I am amazed at what is increasingly available on the net. If you are developing teaching inputs - a lot of the hard work is already done. Take a look at slide share if you are looking for slides to guide your work using the Enterprise Catalyst.

Great news this week - we passed the 10000th user for the new Enterprise Catalyst. Take a look - its free and will really help your enterprise education agenda. As we keep hearing - enterprise education is all about psychology and emotional development - the Enterprise Catalyst answers many questions.

How is it possible to tackle the challenges of PLTS and PSHE when there are so many other demands being made upon teachers and students? I have been delivering a number of workshops recently introducing teachers to the . The response is amazing - a simple online profiling tool that gives personal development Enterprise Catalystfeedback to kids and teachers (and business owners) - is proving highly effective. What really pleases me is the way in which teachers identify so mkany different ways of building the Enterprise Catalyst into their work with students. Whilst the Enterprise catalyst was originally designed to develop enterprise skills - it is now clearly a tool which has many uses and help teachers to tackle many of the issues they face when dealing with PLTS and PSHE.

Take a look at the Enterprise Catalyst and get in touch if you have any questions.

Use of the Enterprise Catalyst is free!

So what’s going on in the world of education. After a series of valiant and motivated efforts teachers have seriously began to take up the enetrprise education agenda and are cascading initiatives, events and programmes throughout schools. Unfortunately this usually requires a few sessions of CPD, but this is becoming increasingly difficult as teachers are struggling to get released to attend. Are there any answers to this challenge?

David

Hello again - its seems an age - we have been really busy - new products, new programmes and lots of engagement with the enterprise market place. Take a look at this as one of our latest solutions to the downturn - getting people going again is as much about psychology as it is about C.V.’s.

Read the Newcastle Journal article. 

What is it that we don’t want to know about? What is it that is affecting the success of our businesses, but we dont want to acknowledge it, becasue it looks a little too scary. Whatever it is, in my experience it is better to face up to some of the challenges and difficult things before they become too great and costly.

David

I was reading an ‘internet article’ today about the Recession and the Credit Crunch. The basic position was that it’s down to you to sort it out. OK these may indeed be very challenging times, but you are the only person who can really sort it out. Whilst I totally agree with this statement, the flavour of the article turned me off though. It was all happy, happy - don’t think about the recession, think positive, others may be struggling but we are the winners and we keep on going! This sounds good, but is pretty difficult to achieve. In my experience the most important thing is to continually bolster your self-belief, look after yourself and accept that these are tough times, but keep on going.

On a related topic this is an interesting article on how successful entrepreneurs manage hard times - especially when the taxman is on the march!

http://knowledge.insead.edu/ToBeASuccessfulEntrepreneur080710.cfm 

I am always interested to hear from business owners about the strategies and tactics they adopt to survive and thrive in tough times.

David

I am amazed at the amount of energy being focused upon enterprise education without recognising that school kids are people, and the most effective way to develop enterprising behaviour is to focus upon the individual. Yes, the younger person, their attitudes, motivations and fears. I see a lot of teachers who recognise this and look for tools and techniques that can help them expltre personal development with kinds. Unfortunately it seems to get lost behind a barrage of other requirements.

We have been using the Enterprise Catalyst to stimulate personal development amongst younger people. The way we find time to do this is by providing behnchmarking and evaluations to teachers and schools - this enables them to devote time to the real interests of teachers and needs of younger people.

Is it possible to deliver enterprise education without an indepth understanding of the psychology of younger people?

Hi and thanks to everyone who voted for us in the North East Digital Awards 2008 - The Enterprise Catalyst was shortlisted in the Youth Enterprise category, but unfortunatley we didn’t win. Still, a good attempt for our first entry to an awards competition.

Best Wishes

David

Within this week’s Sunday Times a further story pointed to the success of Charles Dunstone - most well known for launching and growing Carphone Warehouse. I remember meeting Charles Dunstone and his colleague David Ross a number of years ago, when I gave a talk at the Mandrake - a meeting place for high growth business owners based in and around the South East of England. What struck me was that at the time Charles Dunstone was highly opportunistic - looking for the best and quickest way to take his business forward. Working alongside him was David Ross. David was the person who rang me and organisised for me to come down and talkk to this audience. It struck me immediately that one of the critical success factors within this business was the way in which desire to chase and capture opportunity was balanced with focus and organisation. Not surprisingly this helped me to firm up my belief that business success is based upon bringining complementary attitudes and skills together. For one person to grow a successful business - it can be done but there is more chance of actually making it if we bring a range of attitudes and skills into the senior team.