2011 seems to be a year of anger. Everyone, it appears, is arguing and complaining. Post hackgate, we need positivity.
2011 seems to be a year of anger. Everyone, it appears, is arguing and complaining. The Arab Spring has contaminated the world, or maybe there is something in the solar particles or water.
The Eurozone is a mess, the US can’t agree on a debt ceiling, and while the UK has moved on from super-injunctions, it is now totally swamped by hackgate.
Labour has turned into ‘single-issue Ed’ and ignoring the fact that the total mess could have been handled had the last government’s inquires done their job. At the same time, David Cameron is struggling to keep an agenda on things Parliament currently views as less important, like crime, a growing financial crises, African famine, or, getting on with the job of multi-issue government.
When billionaires turn up in the UK, most notably Mr Murdoch, they get given a custard pie and told to spend their billions elsewhere. It seems, we just can’t handle the lack of home-grown competition and we’re so scared of the press that meetings held via backdoors or in private are seen as corrupt.
Whilst corporate governance in hackgate is questionable, it’s not unsurprising that large companies, particularly multinationals, have incompetent idiots or even corrupt people somewhere in the organisation. After all large organisations reflect society.
In a recession, everyone will be short of money and complain, and if you amplify this in media and give it constant attention everyone will stay depressed. The Eurozone is seeing the consequence of not managing this well, with on-going strikes and riots. The US will probably need to shut down benefit payments soon.
There is nothing new here, other than a desire to kick the cat, complain or shout at someone, when things go wrong. The medicine is optimism, even if naively placed. Hope. Sunshine. Newness. Holidays. The Future. It is not wallowing in gossip, twitter, and history.
Similarly, companies which focus on the past, and don’t innovate, will lose money. I sense the answer to escape the recession is: part-mood – ‘there is no recession’; part-positioning – ‘future focus’; and part-marketing – ‘selling optimism and hope’ (after all Obama did get elected on that brief).
The future (as they used to say) is not something you travel to, it’s something you build.
Entrepreneurs and growth companies are not passengers in this. We must be driving the trains, planes or vehicles to the future, after all governments and multinationals aren’t. They are too absorbed or locked in, indebted in this mess. The only hope is the new guys on the block.
In this new world, where even an inventor can win The Apprentice, people want ideas and inspiration.
Just lend us entrepreneurs the money to make it all happen. We’re much less likely to lose it than the banks, governments, and bigger companies. In any case, watching what happens will be vastly more interesting than looking back.
