We need entrepreneurship that is meaningful

There is an urgent need to help find ideas and propositions that have the capacity to transform people’s lives. This blog sets out the arguments for doing that and points to a joint venture project that aims to do just that at the Judge Business School, Cambridge.

The drivers for a sea change in entrepreneurship started in 1991, when the Berlin Wall came down and when India and China embraced open(ish) market systems. According to Prof Willy Brown Master of Darwin College – there used to be two labour forces, one in the soviet (closed) economic system and the other in the capitalist system. Approximately 1.5billion in each. After 1991 – we have one overall system of 3 billion workers.

The impact of such a shift, tied into the internet and telecoms revolution means that we really have to think differently about the world, its resources, opportunities, political stability, empowerment and inclusion of numerous societies. The world is dividing and power bases are changing. There are demographic changes too. Not only is the world “flat” but also at the same time there are increasing new demands. For example the Middle East and North Africa region alone will need to help create over 85 million jobs over the next 10 years or so. How is this going to happen?

Meanwhile, due to the seizure of policy makers, individuals and communities are getting on with it – all over the world. Entrepreneurship has become a social movement.

Interestingly the notion of the single market system coupled with technology advances in so many fields has started to lower barriers to entry in entrepreneurship. The result is a fabulous growth of innovative companies that have the imagination and management teams to execute. Companies in telecoms, internet have been significant beneficiaries. The other impact of this macro-economic change is that information travels faster, aspirations are raised. Media is also having a huge impact. Some TV formats are democratizing talent shows and giving people increasing level s of hope about their futures. Sure there is a dark side, but the overall impact is going the right way.

All these signals have lead to hundreds of start ups, and incubation programmes that further stimulate new venture creation. In my view they are responding to a wider societal need, otherwise they would not fill up so quickly.

But, are we really focused on the right questions in entrepreneurship?

When you combine this new phenomenon of a social movement, with people who are willing to assist with new venture formation and look at what remains to be done – you get a feeling that it is time to help create meaningful enterprise.

We need to harness the technology, the social movement of entrepreneurship and the increasing levels of support for enterprise to help create new ventures that can make a deep impact on society. To be honest this is an antidote for me when I see ventures that only rely on providing convenience shopping for the rich! Nothing wrong with that – but why not instead work on things that can answer questions for more people.

Where might we find enterprises that are meaningful?

Well there is the UN Millennium Development Goals – poverty, water, health, literacy, infectious diseases and so forth. There is climate change and sustainability. There is health care for the elderly. There is civil rights, human rights, improved and more efficient public services. Civic services. Fair trade, micro lending, family support, child welfare. Frankly only our imagination limits the scope and scale of what we might do that is meaningful.

We might wish to limit the boundaries of what is meaningful. You might consider families, community, country or region. Or, to save the planet. At whatever level you see the opportunity it can make a difference and in the words of Guy Kawazaki – make meaning.

I was inspired by the use of social media during the so-called Arab Spring. It was one of the most amazing examples of seeing a bottom-up call for change. It was not about making profits and listing for IPO – but it was for something much bigger. It would be wonderful for enterprise agencies to start to stimulate graduates into creative processes to help solve big problems and thus create new ventures that are economically successful with good rewards for their founders and management teams..

If you share in this vision and set of values join us at IdeaTransform on the weekend of 20th to 22nd April 2012 in Cambridge.

See http://ideatransform.org/ for more information
https://twitter.com/#!/ideatransform

What is wrong with doing well from doing good?

Oxford and Cambridge only two medieval Universities that have a strong provision of entrepreneurship education

As Cambridge celebrates 800 years of progress, which together with Oxford is the only University which is ranked in single digits!

Year, University, Ranking(08) Country

1088 Bologna 192 = Italy
1096 Oxford 4 UK
1175 Modena 501+ Italy

1200 Sorbonne (Paris IV) 239= France
1209 Cambridge 3 UK
1218 Salamanca 401-500 Spain
1220 Montpellier III 501+ France
1222 Padua 296= Italy
1224 Naples – Frederico II 398= Italy
1229 Toulouse I 501+ France
1229 Toulouse II 501+ France
1240 Siena 401-500 Italy
1258 Paris I (Pantheon Sorbonne) 288 France
1272 Murcia 501+ Spain
1290 Coimbra 387= Portugal
1293 Madrid 306 Spain

Source: Times Higher Education List of the World’s Oldest Universities that are among the top ranking Institutions

How have these two medieval Institutions risen to the top to compete with modern Universities in the USA, which is where the bulk of the very top Universities are found?

Is it that they have secured more money, that they control publications, that English has become the dominant language or because they are secular in their research and inquiry?

For me the interesting fact is that it is only Oxford and Cambridge among the medieval institutions, selected for being among the oldest, that have a provision of entrepreneurship education for their undergrads and postgraduates. They both happen to be in the UK which has embraced commercialisation and skills for employability as strong values for their Universities - so they get funded to provide this.

The long term question may be about whether such education and the adoption of new values (entrepreneurship) will deflect from excellence or continue to enhance it. If you take the top Institutions around the world - they are all surrounded by technology entrepreneurship clusters. Hmm, raises a lot of questions!

Tell tale signs of opportunity – surviving the economic winter

When the world is in crisis – it is easy to talk yourself into a gloomy “do nothing” period of inactivity. But is this what entrepreneurs do?
At the moment the reality is that it is hard to find money to get going, customers willing to commit to purchasing anything, budgets that can be signed-off for pilot projects. We even risk current projects being cancelled and the aftermath of senior CEOs from “Bell weather” companies making statements that clearly suggest caution over enterprise!
So, when Dr Hermann Hauser says that the clear signs of a big opportunity is when you can see fast (big) growing markets, have a star team and possess defensible IP (or know how) can see the presence of money in the form of good quality venture capital within a supportive cluster – you look around at the moment and think - No Way!
But – Hermann has been involved in 62 start-ups – four of which have exceeded $1bn valuation – so apart from the macro indicators what else can an entrepreneur see that we can’t?
First – the entrepreneur can see High Quality people – with ideas and the ability to make things happen. Exceptional technology or exceptional ability to articulate a proposition.
Secondly – to ensure that the entrepreneur is in an ecosystem that is conducive to entrepreneurship – and in the case of tech entrepreneurship these would be Silicon Valley, Boston, Cambridge for example. Or if you were trading in spices – you would be on the spice route!! Andy Richards – a Cambridge biotech entrepreneur said that Cambridge was a low risk environment in which to do high risk ventures or as someone else put it les flaterringly – a cluster can be seen as a compost heap – where – when firms die the people are re-cycled!
Sometimes the cold business logic does not always deliver the right answers – for example AT+T were turned off mobile phones, IBM believed there would only ever by a market place for 4 computers and there have been many other gaffes over the decades! A particularly seismic event in technology transfer history is captured in the events that followed the publication of work on the monoclonal antibody. http://eprints.ucl.ac.uk/2079/1/wit1.pdf . In the first instance those in decision making positions did not believe that this work should be patented and only later realized the potential of this work in industrial and commercial terms.
In summary we come to belief, passion and a deep understanding of the opportunity (not just the technology). These together with skills to find opportunities, resources and the ability to chip away at customers and markets may be exactly the qualities we need right now in an economic winter.