By Maeve McGoldrick
Tucked away in a side street near Euston station lies the Magic Circle Headquarters – the venue for last weeks UK Enterprise Support Awards.
I was invited to attend this awards ceremony by Terry Owens, the founder of InBiz Ltd, the overall champion for 2008 and a Need NOT Greed campaign coalition member.
An interesting venue to say the least, I wondered why a magic venue was chosen to celebrate UK enterprise. It doesn’t happen magically; it takes a special amount of creative, business-minded determination and skill to be a successful entrepreneur and I was intrigued to make the connection.
On my arrival I almost immediately got speaking to one of the magicians who would later entertain the group. It turns out he began his career as a street performer in London’s Covent Garden. He had the innovative thinking and the determination to get him to where he was today. Speaking to other entrepreneurs in the room it became apparent that successful enterprise can be created anywhere if there is the will. Terry Owens spoke at the awards and referred to all the ‘doom and gloom’ that is on the TV at the moment. He said one entrepreneur had advised people to turn off their TV and not be swayed by the headlines. Terry inspirationally said to do quite the opposite. ‘Turn on your TV and understand exactly what is going on in your communities and right across the UK, watch the news, change the news and make the news. An extra 1 million people are expected to become unemployed yet there is the capacity to create 10,000 new jobs with enterprise in 18 months.’
Referring to harnessing the informal economy and helping people “go legit”, Terry called for the government to make changes, relax laws, invest in people’s potential and work together.
The Ethnic Minority Business Task Force sees enterprise as ‘transforming what appears to be a problem into a solution; to provide opportunities for everyone regardless of their background.’
The winner for the Enterprise Support Professional, Yosias Tadesse Negash of Ethiopian Community Care Centre UK who helps Ethiopian clients move from the informal economy to the formal economy was successful in large because he acknowledged that building trust in a community is the reason for their success.
Evidently, supporting entrepreneurs is not about numbers, it is looking at individual cases and seeing how their lives may be changed through business. Furthermore, supporting entrepreneurs is about empowerment and personal progression.
As the recession worsens and government increasingly looks for innovative solutions such as enterprise it is worth learning from the award winners why they are successful. That enterprise is not magical- it is already there; in peoples abilities but they need the support to make it happen. People working informally, out of need not greed have the potential to be the solution, not the problem. With the budget tomorrow it would be a shame if government missed this opportunity and failed to acknowledge the potential that lays just beneath the surface.
Well, I think you witnessed more rabbits being pulled out of hats than those watching Alistair Darling! (Some thoughts on his performance here: http://livingwithrats.blogspot.com/2009/04/look-at-budget-as-if-people-mattered.html )
Wonderful post. Inspiring and honest. Too often it is just about ticking the boxes and moving the numbers with very little impact on the enterprise culture.