Behind the scenes at Enterprise Week

It’s Enterprise Week (EW) and for me that means dashing between events listening and speaking to politicians, entrepreneurs, lobbyists, support groups, journalists – basically, anyone who’s got anything to say on small business.

Mostly it’s informative and good fun, but I can’t help wondering how much of it filters down to you… the people actually starting the businesses we’re all talking about.

So here’s a round-up of what’s been said and I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions about whether it’s right, wrong, helpful or merely fanciful!

I’ll actually start last week. Two pre-EW roundtables hosted by BT and Oracle respectively, both corporates keen to better communicate their good work with start-ups – albeit in very different ways.

Oracle’s better known for providing the technology behind leading global brands. However, through its Emerging Partner Programme it’s fostering a number of companies providing its expertise in strategy, networks and access to finance. It’s a non-financial arrangement and limited to a select handful of companies it deems to have high growth potential, but nonetheless it’s the closest thing you’ll see to a genuine leg-up.

BT has opposite ambitions – how does it talk to a critical mass of small businesses? It’s got an abundance of services aimed specifically at start-ups and small businesses but start-ups understandably remain a cash conscious bunch. Chatting to their execs it’s clear they’re keen to spread the word about some impressive technology that does seem to offer good long term solutions and savings, but many are reluctant to invest early on. To better communicate that message it’s looking to further improve its BT TradeSpace offering but also meet regularly with entrepreneneurs, other corporates, experts and press in the market. It’s good to see the big boys finally acknowledging that if they want to serve the start-up market they have to talk to it! Similarly it was good to hear the Bank of Scotland plans to open business plan clinics in local branches.

So to Monday, and the launch of EW proper. Stephen Alambritis of the Federation of Small Businesses opened up affairs with a rallying cry for greater focus on the leading role start-ups play – all very admirable, but haven’t we heard it all before? Jonathan Guthrie, Enterprise Editor for the FT followed with a refreshing approach to the perennial ‘we’re not as entrepreneurial as the US’ debate, claiming we beat ourselves up too much about not producing the next Facebook or Google, insisting that our networks are simply smaller and there are actually lots of enterprising entrepreneurs in the UK.

I also liked Jonathan’s analogy that the government’s determination to focus R&D funding to every region and not clusters of activity simply meant ‘everyone gets a lollipop’. Nice words and refreshing from the FT which often pays little more than lip service to small businesses. Shame then, when I opened that day’s copy, Enterprise Week was tucked away to an inside quarter pager.

Despite just praising BT I admit I was tempted to take an email break during Chief Executive Ben Verwaayen’s speech but was glad I didn’t. Ben was superb, making very valid claims that globalisation and immigration are driving the next generation of enterprise in a very positive way, creating a wealth of opportunity globally. Ben accentuated that ‘talent has no passport, age or gender’ and left me enthused that we’ve got a head of one of the UK’s leading companies so in touch with the dynamics of starting-up.

I hadn’t seen the Rt. Hon. John Hutton speak before but he’s the first Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform minister (or DTI) minister to impress me. OK he conveniently sidestepped abolishing corporation tax taper relief and reeled out the obligatory New Labour list of ‘achievements’ but I was warmed by his acknowledgement that strategy desperately needed reviewing and was, particularly encouraging were plans to raise the number of female entrepreneurs, structured mentoring schemes and entrepreneurial role models.

I’ll believe it when I see it of course, but I left feeling positive and Mr Hutton has kindly agreed to an interview for Startups.co.uk. What would you like me to ask? Phil Hope, the minister for the Third Sector, also seems a decent chap. Although, possibly I’m just impressed there is a minister for social enterprise…

Bebo’s new president Joanna Shields contrasted how in the US entrepreneurs who rise from humble beginnings to make fortunes are heralded as heroes and placed at the heart of the national psyche as the definition of the American dream, with our attitude in Europe and predominantly the UK, where success is met with envy more often than respect. Joanna questioned is it any wonder that so many great British ideas end up being developed overseas? She probably has a point…

Our friend and Startups Awards judge Tim Campbell’s hand accelerated into the air when Hermione Way the founder of the excellent Newspepper complained to the panel there wasn’t a ‘start a business’ grant and having been rejected by the Prince’s Trust, her only route to finance was to take out a loan which she didn’t want. Unfortunately Tim’s frantic handwaving went ignored but when I chatted to him afterwards I’m completely agreed with his view that enterprise is stunted by a ‘hand-out culture’ of people expecting free money. Tim’s right there’s no shortage of investors for good profitable ideas and that debt it a perfectly healthy route to go down. Hopefully Hermione will read this as she’s got the makings of a great business and is a really impressive young entrepreneur.

Onto our 9th Startups Live evening of 2007 on Monday night at Twickenham. Michael Smith, founder of Firebox and MindCandy was our star speaker. At just 33 he’s a dotcom veteran who’s passionate that now’s a great time to be in business; hence his forming of Second Chance Tuesday, a revival of the legendary networking club where Michael first raised funds. He doesn’t tell the Firebox story very often so it was good to see him in action.

Startups Awards 2006 winner John Paleomylites of BeatThatQuote was the perfect foil for Michael’s laid back and approachable style and stories of spareroom start-ups. John’s direct, bold and has a confidence that could be misinterpreted as arrogance. He’s not arrogant though, he’s actually just refreshingly honest about growing a phenomenally successful business with few growing pains inside just three years by simply spotting a good idea and superbly executing a plan to copy it and do it better.

Another entrepreneur I admire immensely is Karen Darby, who recently sold SimplySwitch.com for a cool £22m. She joined us on the couch for our latest Startups Webinar along with serial entrepreneur Ian Leslie. Karen relishes the opportunity to share her knowledge with those just starting-out and stole the show in a style I hoped she would. Lloyds, our sponsors for the webinars, must be commended for helping us put on such events for free – I think we’ll all agree, there’s nothing quite like hearing advice straight from the horse’s mouth. Look out for the next series in January.

Tuesday saw me pop along to Microsoft’s Victoria offices where several hundred school children were gathered for a hyperactive discussion on how to foster the big ideas of tomorrow. The focus of youth enterprise from primary school age is snowballing and expect it to play a big part in the government’s new strategy.

Indeed, Enterprise Insight, the government-backed support agency behind Enterprise Week and all the Make Your Mark events had the pleasure of a surprise visit from none other than the PM Gordon Brown at its main event. His presence tells you everything you need to know about the profile of this year’s activities. While we’re on the subject, the unstoppable Oli Barrett, the brains behind Make Your Mark With A Tenner and many, many other things, was also event hopping this week and I’m expecting some great new projects from him next year.

More BT praise now – this is getting worrying! – following the launch of this year’s Essence of the Entrepreneur exhibition at the OXO Tower on Wednesday evening. On show were 20 wonderful photographs of 20 of the UK’s most innovative tech entrepreneurs handpicked by those with their fingers on the pulse of entrepreneurial activity at Growing Business magazine and ingeniously shot by the uber cool Perou. It’s difficult to measure how this sort of thing converts into direct business help or, I’m sure, client-wins for BT so credit to them for looking at the bigger picture and hopefully helping to inspire the hundreds of thousands that will pass by the exhibition over the next month.

An hour earlier the British Library kicked off the first of two events this week with yet another Startups Awards winner Fraser Docherty continuing the youth enterprise theme with a panel discussion on teenpreneurs. Fraser and his SuperJams are a superb example of why we have to be encouraging our youngsters to focus their creativity through enterprise.

Thursday is Social Enterprise Day. By the point you get hold of this I’ll be somewhere along a marathon of stunningly impressive events. The social enterprise bus sets off from a school in Hackey, stopping off at various centres of activity to pick up the likes of Peter Jones, Glastonbury’s Emily Eavis, the man running Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen Foundation, Liam Black, and, among others, Ed Miliband MP and messrs Hutton and Hope.

I’ll be hopping off in time to pop in at Striding Out’s The Future Face of Social Enterprise where the winner of the Make Your Mark in 60 Seconds will be announced. Then it’s back to the Library for its social enterprise evening where the guests will be Sophie Tranchell of Divine Chocolate and that man Tim Campbell.

Wow! A lot of hot air? A lot of hope? A lot of promise? A lot of positivity? Probably all of this and more. Any real impact on you and your business? I’m not sure. You tell me.