Top Ten Policy Imperatives in Promoting Entrepreneurship & Entrepreneurial Job Creation

Optimistic version… J

Top Ten Policy Imperatives in Promoting Entrepreneurship

and Entrepreneurial Job Creation

Thou shalt... 

1. Design Policy and Tactics Bottom-Up, not Top-Down

2. Avoid “Amateur Night”

3. Strategic Intent, Not “Shiny Baubles” (“ooh.. there goes a rabbit”?)

4. Understand Dynamics of Job Creation… Deeply

5. Understand the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem… Deeply

6. Understand the Entrepreneurial Mindset… Deeply

(novice-to-expert, not skills/knowledge)

7. Immerse… Deeply

8. Be Bold / Disruptive or… Go Home (not incremental)

9. Wield the Bully Pulpit – Celebrate, Educate, Initiate

10. Leverage Connectivity

So.... what did I miss? What needs to be cut? Changed?

Top Ten Myths & Misconceptions about Entrepreneurship

Top Ten Myths & Misconceptions about Entrepreneurship

                     (so what do YOU think?)

1. Entrepreneurship is About Making Money

2. Entrepreneurs are Born, not Made

3. Entrepreneurship is About Great Ideas

4. Entrepreneurship is About Great Entrepreneurs

5. There is a Shortage of Capital

6. Entrepreneurs Fail Most of the Time

7. Jobs at Entrepreneurial Firms are Inferior

8. Entrepreneurs & Small Businesses Are Essentially the Same

9. Small Firms are the Job Creators

            You have to be small/new to be entrepreneurial

10. We Can Have Innovation without Innovators;

We Can Have Entrepreneurship without Entrepreneurs

Bonus Myth: Business Plans, Not Business Models

"Summer's Here & The Time is Right for.. "

"Summer's Here and The Time is Right for..
Entrepreneuring in the Streets?"
(and checking the links below)


Time to put the pedal down! (Me too!) Just saw yet another credible forecaster point out that the odds are still climbing for a return to recession. 


Ouch! BUT.... why not think about this as.. 
          An opportunity to reboot?
          To do what you WISHED you had done when the last recession kicked in? 
          Don't you wish you had seized the opportunity to start something?  
            (And if the economy doesn't crater.. all the better, eh?)


On Wednesday I judged at Idaho TechLaunch - what fun! [a big shout-out to Steph Cook of INL and... **] It was very eye-opening as to:
a) the need to amp the advice (correction... good advice) and mentoring; let's take advantage of our global world and connect with experts all over;
b) just how much more we could be doing. Many of you make fun of my excessive traveling, but as I go around the country and the world, I see so many things that we could steal, er, adapt that would cost no more than what we spend now.


"Doctor, Heal Thyself"
All this applies to me too. If ANY of you has thoughts on what I should be doing differently, I am all ears.  The most common suggestions I get are to: 
     1) Start doing some events. I prefer being Tom Hagen but if I have to be Don, so be it.
[more on that below]
     2) Start writing down what I'm learning. To do that, here are some drafts that reflect the state of the art of what we know (and crowdsourced from experts I know)--
PLEASE READ and COMMENT!
Markers of a Truly Entrepreneurial Ecosystem (http://bit.ly/EcoSys) -
          Once I get 'notes' from you, I will turn it in into a scorecard where people can rate their communities. (Wouldn't that be a fun dashboard so communities could brag about their progress??)


A Candidates' Guide to Growing Entrepreneurs (http://bit.ly/CandidateGuideEntrep) - 
           I tried to write this in a more conversational mode but it focuses on what civic leaders most need to know about what it takes to grow entrepreneurs. Future variants (stay tuned!) include a Top Ten List ofthe 10 biggest myths and misconceptions about entrepreneurship and a Top Ten List of the ten dumbest (er, least smart) policy ideas we've seen that affect entrepreneurship. (I fear that the latter one will ruffle feathers.)


Speaking of ruffled feathers, let me repeat this link to where Idaho jobs come from and... well, READ it! ONE page, I promise! ;) http://bit.ly/GrossNetJobs  
[if not in Idaho, get thee to www.youreconomy.org to do your own.. or hire EMSI in Moscow]


But there's GOOD News! The fourth doc is almost as short and recaps the three known robust predictors of entrepreneurial activity, how Idaho is doing, and what else we could do quickly and cheaply to support! http://bit.ly/PDR3Keys


Even BETTER News
I've asked this before: Why the hell isn't Idaho the mecca for social / sustainable entrepreneurship? (And any community can ask that as well..) I was stunned at Idaho TechLaunch that nobody really knew the term (or how widespread -and powerful - it is) or about the megatrend around impact investing. My next blog post will address that - a bunch of people wanted insights into that world and I would be thrilled to turn you on to it. And...
Did You Know... the guy who runs the huge Dell Social Innovation Challenge visits Idaho regularly?
It is definitely time for a Social Entrepreneurship Weekend in Idaho... and in ALL of your communities! 


p.s. and if you scroll down, you will see some other things that we WILL be doing, such as the lean startup course.


        Have a great weekend - even if I gave you all that homework, LOL!


** and my fellow judges, the always-awesome Faisal Shah, John Fordemwalt, Tom Harrison and Steph C. I like smart people, I like 'git 'r dun' people but smart git'r dun folks? Priceless. 

Update re "Dissidents"

Update re "Dissidents"

Thank you, thank you, thank you for all your feedback! I'm glad that so many felt so strongly that we need to focus on the human element. AND that that was very much a positive, "good news" post.

If we want to turn ideas into reality, it's people with the right mindset. (And that mindset isn't easy to acquire; it's far more than skills and knowledge, it's a different way of looking at the world. Would you hire someone to be a great educator when they aren't already en route? Would you hire some to be a great researcher when they have shown no signs so far? Community connectors are no different.)

Bad News: Yes, it's true that most institutions, most bureaucracies are beyond awful at turning ideas into reality (e.g., tech commercialization) -don't be offended, just fix it. Become one of The Best!

Good News: Yes, only a handful of schools/labs/companies/etc. are rock stars at this -that makes the payoff even larger.

Really Good News: We are seeing that if you shift the mindset of an organization or community, results follow. (And if you read my blog, you'll know that the keys to mindset shift are KNOWN. Politically painful, perhaps, but known.

And now I'm getting inquiries about doing research to measure that mindset. so, thanks to you all for encouraging me. One project that could be really fun is to identify the critical competencies for technology commercialization. What if somebody wanted to create a formal certification for tech commercialization (eg, for tech transfer)? The testing and training would be based on critical competencies for success.

Should be a blast!

But I *will* need your help...
--> What DO you have to know to take ideas to reality? (at different lifecycle stages?)
--> What SKILLS are needed?
--> What deep beliefs anchor the expert mindset for technology commercialization??

/nk