Interested? Contact: 

Dr. Jegathisvaran Balakrishnan | Chief Executive Officer

email: jega.balakrishnan@esmart21.com.au

Playing the Long Game: balancing the needs of the future against the ever-demanding present

Societies are focused on the now. We are faster, busier, more distracted. The pace of technology and information is blinding. Business needs short-term results. Planning beyond electoral cycles is harder and harder.

Bookings essential as seating is limited:

Book here online or phone 8226 2220

Three of Adelaide’s Thinkers in Residence will return to join Premier Mike Rann in this fast-paced ‘no-holds barred’ forum.

Mike Rann (AUS), Premier of South Australia and founder of the Adelaide Thinkers in Residence program. 

Herbert Girardet (UK), our inaugural Thinker, co-founder of the World Future Council and a world leader in urban sustainability. 

Fred Hansen (USA), helped create Portland Oregon’s world recognised integrated public transport system and was a leader in the Clinton Administration EPA.

Göran Roos (SWE), is a world expert in manufacturing strategy and has been named one of the 13 most influential thinkers of the 21st Century.

With the aid of 20 images and in only 6 mins 40 secs, Allan O’Connor has been invited to share some thoughts and ideas on Entrepreneurship and Culture in this exciting inaugural Adelaide PechaKucha event. Why not come along and join the chit chat on architecture for humanity.

When: Wednesday 5th October, 2011 from 6:30pm. Presentations commence at 7:30.

Where: Roof-top bar of Gallery on Waymouth, 30 Waymouth Street, Adelaide 5000

For further information please contact the City Organiser, Anna Scott, on mobile 0419 810000 or email anna_scott@me.com 

Hope to see you there!

Just in case you were under the impression I did nothing but work while in Edinburgh (those who know me better will know otherwise) I did manage to attend a number of Festival events and to keep things legitimate it raised an interesting question relevant to Adelaide’s heavy association with a Festival Culture. What value do Festivals add with respect to innovation and entrepreneurship?

My reflections are not scientific but I have attended the International Film Festival, The Scottish Real Ale Festival, The Glasgow Jazz Festival, The Edinburgh Fringe Festival and the Edinburgh International Festival. During the events I have conversed, observed and questioned folk which has given me a bit of an insight about how the Festivals may relate to innovation and entrepreneurship.

Here’s a short list:
1. Entrepreneurial (and other) learning. To compete in a short period of time and gain an audience, aspects of entrepreneurship (idea creation and concept development, creative selling and marketing, managing with few resources) are needed to create, mount and sell  little known shows or events. The ‘earthier’ the Festival the more ‘hands on’ the involvement of individual act proprietors as they build their audience (The Fringe Festival is a great example). Further, there are internships offered for the quid pro quo of attending the event and also friends/family and others tend to pitch in to help early stage artists. Entrepreneurial learning is happening here.
2. Market Testing. The ideas of artists are road tested and the reaction of audiences influence the development of the show/event for the next Festival.
3. Innovation. The application of new stuff is a feature of Festivals and this may have a few spin-off effects. First it may help diffusion of new ideas and to some extent new technologies as artists experiment and introduce unique and creative applications of technology in an arts setting (for example creative use  of multimedia or as in one show the use of Skype to have act participants from different places on the globe). Second, some shows or events expose the cultural impact and face of new technology and reveal how the world is changing. Third, (perhaps a bit of a stretch) but I think it quenches the appetite for new things, or that maybe just me.
4. Mobile Ecosystems. Festivals also create a layer of businesses that are mobile that move with the Festivals to leverage off the temporary booms in local population that Festivals create.
5. Collaboration. At a community level Festivals draw together the business, arts and government in a collaborative or at least a cooperative venture.

Well just some ideas.

Prof Roos was recently interviewed by Kevin Naughton of INDAILY News. Follow the links to hear some of his comments about the implications of a resources based economy and how student entrepreneurship is part of the solution for growing the manufacturing sector. The interview is in two parts.

Part 1: http://www.indaily.com.au/?iid=51187&sr=0#folio=002

Part 2:  http://www.indaily.com.au/?iid=51252&sr=0#folio=002

The Question of Ecosystems

Work has started in earnest. After a week of travelling which included a pit stop in London (another story another time) and finding my way around Edinburgh – the University, the office, the bank, the bus stops, the pubs – doing all the things one needs to do to get settled into a new place of abode – stocking the fridge, cupboard and bar, not necessarily in order of priority – the time has come to get down and serious.

 On the back of asking the question on whether entrepreneurship is a business discipline (see June 13, 2011 post), conversations with my Edinburgh colleagues about the intended business incubation research raised the question of where and how business incubation fits into the ecosystem. What is the role of a university business incubator in a regional economy? Is it meaningful in the context of stimulating economic development? How does it interact and add value to other institutional forms? All good questions for entrepreneurship research in my view.

The idea of ecosystem research is borrowed from the biological sciences and the study of interactions between living organisms and the physical environment in a particular area (see Wikipedia on ecosystems). Interestingly, my very brief and naive look at this field of study reveals some similar characteristics with the field of entrepreneurship. The study of biological ecosystems deals with both the dynamics and preservation of a particular ecology just as entrepreneurship deals with ‘creative destruction’ coined by Schumpeter. It distinguishes levels of analysis between the ecosystem and the species, of which there are many contributors to the ecosystem acting individually as well as collectively, just as we distinguish between individual, firm and regional levels of analysis. Ecological systems, just like entrepreneurship (systems) have always existed and the research involves understanding how they work, why they work, what causes systemic change and what is the consequence of change; these questions are not dissimilar to those we are challenged by in entrepreneurship.

The borrowed analogy of an ecosystem offers a worthwhile perspective. It reinforces the idea that entrepreneurship research is distinct to business research and it highlights the duality of the forces for continuity and evolution. For the collaborative research kick-off in Edinburgh it provides a useful and informative backdrop that contextualises why this research has relevance and significance to practitioners, policy-makers and other researchers.

Is entrepreneurship a business discipline?

Recently, I have been challenged to think deeply about how entrepreneurship is distinguishable from business management. Here are some thoughts and I invite your feedback.

Entrepreneurship seems to explicitly contrast from business management primarily in three ways; by objective, by economic contribution and by management practice.

First, the objective of business management is to maintain the continuation of the business entity and as such the study of business management requires one to learn how to best meet that ends. This means that threats to a businesses’ survival are treated as hostile. Firms need to outcompete, lobby for self preservation, protect their market and generally maintain profitability to survive. The discipline of entrepreneurship on the other hand is concerned with bringing a new venture into being. The success of a new venture depends upon its ability to meet market needs and the creation of a business becomes a means to that ends. The means – ends relationships between business and entrepreneurship management would seem to differ.

Second, the primary contribution of business in an economic context is to maintain efficiently and effectively productive capacity to meet the demand for goods and services. A business manages and copes with shifts in existing demand and supply patterns. By contrast, if one takes a Schumpeterian view, entrepreneurship is not concerned with sustaining that which exists but rather disrupting business, technology, social, political and even personal patterns. Entrepreneurship inherently challenges and stretches boundaries beyond the routine and status quo; innovation is often at the heart of an entrepreneurial opportunity. The contribution of business is wrapped up in its ability to meet and sustain market demand while entrepreneurship contributes by disrupting established patterns of demand and creating new and rival economic contributions.

The third point would seem to flow from the previous two in that business management manages a formed organisation’s resources, processes and systems etc to meet its objective of survival and maintaining economic contribution. Entrepreneurship management (if there is such a thing) manages disruption or, as Schumpeter put it, ‘creative destruction’. Entrepreneurship management often operates without the context of established business organisational systems and structures and therefore the unit of organisation has no established (real or perceived) boundaries. Management in this context means dealing with resources, systems and processes that are outside of the entrepreneurship team’s control and interfacing with other people, organisations and institutions to muster resources and actions without the reward systems and structural aids provided by a formed and functioning business. Furthermore, if the team is truly being innovative in its entrepreneurship mission, they will undoubtedly face opposition from the established systems, hierarchies and market dynamics with only meagre resources and limited support. There is good cause for terms like ‘enterprise’ and ‘venture’ to be used in the context of entrepreneurship when one considers the inherent challenge in the nature of the task.

There are certainly differences in the nature of management between business and entrepreneurship and therefore one would expect that the curriculum and learning design encountered in these domains of practice would also be different. A final point is that these two forms of management are not mutually exclusive and business management to some extent will need the skills of entrepreneurship and vice versa. There is a yin and yang type of relationship that cannot be easily deconstructed but at the same time one should not be confused for the other.