Next generation game
Source:Editor's Blog
It was interesting to read Luke Johnson’s comments about Sir Alan in Media Guardian this week. When he was asked if the latest series should be the last, he responded that the idea of Sir Alan as an entrepreneurial role model makes him feel sick. “I worry that the programme is not inspirational stuff for future inventors and business-builders - the job creators Britain so desperately needs,” he said. You can take that as a yes then.
Perhaps pushing a glitzy, shrink wrapped version of business and entrepreneurship isn’t what the next generation of entrepreneurs needs after all. The government’s big idea for improving young people’s skills and employability for enterprise – raising the school leaving age to 18 – isn’t much of an answer either. How many entrepreneurs and business leaders that you know would benefit from a few more GCSEs or A Levels? Not many, I bet.
The same applies for general employability. Speak to any business owner and they’ll tell you that the new talent coming through the door needs to be better prepared for the workplace and spending more time in the classroom is not the solution.
When I spoke to Daisy Plc’s Matthew Riley recently, he told me that many of his youngest recruits were too shy to answer a ringing telephone – that’s illustrative of the kind of basic skills gap that most concerns our current job creators. A more sensible solution might be an expanded and government sponsored work experience initiative. This could form the basis for a new kind of national apprenticeship program; maybe it’s time to embrace our future as a service based economy and update the way we teach our children accordingly.
Encouragingly, when I spoke to technology entrepreneur and venture capitalist Ben Way, he was pleased to tell me that we’re already becoming a more entrepreneurial country. He has a desire to combine the UK’s fledgling and disparate business networks into something more concrete - a community that can inspire and support itself, and more importantly, do the same for the next generation of entrepreneurs. It was a desire echoed by his counterparts and one that Exec will be backing unreservedly.
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