RSS feedOn big business and narrow minds
Working in the business support sector* gives me a tangential interest in the concept of entrepreneurship and how it can be encouraged in the general public. According to the Small Business Service, 11% of the adult population is “seriously considering” starting a business.
That’s not an insignificant amount, but personally I suspect it would be much higher if we had a more modern, positive view of business in the British media. As a test, just think of a few British entrepreneurial role models.
Go on, have a go.
Sir Richard? James Dyson? Perhaps you thought of Anita Roddick but then remembered the whole L’Oreal debacle and changed your mind? Or maybe what’s-her-name from what’s-it-called.com that was so very trendy but didn’t really sell very much?
Bit of a struggle isn’t it?
Over the Atlantic, it’s very different. American TV, papers, and in fact its whole culture is saturated with men and women who’ve lived the dream, put in the work and ended up ludicrously rich. In contrast, we have The Apprentice, a Thatcherite treatise on bullying and one-upmanship, and Dragons’ Den, a panel of smug and vaguely spiteful venture capitalists taking potshots at naive 30-somethings who’ve invented a new type of bathplug. Not to mention a host of unscrupulous (even seedy) TV drama businessmen selling their grandmothers for a brown paper bag of used tenners.
We still seem fixated with the idea of commerce as big business empires, globalisation, exploitation, greed. It’s frustrating. Business doesn’t have to be like this! Half of the UK’s GDP comes from small businesses. There’s a surge in social enterprise activity, a growing trend of customer-centred design and, particularly in the tech sector, a rekindled passion for creating cool and profitable things through partnership, collaboration, openness and generally “doing the right thing”. For once, I’d love to see that recognised.
Categories: entrepreneur, smallbusiness, apprentice, sme
* Quite obviously, these opinions are my own and not those of my employer. Have to say that just in case, you know?
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