Ripples Out – Reflections

First of all congratulations to everyone involved (Lippy Films, Yorkshire Forward, Together for Peace and local residents) in creating a powerful, provocative  film.
I sincerely hope that it helps disturb the comfortable equilibrium in Leeds (and beyond) that exists between the controllers of the public purse and the developers.  There maybe a brief window for reflection [...]

Social Participation and Enterprise

One of the key themes explored at the recent Future Gov Work Better Together event was the promise that ’social participation gives people the power to self-actualise’.
I am sure it does.
However ’social participation’ has also been the technology of choice for us human beings to make progress at all stages of Maslow’s Hierarchy – not just [...]

Ripples Out Screening Invite

I hope to get tickets for the October 7th screening!

Knowing ‘Bugger All’

I spent a very pleasant afternoon recently in the offices of New Start Magazine researching what makes for an inspirational or transformational relationship and I came across this wonderful quote:
In my ethnographic work, with a head full of American methodologies and theory, I thought I knew a bit about local government, urban and social policy [...]

Hunger for Inspiration

Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be
Ralph Waldo Emerson
I think this offers us some powerful, but largely ignored, clues as to how we should design our enterprise development services.  We need to offer a service that helps people to seek, find and, crucially, act on [...]

Should Enterprise Education Be More Than Business Literacy?

I was approached by a young woman in the Holiday Inn in Garforth yesterday.  She tugged gently at my trousers and asked me if I was interested in buying.
She was clutching a beetroot plant in a wonderfully hand painted plant pot, with a colourful and neatly laminated label saying ‘BEETROOT’.  She must have been six [...]

E-mail to an Enterprise Professional

If I said enterprise not entrepreneurship then I was too strong.
It is just that we can help people to develop their enterprising soul in so many more and varied arenas – many of which are more intrinsically attractive and powerful media than ‘business’ – especially to young people.  Musicianship, sports, art, food, writing, [...]

Why We Must Develop People and not Entrepreneurs

Economic growth is supposed to deliver prosperity. Higher incomes should mean better choices, richer lives, an improved quality of life for us all. That at least is the conventional wisdom. But things haven’t always turned out that way.
An even stronger finding is that the requirements of prosperity go way beyond material sustenance. Prosperity has vital [...]

Never Discourage Anyone…But Don’t Motivate Them Either

Never discourage anyone … who continually makes progress, no matter how slow. – Plato (427 BC – 347 BC)
Never.  NEVER!  NEVER!
I wish the judges of enterprise competitions would understand the importance of this.
At the grand finals of a recent dragon’s den type event (which included the usual cocktail of local business people, ‘would have been’ [...]

Community Anchors: Regeneration Cause or Effect?

Community Anchors are independent, community-led organisations. They are at the heart of their communities, physically and psychologically.  They are able to respond in a holistic way to local problems and challenges, by giving local people support to act.
Community Anchors come in many different shapes, forms and structures but they all share this basic [...]