Event: Business Forum Scotland – December

December 20, 2011 by Leave a comment

Last week Business Forum Scotland had a wee Christmas get together at which we received some pearls of doom wisdom from Marcus Wright (Economist, RBS) and John Waddell (Archangels).  The short story?

It’s going to get worse before it gets better, but deals are getting done and will continue to get done.

Here are my notes on what they had to say, including a comparison between Italy, Haiti and Zimbabwe and mention of an aquarium in Kiev – never let it be said that discussions at Business Forum aren’t wide-ranging!

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Filed under Events, Investment

Friday Link: OnStartups – Round Three

December 16, 2011 by Leave a comment

I think Dharmesh Shah at OnStartups is one of the best and most consistent startup blog writers, so I’m not going to apologise for featuring him in Friday Link for a third time.

Particularly worthy of attention is this rather insightful and amusing post entitled 12 Things Entrepreneurs Should Be Thankful For.

For those who haven’t looked at this blog before, or looking for some inspiration over the festive season, I’d highly recommend visiting Forget The MBA: How About a Masters In Startup Awesomeness?, which collects some of the best articles from the first six years of the blog.  Grab yourself a water/coffee/beer/whisky (delete as appropriate) and get stuck in!

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Friday Link: Entrepreneurial Spark

December 9, 2011 by Leave a comment

I had the pleasure of being on the Saltire Fellowship at the same time as Jim Duffy, creator of Entrepreneurial Spark in Glasgow.  Entrepreneurial Spark is a not-for-profit social enterprise created to fuel entrepreneurial mindsets and behaviours in Scotland.

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Opinion: Crowd Funding Chaos

December 7, 2011 by 2 Comments

Of late, the term “CrowdFunding” has started to become commonplace in the vocabulary of entrepreneurs, but I think it is used to refer to such a wide range of activities it can be confusing.  As I see it, Crowd Funding  helps people collaborate to fund a specific project through a website, which usually takes a percentage of the funds raised in exchange for connecting projects with donors.  The exact mechanisms for funding and motivation of the donors can differ widely however.  Here is a whistle-stop tour of how I see the various different forms of CrowdFunding (note the names I’ve applied are simply my own labels – I don’t think they are in widespread use).  The examples are not intended to be exhaustive…

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Filed under Opinion

Friday Link: Old Standards Never Die

December 2, 2011 by 1 Comment

Paul McLellan recently posted a blog entitled Old standards never die about how seemingly trivial decisions in the past shape the world we live in today.  I find it quite thought provoking – what casual and apparently insignificant choices that we are making now will survive far into the future?

For anyone involved in microchip technology, there is a lot more great content at SemiWiki.com

Filed under Friday Link

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