery and several investments in startups. Thank you Darrin.

Bank of England at 0.5% but unauthorised OD at 29.5% - Entrepreneurs beware

As an educator and mentor to many small firms - I am regularly asked about the behaviour of banks towards entrepeneurs, small firms and those that are riding through tough times. Why do banks not lend, support, how come I get no assistance when I want to grow and so forth?

When I saw the news - that the Bank of England interest is at 0.5% and yet the unauthorised overdraft is at 29.5% - I did feel a sense of outrage. If you go over the limit you have to pay - and I suppose that is "fair enough" - except that the Bank's profit margin is huge. Then here is the rub - you can become "Unauthorised" at the discretion of the bank - it is further in - in the small print - so even if you cause no offence - if the local bank manager decides he no longer wants to support you he can pull the OD facility from you and stick you on the "unauthorised" schedule!! Haha!

Before we decide what to do next - look at the small print:

About 5 clicks in on a pdf document at Barclays is where I found the charges for those who go over drawn without prior authorisation. Here are some extracts. And the story is the same at a couple of other banks that I checked.

"..........to consider making our overdraft service
available to you before your account goes overdrawn or before
you exceed an agreed overdraft limit. Overdrafts provided in this
way are cheaper than unauthorised borrowing.
............The interest rate for unauthorised
borrowings, including those within the £30 buffer zone, is
charged at 29.5 per cent a year..........Additionally, if an item is returned unpaid due to there being
insufficient funds in your account, we will charge you an
Unpaid Fee of £35 for each such payment, which is our fee for
having considered whether to process such payment....."
So - there are some serious learning points:

Ensure you have a good financial director on your board, someone who knows the local networks of managers at local banks, good accountants etc., and can lobby on your behalf if needed. There are many other tips that migth be available and I am going to leave it to the wisdom of the crowds to populate the internet with ideas and suggestions...

Nobel Prize winning science –creates a biotech industry, Enterprise Tuesday 19th January 2010

Cambridge Antibody Technology (CAT) was founded in the dying days of 1989 to develop human therapeutic antibodies. The early stages were difficult; the underlying science was only half done, and the large pharmaceutical companies and most investors did not believe that antibodies were viable drugs, although now it is an industry with a turnover of more than $25 bn per annum. Sir Gregory Winter (a founder) and Dr Kevin Johnson (an early recruit) will piece together the founding, and the development of the science and business of CAT, including the early development of the blockbuster drug HumiraTM directed against rheumatoid arthritis."
The story behind CAT though is just as fascinating and as background here is my attempt to summarize.
The creation of the business and the biotech industry goes back to a major misunderstanding about intellectual property ownership and its exploitation.
One of the articles is about who is at the heart of the nobel prize (1984) winning science – Milstein or Kohler? (http://www.nature.com/nri/journal/v4/n2/full/nri1265-c1.html) We certainly hear about this issue from many graduates and others who are anxious about how much of their new ideas they feel they can share openly. Ownership of the idea that then leads to a discovery or to a business that succeeds is close to the heart of individuals. And how this ownership of the discovery is subsequently commercialised is also an important debate for Universities, individual researchers, the venture capitalists and management teams.
The other part of the controversy is whether or not it was smart to publish and “give away” cell lines and the mice to those who might be competitors. This is a more serious argument and some think that the patenting regime can be stifling and restrictive to the ultimate benefits of society.
http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v23/n9/full/nbt0905-1047.html
There are probably three major themes to this debate. First – whether all new knowledge generated through public funding actually belongs to society anyway – in which case it should be published for wider dissemination and this includes any commercial exploitation. The second line of argument has been that the way patenting and licensing is done – starts to become increasingly defensive and is a broken system and therefore acts against the best interests of what it is actually supposed to encourage. The third is simply that unless one has a system that can be understood the capital and resources from organisations that have the capability to commercialise the science will just not do so.
I am not knowledgeable enough to fully comment on this third aspect – but it seems to me that if the opportunity is big enough and the deals are there to be done, is the commercial exploitation not more to do with management and markets than about ring fencing the ownership of IP? In some industries now (e.g. internet) there is a greater push for open source and open innovation and in most technology clusters there is increasing collaborative working.
For those of us – who need to understand how or why this science is significant there is a layman’s description of the impact of monoclonal antibodies. http://www.dana.org/news/publications/detail.aspx?id=4278

Silicon Valley came to Cambridge - what were the ah ha moments for me?!

There was a busy programme of events, masterclasses, workshops, networking, dinners and banter over the two and a half days of the visit by a dozen or so entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley. I attended a number of the formal sessions and the dinner at the Masters Lodge at Trinity College. Apart from the energy and buzz which is so typical of events that gather together entrepreneurs - especially those with credibility what else did I get?

A conference with entrepreneurs is soooo much more fun, educational, exciting, stimulating for opportunities and positive thinking - no one even mentioned the recession/credit crunch/difficulties or any such negative challenges. Was this because we mixed Silicon Valley with Silicon Fen? Maybe.

There were specifics - such as - where and when can you succeed as a small company innovating against a giant - "when you keep out of the spotlight of the big company". I like the use of such language rather than the dry business speak of professionals.

To partner with large companies as an entrepreneurial firm - find yourself an internal champion, get past the gatekeeper to the decision makers (never overestimate the clout of your contact)because decisions in large firms requires the buy-in of many stakeholders.

Before you think that partnering is key to your business strategy ask yourself - why can't you just Go For It?

To build internet businesses - some key tips:

Ensure that you build a fabulous user experience - just think of the simplicity of the google front page.

Ask is it scalable and try and establish that fact early in the business cycle.

Set yourself tight milestones and make sure you hit them.


There were two great sound bites that I took away

SMEs die of indigestion rather than starvation
Never become half pregnant

There was a lot to learn from the two days of oxygen filled events - so a big thank you to everyone that took part in all their different roles. There are an increasing number of pictures, videos, blogs, news items all over the internet. If you are hungry enough - please follow via svc2c.com


Pictures on http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=svc2c

Should entrepreneurs be cross with banks or bankers for the mess we have now?

Should entrepreneurs be cross with banks or bankers for the mess we have now?
At a debate last week at the Cambridge Union – part of the Silicon Valley Comes to Cambridge event- a few simple facts became obvious – well once we dealt with the noise in the information.
We need a banking system that works – full stop. We need it for making transactions happen. We need it for enabling the circular flow of money; enabling the provision of mortgages and lending for short and medium term.
The challenge of the Western capitalistic system seems to be that in order to provide these services – governments have instituted legislation, rules and bodies to regulate, largely it seems to me because the industry attracts people who are mesmerised by the making of money – for its own sake rather than because it is an end point of providing a service or product that adds value to society.
Usury was seen as evil until not so long ago – I wonder why!
So – while a healthy banking system is meant to help a money based economy go round, the way it is administered has lead to all manner of abuse and I do not need to rehearse these arguments here. The summary of the debate included the following issues: That by losing the plot – banks have taken much needed liquidity out of the market place so instead of having access to funds for investments, lending and generally provide for a positive role in the economy we have become distracted instead by issues of abuse and bonus payments. And it seems there is a relentless pressure from the bankers to insist they are worth it!
My only quarrel with the debaters would be that they talked about “Global meltdown” “entire economic systems” and so forth deluding themselves that only London and New York mattered...Well guys just in case you do not know where India and China are (as one of the debaters did not seem to know where Iceland was!!) you can find them on any good search engines.
In those countries entrepreneurs are somewhat relieved that although their banks are strict, cumbersome and lack in flexibility – at least they have banks they can go to. I think entrepreneurs in the present collapsed system have every reason to be cross with their bankers.

Meeting customer needs – Learning from Kell Ryan

The story behind the huge success of Ryanair – which has grown from a small Irish airline with 5000 passengers to an international carrier with 200+ planes, 900 routes, profits and with 58m+ passengers is a lesson to us all.
How have they done this?
A clear vision that is easy to articulate seems to be the starting point – A low cost airline! This vision is then applied with a mix of innovation and inventiveness on one side a hardnosed approach to cost control on the other. The benefit of this simplicity is that customers understand the offer very clearly.
The next point is to hire talented staff and get their buy-in with shared rewards (options schemes) and to train them into the way that the airline wants to run. The staff is mainly young – in their late 20s and they bring with them their energy. They are located in some 30 centres across Europe, so they incur no hotel costs, all returning home every night.
With this mix of vision and operational simplicity, the airline has met two of the most important needs of the customer – anon time airline that provides the lowest fares. There are no frills and everything beyond the basic service of a “bus with wings” is charged extra. This results in some 20% of the revenue coming from ancillary charges.
What else does the airline do to meet the needs of customers? Actually the focus is very clear – it is to bring down the cost of international travel – that is it. The response to any further questions on this matter are simply to see that most other airlines that try and provide full service offers do not make money and that the number of airlines that lose money is high. Ryanair is one of the few airlines in the world that makes money.
In addition to ensuring staff retention strategies, the airline has also taken steps to retain common sense and kept a continuous watch on costs. So staff helps to clean the aircraft, load the passengers and run the cabin services. Seats are locked in place to reduce maintenance charges. There are no sacred cows – so if something needs to be reduced, charged for or changed the airline will do it.
For example – they got rid of lemons from gin and tonic. This saved on time and cost and the passengers did not miss it. They have introduced on-line boarding now – so that takes away queues from airports and reduces costs further. The charge for luggage is now being copied by other airlines.
The management and the teams stay focused on costs and ensuring they do everything they can to be the lowest cost airline. But having said that – their staff are not badly paid – so it is not in this where they make savings – recognising that cabin staff do need to be rewarded and to find the right quality of pilots also takes money.

One of the breakthroughs for the airline was the rapid growth of the internet. This has enabled the airline to innovate in all manner of ways from on-line sales, ancillary bookings of car hire, hotels etc., through to now online check-in. The senior team were creative in the way they arranged to buy the website developers. They had had two professional quotations, one from a Dublin firm and another from a London firm. Both were thought to be too expensive. So they turned to a group of 4 high school students (doing their A levels) and paid them in free tickets, some cash and subsequently for two of them - jobs in the company!
In summary – the business is run on a “keep it simple and straightforward” basis – where all the staff and the passengers know that the basic offer is to fly from point to point at the lowest cost. This simplicity has turned Europe into a single continent, connecting 500m+ people at affordable prices. Through this, people are taking weekend holidays, jobs and buying second homes.
Throughout the growth of the airline - one of the other qualities they have shown is the courage of their conviction. Without hesitation they absorbed the Southwestern airline model, pushed for second tier airports as way of cutting down on airport costs and ensuring better time keeping (keeping away from busy airports, went for 100% web based transactions, charged for luggage, have now gone for 100% web based check-in and so forth. They were bold to go with A level students to develop such an important part of their business.

In meeting the core need of their customers they have shown the focus on staff retention, inventiveness in reducing costs, focus on the core offer has kept them from being complacent and are important lessons for how one delivers strong marketing programmes.
This message of simplicity and boldness is a very powerful one in entrepreneurship and management and therefore I will keep away from the frequent times in which the airline courts controversy.

From deep science to a cool product

Prof Henning Sirringhaus from the Cavendish Labs at Cambridge, Martin Jackson of Plastic Logic and Bill Earner of Amadeus Capital Partners talked to a packed audience of around 400 graduates and members of the business community on how and why they have taken a tough 10 year+ journey to commercialise deep science.
From what I could gather, it started with the scientists looking at how to take the technical attributes of passing light through plastic and the convenience of plastic (it is light and flexible) to see if a product could be developed. One of the driving forces of the innovation that followed seems to be about solving the problem of convenience for people on the move.
People who need to read books, documents, articles, newspapers and myriad other content have two choices at the moment. Carrying heavy quantities of documents or trying to read on laptops – where due to the intensity of the way the screen is backlit – in the end it gets tiring. The inventors, investors and management of the project saw this as a global unmet need.
Curiously so have Sony, Kindle and others who are all rushing to market with eReaders. After the iphone this product line is likely to be the next big thing in the “boys toys” category and will likely revolutionise our reading behaviours as prices come plummeting downward in the years ahead.
So – the journey of plastic electronics as it has been labelled – started a long time ago and the team made a choice to enter the market with an eReader – due to be launched at a major event in January 2010. Hopefully they are just in time when compared to other products that are coming out this winter – before the Christmas of 2009.
The team has bigger plans for their patents and inventions, but the story is not so much about technology as it is about faith, belief, entrepreneurial risk and talented people.
The early conversations between Henning, Sir Richard Friend and Dr Hermann Hauser were formative and influential. All three eminent being physicists. Hermann being the serial entrepreneur and venture capitalists has the experience and instinct to know when to back something. It is also his vision for the next big product – and the potential to create an industry that has helped to raise over $250m dollars, research grants and subsidies for setting up a factory in Dresden. With that strong vision and business credibility, the team also has its “scientific rock stars” – some early exposure to doing business in emerging technologies and gradually a build up of a strong commercial and manufacturing team. It is probably this combination that has allowed Plastic Logic to go further than might be expected for a company that has been in “start-up” mode for over 10 years.
Over the 10 years Plastic Logic has tried a variety of business models, including trying to license the technology, but found that because it was unproven, the big manufacturers were unwilling to take it on. As a result of this market feedback, the team decided to set up its own factory and were fortunate in finding support from the government in Saxony - keen to attract a cutting edge science based company. So – the focus is on scaling up from a laboratory project about the light emitting properties of plastic to a real product that consumers can buy! This is a huge transition and requires major shifts in the talent pool from scientists through project managers, sales teams, factory skills, etc.,
How does a team sustain its motivation to go through all the various change points from a scientific breakthrough in 1998/99 to the prospect of a product launch into a growing market in 2010?
The basic answer seems to be about the excitement of creating an industry through the launch of a product. In essence – where the scale and scope of the opportunity far outweighs any sense of barriers or risk! The opportunity is seen to be vast and the team wants to be in a leadership position!
My main takeaway thought was the comment that Henning made – when the whole enterprise started he asked himself – should he focus on publishing and staying “Pure” or should he devote any time to the venturing process. At the time he was an unestablished young academic. He chose to do both! Now he is a young professor, inventor and initiator of a company that could well turn out to be at the forefront of plastic electronics. As Prof Andy Hopper said last year and on the video (see www.cfel.jbs.cam.ac.uk/resources) you can have your cake and eat it!

How not to get divorced – lessons from serial entrepreneurs

I was at a dinner at Downing College (Cambridge) where our after dinner speaker was Jody Chatterjee who has had a rich career in many different roles. His honesty about the roller coaster ride of an entrepreneur was engaging! Jody spoke at the end of a long day of thinking about entrepreneurship in large organisations that was being run for Haniel by Ashridge Management College. Haniel is a family owned 35,000 employee organisation from Germany, with a diversity of businesses.
The others contributors were Claudio Marinelli from Nokia, Dan Sandhu from ACIS and Rob Stewart from Stevenage Packaging.
Each painted a rich picture for us to think about.
They were pretty unanimous on the fact that entrepreneurs work with a passion to make things better or to make better things – that solve problems.
Entrepreneurial people are driven by seeking freedom and autonomy to make decisions. This is a dominant theme from the conversations. If entrepreneurial people involved did not have this freedom to act and to act quickly they would wilt.
Entrepreneurs are impatient to get things done; making them hard to live and work with, but the passion to make things better comes with the impatience to get it done. The impatience also comes over as being somewhat “crazy”. So they are seen as disruptive influences within the organisation!
Very low tolerance for internal politics – in the end is it possible to be an entrepreneurial employee in a large organisation to succeed without “political skills”?
On a very personal level – everyone acknowledged the role played by their family in supporting them. The short hand was framed in the evening as “find out how not to get divorced”. The point being – what is the purpose of entrepreneurial success if in the end it breaks up the things that in the long term are what matter – family?
In the past – in my consulting role when I have been mentoring people with their ambitions to start and to grow their businesses – the key question that has stopped people in their tracks about what they want to do – has been to ask – Do you have a “contract” with your family? Do they know you will put the house on the line, the level of risk you want to take, that you will behave in a totally obsessive ways for months, not sleep much, get irritable if things are not going the way you want, feel highs and lows of emotions and you will hardly be around either mentally, physically or emotionally? The family needs to understand this in order to be able to truly support you!
Entrepreneurs I have met who have managed to be realistic about the work load and the risks and been able to get the support of the family – whether this is their partner or their parents or siblings have been truly amazing because they have a kind of freedom that others who are trying to balance their entrepreneurial ambitions with family obligations simply do not have.
It is unlikely you will find the answers in books and videos, just talk openly to a friend with wisdom.

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?

WHY ENTREPRENEURSHIP IS A REAL OPTION – Learning from Plastic Logic

Prof Henning Sirringhaus is a leading authority on organic semiconductors. Working within the Cambridge environment he and his business contacts saw the huge potential for the application of this deep science research to the possibility of creating a whole new industry based on the fact that plactics can carry current!

Henning is founder, director and continues to be a shareholder in Plastic Logic. Meanwhile the commercial team that was formed around it included Dr Hermann Hauser, serial entrepreneur, investor, physicist, eternal optimist and visionary. Bit by bit they formed a formidable team of scientists, technologists, commercial teams and through a series of dead ends, diversions and sometimes distractions they have raised over £250m in venture capital, got a factory underway in Dresden and are now launching their own product.

Plastic Logic might be the first company within a new industry? It is also potentially a huge success story based on over 20 years of research and earlier attempts at commercialisation of near to market technologies.

But who can tell – at this early stage if Plastic Logic will actually launch a new industry. Meanwhile we look to understand how and why the founders, investors and shareholders continue to have faith in a venture with long gestation periods. Most businesses operate on quarterly cycles and get impatient if there are no sales. What motivates this group of individuals and teams of technical, commercial and scientific talent to pursue Plastic Logic.
From the presentations and discussion by Henning Sirringhaus, Bill Earner (Amadeus Capital Partners) and Martin Jackson (Plastic Logic) we hope to find out more about:

Personal motivations; recognition of opportunities; the types of skills needed at different stages of the venture; risks and rewards. We also hope to learn about whether or not dilution of shares and ownership affects motivation of founders; how the funding cycles have gone and been managed and how teams have changed.

Based on this opening lecture we expect to set the scene for the remainder of the 11 lectures and networking events to bring you Enterprise Tuesday.

Here are some references for the business and academic communities:

Plasctic logic – press releases; home page www.plasticlogic.com www.plasticlogic.com/news
Plastic Logic demo www.youtube.com/watch?v=0znv3V-GsNk
Cavendish labs – Henning’s work www.phy.cam.ac.uk/people/sirringhaush.php
Amadeus capital partners www.amadeuscapital.com – investors in Plastic Logic

A Highly π-Stacked Organic Semiconductor for Thin Film Transistors Based on Fused Thiophenes
Xiao-Chang Li, Henning Sirringhaus, Francis Garnier, Andrew B. Holmes, Stephen C. Moratti, Neil Feeder, William Clegg, Simon J. Teat, and Richard H. Friend
J. Am. Chem. Soc., 1998, 120 (9), pp 2206–2207 Publication Date (Web): February 24, 1998
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ja9735968
Effects of Packing Structure on the Optoelectronic and Charge Transport Properties in Poly(9,9-di-n-octylfluorene-alt-benzothiadiazole) Carrie L. Donley, Jana Zaumseil, Jens W. Andreasen, Martin M. Nielsen, Henning Sirringhaus, Richard H. Friend, and Ji-Seon Kim
J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2005, 127 (37), pp 12890–12899 Publication Date (Web): August 25, 2005
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ja051891j
Surface Tension and Fluid Flow Driven Self-Assembly of Ordered ZnO Nanorod Films for High-Performance Field Effect Transistors
Baoquan Sun and Henning Sirringhaus
J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2006, 128 (50), pp 16231–16237 Publication Date (Web): December 1, 2006
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ja065242z
Binary Nanoparticle Superlattices in the Semiconductor−Semiconductor System: CdTe and CdSe
Zhuoying Chen, Jenny Moore, Guillaume Radtke, Henning Sirringhaus, and Stephen O'Brien
J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2007, 129 (50), pp 15702–15709
Publication Date (Web): November 23, 2007
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ja076698z

What is the best way to learn if you want to be an entrepreneur?

I am presently working on several projects connected with entrepreneurship education and there is inevitably a menu of ways to "teach" or "organise learning".

But before we stray into detail - the most Frequently Asked question continues to be - "can you teach it?". My response so far has been that it is no different from teaching management, music, math or geography or any other subject - it ultimately comes down to people wanting to learn. So - if we get past this basic question then we get to "how" questions.

Learning by doing? Learning through simulations? Use of case studies? From mentors and coaches? In the calss room based strongly on theory? Videos? On-line models of learning? Action learning - i.e. through problem solving and applying the lessons? and so forth.

Going back to the question - in the title - I would welcome some intelligent thoughts and comments on the subject. We are getting ready for the Advanced Diploma in two weeks time - (see www.cfel.jbs.cam.ac.uk); working on a review of education at Laurea University in Finland and thinking about scaling up entrepreneurship education on a global basis as a result of a major project for the World Economic Forum.

immigration is more important than math?!

Now imagine this - that immigration has a greater impact on innovation than the teaching of math and science! Well this is a perspective taken by GigaOM and I have some sympathy with the view..because what it suggests is that people moving around the world freely taking their talent, hunger and abilities is hugely valuable to an economy. Perhaps a bit extreme as the writer of this blog only focuses on the needs of USA. So - it implies that Indians and Chinese teach the math and USA benefits from it!?

http://gigaom.com/2009/07/04/americas-secret-innovation-weapon-immigration/

To some extent the short term brain drain may well have to be tolerated (even if it seen as some kind of imperialism) so that in the longer term this tide of movement of the talent then starts to provide returns to the home country. There is evidence of this to some degree in teh shape of "brain circulation" - see for example teh Indian diaspora providing a huge stimulus to the INdian economy.

Why I like to think about such questions is that whenever I travel around mainland Europe I am struck by the almost complete lack of diversity in management, academia and naturally among policy makers. So few from other countries, other opnions and views, with the result that I see a Europe made up of a 1000 monocultures. The barriers have started to come up - for example the stupid attacks in Belfast by the Irish against the Romanians!! please forgive me for thinking that this was just a bit rich considering there are more Irish people outside Ireland! WHat if they were being beaten up?

So - the emergence of close minded protectionist barriers we see emergning around teh world is going to create a cramping of innovation, as entrepreneurs and especially entrpereneurially minded immigrants are prevented from free movement.

The USa wants to take a strategic view and ofcourse so will other coutnries. USA can probably do this because it is built on a history of immigation. For others - I think it will be really confusing by what they mean by strategic.

Time for liberals to apply themselves to this question..

comments here or via www.twitter.com/shaivyakarnam

Entrepreneur in different languages

In Spanish: Emprendedor
In Finnish: Yrittäjä - More or less meaning someone who tries
By Carlos del Corral Product design and development manager
posted 1 hour ago
In German it's "Unternehmer" which, like in French, literally means "someone who undertakes to do something". It's a pity that the translation into English of "Undertaker" has a very different meaning !!
By Keith Haisman Interim Manager, Turnaround Director and Executive Coach
posted 45 minutes ago
And like the word manager has this term been hijacked!?

By the way for those of you who have placed comments I can't seem to figure out how to allow people to view the comments - although I have moderated and published them. There must a button I am missing! So - here are the definitions captured so far!

Is there opportunity in getting rid of aging?

The following is an extract from http://www.sens.org/index.php?pagename=sens_rab


Two thirds of all deaths worldwide, and about 90% of all deaths in the developed world, are from causes that only rarely kill young adults. These causes include Alzheimer's, cardiovascular disease, Type II diabetes and most cancers. They are age-related because they are expressions of the later stages of aging, occurring when the molecular and cellular damage that has accumulated in the body throughout life exceeds the level that metabolism can tolerate. Moreover, before it kills them, aging imposes on most elderly people a long period of debilitation and disease. For these reasons, aging is unarguably the most prevalent medically-relevant phenomenon in the modern world and the primary ultimate target of biomedical research.

The implication is that as researchers get to grips with the vision of the SENS Foundation - there would be a stream of opportunities. And there are enough ethical issues to get us talking as well...

Never trust overpaid fools but let us not confuse ethics with education

“I hope we never again trust overpaid fools who think they know best thanks to bogus theories! This was the end line from a piece by Luke Johnson in the Financial Times on Friday 29th May in FT.com.

I completely agree that the world should not trust overpaid fools. It seems to me that while Luke Johnson makes a very valid point that entrepreneurs with a strong element of common sense and intuition as guiding principles over the jargon filled board rooms of corporate would not have made the catastrophic decisions that have led finally to companies like GM filing for bankruptcy, he over simplifies the story.
The costs of instinct, gut feel and down to earth decisions can also have a high price – it is not a perfect system. Investors always talk about the need to have a portfolio of say 10 or more companies, from which they hope one will bring in the big returns, acknowledge that four or five will remain as part of the living dead in the portfolio and accept the losses they may incur in the remainder of the portfolio. How come that intuition and common sense also lead to the endless churn of management teams as investors get fed up with their top teams and fire them in favour of yet more people coming in from their close network of people with common sense, intuition and it seems increasingly, a further requirement – dyslexia? (Most commonly trotted out as a disadvantage in articles on entrepreneurship).
Common sense and down to earth ability of entrepreneurs have also lead to high levels of success or failure in terms of the performance of millions of small businesses in the UK and indeed around the world.
Intuition and common sense are required in good measure in business, but they are not the only requirements. And it is true that highly educated individuals who have lost this ability are a burden, not just in business but also in society. Luke Johnson could have written about business ethics and societal values in his article more than about the virtues of untrained and uneducated entrepreneurs.
It is important to differentiate between formal know-what and informal know-how and indeed know-who in entrepreneurship. Often people confuse entrepreneurship education with a kind of business studies or business plan writing course. Formal understanding of business principles and theories that have stood the test of time are invaluable to the majority of people. In addition it is important to have a high level of self-awareness, social skills, and an ability to pitch a story, practical skills and to build a network of individuals who can help each other. Most, if not all of this is best learnt from practitioners and the role of Universities is to help put programmes and events in place that can provide the best of insights from formal and informal sources to enrich society with people who can make a difference. And while I agree completely with Luke Johnson that we never want to trust over paid fools again, let us not confuse education with ethical behaviours – which can be violated by both the overpaid fools and by entrepreneurs.

The most ostentatious display of power and debt

Call me a grumpy old man - or it may be that it is April Fools Day - but what can one make of the fact that the American President - especially and 19 other leaders believe they have the right to the most ludicrous display of power.

3 CEOs of GM, Ford and Chrysler were asked to give up their private planes if they wanted a bail out from the US President! Well how come then that the US President travels in Air Force One, has a fleet of helicopters, cavalcades etc., etc., etc., in order to appeal to the rest of the world to help "rescue" the USA!

And are we really to believe that the advisors, senior leaders and others who got is so badly wrong in the past decade are the very ones who now have the "right" answers? Where is the intellectual debate regarding the problems and solutions? It is just so full of opinions and if we are to be dominated by the "chcago" school of economics I am nervous about how best to advice up and coming entrepreneurs about how to plan for the future?

With leaders more concerned with the display of their power and debt - jousting for positions and sound bites - it seems to me that the "man in the street" will have to learn how to be even more adaptable in the future. It is 200 years ago that Darwin was born and it seems to me that at least in economics - it is going to be the entrepreneurial (adaptable) that will survive.

Sure hard working leaders need security - so why do they not just turn up quietly, do the work and get back to their offices! I am really being a grump - but the idea that as tax payers we should see a kind of Roman Emperor entering the City just strikes me as a distraction from getting the work done!

There I have got it out of the system and hope that the leaders come up with something positive!