Inexperience is no bad thing in business and politics If anyone needed more evidence that the 21st century was going to be one where women take on new levels of prominence, Sarah Palin’s nomination as Vice Presidential candidate on John McCain’s ticket was there to bring home the point. What an odd choice you say? A heart beat away from the Presidency and no [...]
My fifteen-point plan to become a great success story Jerry Garcia, guitarist for the Grateful Dead, once said, “you do not merely want to be considered the best of the best.” “You want to be considered the only one who does what you do.” Life is about finding the unique contribution that only you can make to the world. Think of the Beijing Olympians [...]
Encouraging the young is key to creating entrepreneurs What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. This can actually be a good thing. A person becomes able to take on more difficult challenges if they are trained with smaller ones steadily. In fact, if you learn how to take risks early in life, you learn to stretch yourself appropriately and succeed in handling bigger [...]
How entrepreneurs are helping combat the credit crunch August 5, 2008 You might think that the credit crunch is going to shift power back to the banks as they call in loans and overdrafts, and reset terms and conditions. To a certain extent that is true. But what is also true is that the non-bank lenders, such as Zopa, the social lending marketplace, and Wonga, the [...]
My advice on how to become a successful entrepreneur July 29, 2008 People ask me all the time what the essentials are of running a start-up and whether they have what it takes. I’ve worked with a number of entrepreneurial duos, and typically one is the technological genius and the other the commercial brain. It’s true you can hire the finance skillset, as opposed to making someone [...]
What Brand America and Brand Britain must do to shine July 8, 2008 Even though the past few days have included 4 July, my national holiday, it felt like a very British week to this American in London. Rafael Nadal’s epic victory at Wimbledon showcased some of the best tennis ever. A Number 10 Downing Street reception and a Prince’s Trust Dinner at Windsor Castle capped off the [...]
How to create a new Microsoft and dominate the marketplace July 1, 2008 Bill Gates left Microsoft last week after 33 years dominating the age of PC computing. He got a couple of things right. First of all, when a contemporary, said there would only ever be a couple of computers in the world, Gates saw that in fact it would be a high-volume, low-margin business. Secondly, he [...]