We are fast rushing towards that time of year when children will either return to education or start it for the first time. Which means that the long period of the summer holidays is coming to an end. Parents will be preparing their children for the new academic year with uniforms, ‘school shoes’, sports clothes...
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Let us herald the real heroes
In the last month we have been bombarded with the front cover of Vogue where fifteen supposed celebrity influencers are presented in the September issue. Not surprisingly, given that most of us don’t even know of most of them it is difficult to believe that they are true influencers. At the same time we are...
What to say to inspire the young
In a few days time I will have the pleasure and honour of addressing a class of graduates as they go through their graduation. Whilst there is a part of me that is pleased to have this opportunity, it is also a rather daunting task. For we live in a world where negativity is often...
How to kill entrepreneurship!
Recently the UK has been obsessed with the election of a new Prime Minister and much of the talk has been about how each of the two candidates will tackle Brexit. However, Jeremy Hunt has made much of the fact that he was an entrepreneur. Indeed he does have some cause for making that claim,...
Social media – an entrepreneurial benefit or curse?
Many years ago, pre-social media, I was working with a group of entrepreneurs, when one person in the group told us that he had been offered the opportunity to put his flyers into a free, local magazine for quite a reasonable fee. We then had a discussion on what actually happens when free newspapers came...
A holiday proves a point!
I have just returned from a holiday with our three-year-old granddaughter. As well as being a magical experience for me, it also reaffirmed all that I believe in when looking at how best to develop entrepreneurship and creativity for the 21stCentury. I have always said that children are born naturally creative and that it is...
What makes women good entrepreneurs?
When I have been making presentations I have often espoused the idea that women have a number of skills that are valuable in running a business. I have praised their abilities in multitasking versus the single thread approach of men. One only has to watch a mother getting a child ready for school to see...
Let’s ban boxes!
Much of what I do these days centres on celebrating the individuality of people and of assisting them to make the most of this uniqueness. Sometimes this seems to be a bit like King Canute trying to turn the tide as one sees a world where conformity seems to be heralded at every turn. Whether...
Are social attitudes killing creativity?
When I lecture on entrepreneurship I often set some simple tasks to test the creativity or otherwise of the audience. It is not surprising to me that the same, non-creative, answers are the quickest to appear. For many in the audience have been conditioned by an education system that believes that there is one right...
In praise of social entrepreneurs
In the past the political structures existed to deal with the problems faced by the people that they represented. However, at every level of politics, this has ceased to be the case. Politics has become much more adversarial, much more dogma driven and much more about power and legacy than about real problems. Even at...