Make Your Mark Blog - GEW Category

Today, the Village Hotel in Warrington saw almost 40 over 50 entrepreneurs get together to discuss what makes a place enterprising as well as the issues of setting up a business in the wake of retirement or redundancy. One of the front runners to what makes an enterprising place was a high street run by [...] 0

A flourishing entrepreneurial boom in France is the subject of an article in today’s Financial Times. Despite the rigours of the recession, France saw more than 500,000 businesses created last year, and the growth rate is set to continue this year. Much of this is being attributed to a French government scheme, launched in January 2009, [...] 0

Charley Mellowship is one of our most enthusiastic supporters of all things Make Your Mark. She’s written an article for the SSAT magazine which has kindly shared with us first… This year at Heath Park Business and Enterprise College over 500 students are taking part in Make Your Mark with a Tenner, a national competition which [...] 0

‘IF WE CAN, YOU CAN’ Challenge launches for 2010   Today marks the launch of the third ‘If we can, you can’ Challenge, a region-wide competition set to re-ignite and celebrate North East England’s entrepreneurial spirit. The  Challenge calls upon any individual who is thinking of starting a business, running their own business or looking to grow their [...] 0

The Enterprise Manifesto is hotting up – with a host of ideas submitted to help shape promote and support entrepreneurship in the UK. This first week has seen over 50 ideas added, which already show a really diverse range of views on what people think can be done to support entrepreneurs. There are also some [...] 0

Enterprise UK Chair Peter Jones is a man who knows enterprise. In particular, he knows that entrepreneurial types repond well to a challenge, particularly one that encourages people to make a difference. That’s why he recently challenged 30,000 young people to make money and make a difference in a month, and it’s why he has now [...] 0

Are you a talented entrepreneur aged 30 or under? Well this is your chance to show off! If you want to be in with a chance to win £1,000 and money-can’t-buy-profile for your venture, you have until Friday 5 March 2010 to get your entry in to us! Enter up to two categories (new start up, [...] 0

Enterprise UK is supporting the Clean and Cool Mission and I was lucky enough to join the delegation out in San Francisco, courtesy of the excellent people at Polecat and the Technology Strategy Board. It was real eye-opener – here’s a few observations: 1) We just don’t seem to have the same eco-system for entrepreneurs as they [...] 2

The internet is a wonderful thing. Stripped down to its core, it makes the previously inaccessible, accessible. This is particularly true in the context of business. For businesses, it means that they can reach customers who were previously placed out of reach by all manner of distances and barriers.  You no longer need a eye-watering marketing budget to reach distant [...] 4

New research from boffins at accountancy and advisory outfit RSM Tenon show the recession has not managed to squeeze all optimism out of our entrepreneurs. According to the stats, forty per cent of small business owners plan to expand their business over the next twelve months – a figure that compares very favourably with the eighteen [...] 0

Aspirations, partnerships and sustainability continued to be a key theme at today’s EPN event, which focused on the role of social housing in supporting and promoting enterprise. With a goal of creating a discussion around the important role of social housing in promoting, supporting and nurturing enterprise, today’s EPN event certainly didn’t disappoint. An interesting mix of [...] 2

Jane Burston and Dan Lewer, founders of Carbon Retirement, joined other small business owners (including a bunch of Enterprise UK Ambassadors!) last week at a reception at 10 Downing Street. Jane took the opportunity to put some tough questions to Sir Alan! Here’s how Jane got on: As an Enterprise UK Ambassador and Director of [...] 0

Yesterday saw the penultimate week of the Newcastle University Careers Service NU Enterprise Programme. A six week intensive course giving students and graduates a whirlwind tour of everything you need to know to start your own business with guest speakers from some of the region’s most successful entrepreneurs. This session was the turn of multi award winning [...] 0

There is a new concept in education. It’s called the School For Communication Arts 2.0 and is set to give the communications industry its next set of stars. Entrepreneur Marc Lewis has developed a startling new model for the way his curriculum is being developed. Taking the concept of Wikipedia, the curriculum for the SCA is [...] 0

G’day. A dusting, shall we say, of enterprise related stories in the press today. Our favourite? The Daily Mail’s feature on our Enterprising Young Brits competition, of course! Daily Mail ‘Nicole, girl with a gem of an idea’ (Justin Harper) Daily Mail feature on our Enterprising Young Brits competition, focusing today on the creative category. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/article-1251541/Deadline-looms-for.html The Independent ‘High taxes stop [...] 0

Enterprise UK and the National Enterprise Academy (NEA) share a similar goal of helping make the UK one of the most enterprising countries in the world. So, we are teaming up and will communicate more details soon. In the meantime, you can learn more about the NEA on their website: www.thenea.org and watch [...] 0

Entrepreneur and longstanding Enterprise UK Ambassador Nadine Hill traded the streets of West Yorkshire for Downing Street this week after receiving an invitation from the Prime Minister! To celebrate the success of Britain’s small and medium sized businesses,  Nadine was one of 50 entrepreneurs to attend the reception held at the PM’s house and was able to [...] 2

What better way to start your week than with a retrospective whizz through the weekend’s papers. All he juicy enterprise morsels we could find are below: Sky News ‘Little Big Shots: Superjam’ Sky News has a chat with Enterprise UK ambassador Fraser Doherty. Fraser began making jam at the age of 14 and later began making jam at [...] 0

Daily Express ‘Small firms and celeb-preneurs’ Owners of small firms do not believe celebrity entrepreneurs in TV shows like Dragon’s Den and The Apprentice reflect real life. A study by Nottingham University Business School showed 81 per cent of owners and 75 per cent believe  they distort public perceptions of entrepreneurship. On page 65 Financial Times ‘Hard times reduce links [...] 0

Last week I managed to bag myself a ticket to the media140 Third Sector event held at We Are Social in London. The event focused on how Social Media is and can be used in third sector organisations with talk and debate from leading advocates in the industry. Safe to say being a bit of [...] 2