My friends had gotten behind on “payments”.  This is the regular time investment that is required if a vegetable patch is going to deliver. Hip high nettles and weeds had colonised three out of six beds of our friends’ allotment.  Very little had been planted in the new season and my friends had pretty much decided to give it up.  It was too much work for them and their children hated going along.   They were just drifting sadly toward being kicked out because what they did not know was that they were also a few weeks away from getting The Letter, the one where the Secretary of the Allotments Association tells them that they have squandered their chance to have a patch and that they must make way for someone else.

We joined them almost on a whim.  I like gardening, having grown up on farms, with my dad growing a lot of our family’s vegetables.  My children and theirs are friends and we feel that we share a work ethic (not that everyone works hard, more that we work equally hard).  Sociable gardening.  Shared skills, reciprocal pressure.

Now, on Sundays, we usually spend a few hours at the allotment.  All of the beds have been slashed and weeded and raked over; edging planks hammered in.  Three types of beans are flowering white and red; some are winding up wigwam style bamboo poles, some sturdy as small trees.  And this week I planted a large batch of strawberries.

The potatoes had been in when we joined and they stand lush and green and bushy and perfect.  Until I get up close and realise that there is strangle weed slowly wrapping itself around the leaves and stems of half the potato plants.  The potatoes must be growing fat underground because the ground is lifting and cracking.  They can stay there for a while longer but then the weeds need to be controlled.  I disentangled, cleared, pulled.  I tried to do this without stepping on the potatoes and I remember that my dad once grew potatoes when we lived in cold places and he would leave wide pathways between rows, now I know why.  So that he can get in and weed without crushing the plants and the spuds.  I bring my potato experience.

Everything that we put in grows marvellously.  This week I picked some purple lettuce that would not look out of place underwater.  It was delicious.

In business terms, even though we have a good location and the right product, the people in the firm are overwhelmed, the bank is about to foreclose and the landlord is about to kick them out.  But all is not lost – this almost bankrupt business was much more valuable than nothing.  If they were to give it up, pull back and consolidate, getting a foot in the door again at a later stage would be very difficult.  By sharing the equity and the work and ultimately the fruits of our labour, this business can thrive.  We are restructuring, allowing fresh air to course through the lungs.

The traffic around St James’ Park football stadium has been blocked off for an Olympic football match between one of the Koreas and Mexico.  Or more broadly speaking, quiet and loud fans.  I was returning to my office and, before I reached the system of new gates and bollards that completely block access to the de facto pedestrianised roads around the stadium and surrounding the Newcastle University Business School, I passed though long throngs of fans.  They were singing and bellowing ME XI COOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I admit to crossing to the opposite pavement because I did not know how to join in with their fun, but that way I could photograph them as well.

Later St James will also host a game between Switzerland and Gabon and I wonder which of those two teams will have the loudest supporters.  Will the Swizz bring along vuvuzelas and pretend they are simply straightened alphorns?

The level of control that the Olympics exert over its environment is simply astonishing.  In addition to the gates and the hundreds of anti-terrorist bollards and the official program sellers and the stripping of branding off everything – up to and including blacking out the name of the bank on the ATM that lives in the wall of the stadium.  Now all that one can see is a slot and a screen and the words FREE CASH WITHDRAWALS.

Local workmen built the gates, as far as I could tell.  The security guys seem like local bouncers and the drafted in staff that are parading in their lilac and pink London 2012 outfits also sound local.  I would love to know how much money flows in through this and then, how much is siphoned straight out again.  I do know that it is not just a one way process.

• You are an entrepreneur when you
  • Pursue the idea of commercialising your research.
  • Do it yourself; be actively involved in the business rather than continue in a fairly safe academic position and letting someone else take the reins.
  • Have good attitude; express your entrepreneurial spirit
• Analyse the business aspects of your research, so that the research is following the requirements of the business rather than the other way round.
• Look at the product or service from the user perspective to make sure you’re not solving a problem that no-one has.
• N-E-T-W-O-R-K
• Find a business mentor with the right business experience with whom to comfortably discuss your ideas.  The tech transfer office is working for the university and is not firstly on the side of a researcher with a business idea.
• Find people who ask you the right (often uncomfortable) questions; and yet others who help find answers. This is the difference between knowing and doing – knowing about networking and team-building does not replace the advantage of actually having access to a network of successful entrepreneurs.
• Introduce yourself to an atmosphere of success and constructive criticism by listening to talks by successful start-ups and entrepreneurs.
• Whenever you meet with someone new, research them and ask many more targeted questions than you thought that you could.
• Educate and inspire yourself. It is comforting to see that others have struggled, and often failed at the outset, only to get up and go again.
• Network, and have the one on one sessions, with lawyers and entrepreneurs.
• You as the Brand Name
• How can you be noticed?  Similar to increasing one’s profile within a research organisation, when looking for business links, being an Enterprise fellow opens doors and adds clout to your project.
• Take part in business plan competitions that take place at different universities, or the ” Biotech YES – Young Entrepreneurs Scheme”.
• What to do about Funding – What impact does it have on Research
• Focusing on the commercial aspects of your research is unlikely to result in the publications that are necessary to build and maintain a successful academic career. Even if it does not actively hinder, it distracts you and if you want to return to academia you will have a time lag in publishing.
• Many academics have taken the risky steps into the commercial world without funding.
• What do you want funding for?  Is your mission to fund your research?  That will not work.  It is possible to make money and fund others’ research.
• Skills
• The long section under N-E-T-W-O-R-K shows us that business start up requires many soft skills.
• Hard skills are needed – how to quantify and sort through ideas and approaches, analyse cash-flow, understand accountants and VC’s.  Feeling confident.

This article paraphrases Dr Peter Köllensperger of Imperial College London, and I thank him for that.  He currently holds an Engineering Enterprise Fellowship from the Royal Academy of Engineering.

Somebody on LinkedIn is listed as being a business couch.  I am certain he meant to say coach but he didn’t, he said couch.  I had a look at his public profile and below the project management and e-card implementations I see that he has been certified as a coach, and still… I can’t get from my mind the utter appropriateness of naming someone – someone who says well done, pats you on the shoulder and supports you through change – a business couch.

What kind of business couch would you want?  An overstuffed purple velvet couch, or a firm yet luxurious chocolate leather couch, or a practical tweedy brown couch or a pale cream linen couch that the dog is not allowed on? I want a couch, somewhere comfortable and accepting that I can sit or lie on – or jump on.  In my new job I have met many people who are happy to have met me and will support me in my attempts to spread the message that entrepreneurship is as naturally human as standing upright.  I need those people.  But I also want backing, I want authority.  Someone in authority who says that what I say should be paid attention to; that means that I have a hat with tassels, a badge, I have the king’s signet ring

A note that a teacher had written for my son fell out of his school bag.  He is nine years old.  The note, on a little post-it, reads: “why is it that you never seem to get finished?” The teacher is trying to get my son to work more quickly.  Quicker so that he has something to hand in before moving on to the next task.  Quicker so that the whole class can transition to the next activity, quicker so that he does not get little notes like these any more.  This encouragement has been effective in his written work and his maths but with multilayered or creative work he has had real trouble.  There the answer to the specific question is that he does not get finished because he does not have enough time.  And he cannot draw and conceive faster than he does and to force him to be finished sooner leads him to the conclusion that he cannot do the work.

All children are put through this process and a system that works in this way, that does not give enough time for tasks to be completed, does not teach completion.  Does not support completion.  Does not see completion as valuable.  There is another aspect to completion, another reason why it is valuable to allow a human to find their own way to the end of a task; because it allows the human to learn to think for themselves.  Within the university environment I have heard a little in the way of complaints that students cannot think for themselves, that they have been spoon-fed.  What if they are hurried to conclusions using well trodden paths in order to do things quickly from a young age; what if that stunts their ability to take their time?

Take their time; make their own decisions and choices.

If I have thought through, worked through, a particular process a few times and then I need to do it quickly, I will know even know how to speed things up.

 Immorality is not what caused banks, giddy with their own cleverness, to squirm money out of the system; and morals will not prevent it in the future.  It was trickery and scheming and the solution is plain, simple logic.  Having it, being OK with simple logic, and insisting on logic in return.

Having people understand what they were doing, or having people be comfortable with the idea that they should understand – and then we would all keep asking questions.  What do you mean?  What are derivatives? No, really… that makes no sense; what are futures? How does the stock market value of a company relate to the company?  Really?  I can inflate the value with a good marketing campaign? Trickery.

If I am basing my stock market valuation on hope, like facebook or diamond prospecting, then our imaginations fuel the price, I think we know that.  And I should be allowed to have that hope.  But what if the company is tracked by a number of narrow parameters that become inviolable and impenetrable by simple logic; and what if those are then focussed on at the expense of the company, the customers, the long term, and the employees. What if the only conversation is about delivering value to shareholders?

While this could sound like whining, I am not saying that it is unfair or immoral.  Just that people inside and outside the company should feel comfortable with asking questions until they understand what is going on.

I worked for a small multinational family-owned company that was acquired by a stock exchange listed company while I worked there.  The new bosses instantly broke agreements that they had made about keeping on staff.  But then there was something else amiss with the continuity of the company, something beyond simple change.  It took me a while to work out that the disconnect between upper management and middle, technical management was that, effectively, it was now two companies in one.  Upper management was running a financial business for the benefit of the shareholders, which needed quiet, and controlled information release.  The middle managers and technical staff were running a technology company that relied on a small number of big, happy customers for repeat business, and this required a level of transparency in pricing and systems.

Secrecy and obfuscation only suits a small percentage of people.  Most people find it easy to understand no or low bonuses if we have missed two big contracts in a year, and that we lost the contracts because of late delivery, poor quality.  But massaging 3^rd quarter results so that share prices go up, pretending to have contracts that are not in the bag or holding them back to a later date so that the 4^th quarter looks good, so that the trends are ever upward.  Staff stops understanding or feeling in control.  People outside the company are unable to unpick the numbers because they have become felted together to leave a smooth surface.

And while the system makes money it is declared good and nobody is supported in a mission to understand more deeply.

It is understanding, and the transparency that allows understanding, that will make systems more seemingly moral.

My son was given a stunt kite for his birthday and was very keen to try it out. But after days and weeks and seemingly years of gusty weather, yesterday evening was completely becalmed.  The kite needs at least 8km/h winds to fly in and without that breeze, I would have to run.  I would have to keep running at 7.5 minutes per kilometre.  I can do that.  That is fairly slow and I can run at that speed for an hour, w=even when I am unfit.  But then I would be spending my entire time running, and not a lot of it stunting – this would be an exercise in having the kite aloft, not anything more fun than that.

For how long do I need to run before the running, the sheer chore of making the weather that suits my kite, overtakes all the joy of that soaring dipping darting red and blue and yellow kite?

It becomes all about the running; all about making my own weather.

Sometimes I am doing what I love doing: flying a kite, researching deep inside the gene, or painting pictures.  But then maintaining the the structure that makes my passion possible starts to take up all my time and effort.  I can’t plan: I don’t have control and I don’t have fun; I simply sweat and run.

Then analysis can help and someone who can provide perspective.  I see what I am doing and compare it with what others are doing.  Then I can plan.  Then I can share responsibilities and experiences.  I learn that the wind comes up for a few hours in the early morning on the beach and when I go there at that time I play with that breeze and use the flow.  And when the wind is not blowing I clean and dry the kite.  No more forcing the issue.

Business cannot exist on its own.  Like a musician without an instrument, unless there is something for the business to be active in, there is nothing, there is no music.  I can be a baker without having a shop but I cannot be a bread businessman without bread, the ability to get or make buns.  No matter how much I understand about the process, the pricing, mark-ups, turnover, promotion, innovation or roles within the organisation, without flour, oil, yeast and water, without getting stuck into baking, nobody will have anything to eat.

I have a saw.  My hand fits nicely into its lovely wooden grip from where the metal blade shines, 25cm long, rectangular and straight-bladed down to the wicked looking serrated edge. But it is worse than useless.  It is in my toolbox giving me the illusion that it can cut wood, giving me the illusion of power over incorrectly shaped planks.  Useless is a neutral word, a word that places usefulness in front of me and simply removes it leaving me without the use of the object.  Use-Less.  But this saw is evil, beyond mere negativity.

Last week we had cleared the weeds off the lowest of the four terraced plots on the allotment that we share with some friends, and this week we took along long planks, a lump hammer, the saw, wooden and metal stakes.  We were going to edge the terraced bed and I was ready, I had even remembered my leather gloves.  My friend’s plank needed to be sawed to fit and he said “I should have brought a saw” and I waggled my implement, gleefully.  We drew a guide-line, I stood on the back to stabilise and he commenced sawing.  To discover that the saw was blunt.

As we proceeded the blade heated up and bent, it squeaked in protest and much later, after 10 minutes and 3cm I took a turn, I could not move the blade in the slot that he had carved, I absolutely could not.  He took over for a while.  There was still 15 cm to go when he put the job down, drove to his house and fetched one of those plastic handed saws that some people make music on and within minutes the job was done.

Focussing on funders for a new business idea encourages a culture of dependence.  An innovation cycle that contains venture capital or other funders makes it seem like a safe option, that the funder needs to be made happy, and by making the venture capitalist or business angel happy that you are doing the right thing.  A validation, if you like, as though you are getting a gold star from your teacher for good handwriting.

But a business idea does not work in your head, it does not work in a presentation to potential funders… a business idea works in the execution of the business idea.  In the doing of it.  The question is not “will someone fund it?” it is “Can I do it? Can I adjust my idea so that someone will buy it? Would I fund it myself?”