I’m increasingly unconvinced by the “social enterprise” label as a distinct business model. Of the legal forms of incorporation only one has distinct “social features” (the CIC) but that’s not suitable for everyone. There are certainly many businesses trading for social improvement or with a strong social ethic running through them, just as there are… Continue reading What’s so Social about Social Enterprise?
Category: Bristol
Sir Ken in his element
Are you passionately doing something you’re good at? That was Sir Ken Robinson‘s challenge to us (and everyone really) last night at the Arnolfini. I hadn’t seen his TED2006 presentation, you should, its just there on the right. First of all, Sir Ken is an exceptional speaker. Very self-depreciating sense of humour, great timing, stage… Continue reading Sir Ken in his element
Twitter + Festival + Bristol = Bristwestival
Ok, perhaps one word mangle that’ll never make it into the OED but Twestivals are taking over. At least until 12 Feb. Organised out of London (who says Brits and Europeans don’t “get” twitter) and with a global network within days, if not hours this is a fantastic demonstration of something that simply couldn’t happen… Continue reading Twitter + Festival + Bristol = Bristwestival
Serendipity engineering
How valuable is engineered serendipity to your business? On my way back from a meeting in the Watershed I thought I’d stick my head into UWE’s new business incubator facility in Bush House. Only opened just before Christmas they already have a good selection of tenants including the usual scattering of graduate start-ups (such as… Continue reading Serendipity engineering
Customer delight
In my last post I talked about business process modeling and how it could help understand the activities in a business prior to cost cutting for survival. In this post I’m going to riff on the concept of delighting your customers so they come back. The hygiene factor in delighting your customers is not pissing… Continue reading Customer delight
A real Live Guy
A variation of igFest‘s Moosehunt came to Bristol yesterday in the form of Vodafone’s LiveGuy, his mission (which it looks like he accepted with eagerness): I’m travelling from the north to the south of Britain, laying down clues to my whereabouts. Your mission is to find me – and maybe even bag yourself a netbook.… Continue reading A real Live Guy
Models of leadership
One of the great aspects of working alongside Universities, is the breadth and depth of critical thinking that you get exposed to. Wednesday evening I was a guest at the Bristol Business School’s Distinguished Executive Address Series and the speaker was Karen Dunnell. Since her Wikipedia page was last edited the ONS has merged and… Continue reading Models of leadership
Meet the Dragons
…after you’ve crossed my palm with silver. There’s always been a healthy market in one group of people selling access to a small second group of people that a third, larger group of people value. In many circumstances this is entirely right and proper. I was recently at the 31st International Conference on Small Business… Continue reading Meet the Dragons
How Many? Part the Second
I just posted an example where I’d worked up an Addressable Market calculation based on fairly good data. Of course, this data isn’t usually available; or it’s really expensive. One of the services that jbsh offer is business consultancy, mainly strategic growth plans and help with the business planning activity. So what’s the addressable market… Continue reading How Many? Part the Second
Survival planning
On a dark and stormy Tuesday morning, with tales of economic melt down on R4, I wasn’t sure if anyone would turn up to Open Coffee. I shouldn’t have worried, Bristolians are made of stern stuff. We even had a friendly bank manager type along to see what the excitement was about. In addition to… Continue reading Survival planning