I like to be surprised. Well, I don’t like bad surprises like people yelling “boo” or pitchers of water falling on my head. I do like the sort of surprise that inspires you and enlightens you and makes you want to be a better person. I like surprises where you are amazed that someone came up with that and shocked that it drew attention. My love of surprises is probably what drew me to the job I have here- the innovative things I learn about every day provides little packets of surprise and brillant “hmmm…what??!? You’re kidding me!” moments.

Stanford University capitalized on these moments in their Imagine IT campaign and subsequent video. (more…)

What is the worst thing about being an entrepreneur? Long hours? Failures? Uncertainty? I’d say its being alone most of the time. The thing with your grand ideas is that they are yours and in your own head. Others aren’t always supportive and frequently they try to bring you down. How do you fight this? I’d say get together with other entrepreneurs, find people in the same space and with the same problems. Where, does one do this you ask? Well, you can do it through our website, our social media groups or you can do it in person, in June, in the city of lovers. (more…)

For those of you who don’t know, Twitter is a website that allows people to monitor what you are doing via your short (less than 150 word) posts. Its sort of like mass text messaging. We thought it would be interesting if you could follow events about the Week as they develop- so this is a way for you to have a constant stream of updates! We will also be putting a twitter widget on our site in the days to come but for now you can access it and become our friend via this link: https://twitter.com/theWeek.

last week, the global entrepreneurship week planning team in london met up with several host organizations from western europe. we all met in paris and were hosted by les journees de l’entrepreneur (http://www.journee-entrepreneur.com/) and ernst & young, who very graciously provided us a brilliant meeting space on the 38th and 39th floor of their building in la defense.there were 9 countries represented at the table, including france, spain, germany, denmark, holland, greece, norway, italy - and of course us from the uk! campaign experts from make your mark led 5 workshop sessions over the course of the day and a half, covering topics such as possible activities and evaluation through to PR and sponsorship. (many thanks to hannah, cathy, scott, anjoum and mike paice for that!)

it gave us all a very good opportunity to learn more about the campaigns in each other’s country, share some best practice, and generate some fantastic new ideas for the first global entrepreneurship week this 17 - 23 november.

i took loads of pictures and videos from the sessions but i don’t have the cable to transfer them to my laptop! i’ll do that tomorrow, so stay tuned (more…)

The following is taken from the Wall Street Journal:

Enlarging the Anglosphere

By GORDON BROWN
April 16, 2008; Page A19

London

When Winston Churchill met President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on the deck of the H.M.S. Prince of Wales in 1941, he spoke of the common bonds between Britain and America: “The same language . . . the same hymns . . . more or less, the same ideals.” As he implied, the special relationship should be forged not merely by formal ties between governments, but by widening and deepening understanding and contact between people.

So, I want to suggest how our Atlantic relationship – which has always been rooted in something far more fundamental and lasting than our common interests or even our common history and common language – can be renewed and extended into new areas for a new generation. (more…)

Sometimes you run into a person who is just cooler, hipper more energetic than you. For me this is rare……..okay well the more energetic part is rare…… However, Kerry Bannigan the founder of Nolcha is all of those things. Plus, she is beautiful, fun, smart and devoted to discussing the industry side of fashion. It is her energy that has been pivotal in creating the partnership between Global Entrepreneurship Week and Nolcha.

We are pleased to announce that Nolcha just announced their partner activity for the Week! They will run Independent Retail Week during Global Entrepreneurship Week in order to highlight the role of the entrepreneur in fashion! (more…)

Seth Godin, on his blog, argues that resumes are passe. I tend to agree with him in the sense that tangible expressions of yourself or your reputation are always more valuable than what you can write about who you are. How many of you have blogs in your field or sophisticated online projects? Let us know and we will feature some of the best here on Global Entrepreneurship Week’s blog!

I just had an int’l conference call and wanted to give everybody really quick update on some of the Global EW activities that are happening around the world. Please make sure your seats are in an upright position!

(more…)

I respect Mark Zuckerberg, the guy who created facebook, for a lot of reasons but mostly because he wanted to connect people online- a simple vision, and from it made a $2 billion dollar company.

(more…)

Earlier this week myself and couple other members of the Global Entrepreneurship Week team flew to Houston, Texas to facilitate a town hall for U.S. Congressman Nick Lampson on entrepreneurship and economic development in his district. At the meeting we made sure to let all the participants know about Global Entrepreneurship Week and encouraged them to visit www.unleashingideas.org to learn more about the Week.

(more…)