Or will it “just” become a stable business providing employment and a secure financial future for its owners?
Your business eZine spoke to Jonathan Ortmans the driver behind the Global Entrepreneur Congress (GEC) - on in Liverpool from 9th to 16th March. He gave a fascinating and personal insight into what the GEC is meant to be for Liverpool, local businesses and the legacy it should leave us.
The Conference itself is an international forum for entrepreneurs and with headline speaker Sir Richard Branson and others such as Sir Michael Heseltine, Martha Lane-Fox and Sir Terry Leahy, the GEC would appear to be about big business. Jonathan Ortmans was very clear this was not the case.
“Perhaps as a globe we make too much of a distinction between small and big businesses.”
He firmly believes, backed by research done by the Kauffman Foundation who created the GEC, that growth and jobs are created by new businesses. He continued:
“I want Liverpool to understand that they need to focus on growth. As much of a factor is the age not the size of a business. In the USA almost all “net” new jobs in the past 25 years came from firms less than 5 years old. So our focus should be on cities who want to light up their private sector with policies that create growth.”
So he hopes that the GEC will underline for Liverpool that business creation is what we should place greater emphasis on. As Jonathan says:
“Encourage city and citizens and organisations and to focus on trying, and to increase understanding on how to create growth and jobs.”
“And many businesses won’t become iconic brands – so much of becoming that is accidental path”
He is very firm when he says:
“Don’t be frightened that it didn’t work. Try!”
“The strength of small organisations is their flexibility and that they can change course. Now it’s ok to recycle. If you can get a business going and if it isn’t working – change. And recycle by taking the bits that are working and use them to continue. Jobs are still being created even if only for 2 years.”
Jonathan was very open about why the GEC is coming to Liverpool:
“We had various bids. We have been to Asia and the Middle East. We knew we really wanted to be in Europe. Some cities already have a vibrant entrepreneur community. Liverpool’s is still developing. We were approached by the city not the nation and entrepreneurship is best fostered in a city rather than a nation”.
But these reasons weren’t the only reasons. Jonathan and the GEC team were struck by the suggestions made about how the Congress should run locally.
“ Liverpool was very enthusiastic and uniquely said - rather than having a 3 day conference we can make it a week festival. This was a very distinctive factor of the bid to host the Congress.”
The Start up Weekend and Fringe Events that run alongside the Summit create this week long Festival. They are an integral part of this year’s Congress and improve accessibility to all businesses and entrepreneurs. For a listing of all events and to book a place: http://gec.unleashingideas.org/programme/fringeevents.asp
And finally Jonathan also expects that the GEC using Liverpool as a venue will change any perceptions still held of the city as it was 20 years ago. That Liverpool is not just about waterfront development but a positive renaissance in business.
Jonathan Ortmans is a Senior Fellow at the Kauffman Foundation the organization behind the GEC. He is also President of Global Entrepreneurship Week which engages over 10 million people in 40,000 concurrent activities.
More on Jonathan’s “Disruptive Thinking” for entrepreneurs, the Start Up Weekend and Fringe Events in a later article.
