We are all part of the entrepreneurial ecosystem

Carla and I would like to thank Tim Mazzarol for his article on the Entrepreneurial ecosystems and the role of government policy because it has been of great inspiration during the last days of Christmas leave. 

We meditated on the importance of the entrepreneurial ecosystem and how much pervading it is in all our lives. Just try to imagine what could succeed if, one day, all the entrepreneurs decide to go on strike. You can do nothing. No electricity, no home heating, no Internet, no signal for your phone, no newspapers, no shops, bars and restaurants open, no tv and radio, no refuelling for your car... We would fall instantly into the Middle Ages. Think about it for a moment. Entrepreneurship is all around us. Without entrepreneurs there couldn't be innovation and progress.

Ok, what about scientists and researchers? We think that they are similar to entrepreneurs: they work to turn ideas into action, to discover new products and services, both working for public bodies of private companies. And turning ideas into action is exactly the definition that the European Union gives of entrepreneurship. It is not just something referred to one opening its own activity but it is much more: entrepreneurship is a state of mind, that can be used in every aspect of life from family to business, hobbies, work, passions...

Entrepreneurial ecosystem, Mazzarol 2014

That's why is so important to nurture the entrepreneurial ecosystem. In the imagine of Tim Mazzarol designing it, we think that two of the most important parts are those regarding culture and education&training.

The entrepreneurship culture must be spread because it can inspire, it can provide positive examples of resilience, courage, creativity, motivation and other attitudes that can be helpful for everyone, not just for aspiring entrepreneurs. It is true that not all the entrepreneurs are good: we don't live in a fairytale. But there are more good examples than we imagine. Even among those who are not strictly entrepreneurs but that have been entrepreneurial in their life: just think to Andre Agassi, which story has been told in a magnificent way in the book Open (that not for a case became a worldwide bestseller).

Carla and I are working with this aim: spreading as much as possible the good entrepreneurial attitudes. Yes, the link between entrepreneurs and work is true, without entrepreneurs there aren't jobs, so this is the first reason why it is important to improve the entrepreneurial ecosystem. But we think that working on the diffusion of entrepreneurial mindset has positive effects on the whole society, because even the ones that are employed can be more enterprising. Becoming more happy and satisfied. And happiness is not one of the final life goals?

Why stay low with your aims?

During our sessions of entrepreneurship training in highschools and postgraduate schools in Italy, in the last two years, Carla and I gave to our students an exercise on vision: they had to write what they imagine to do in their life in a typical day of 2035. Our students had to describe how could be their usual activities in that day, what kind of job they have, where they could live, if they have a family or not, and so on. They had to use their imagination to see theirselves in the future.

The replies of the boys and the girls attending our seminars were very different, while most of them specified that they would like to work in the field they are studying at the moment. But what striked us the most is the conscious lowering of the aims of these guys. For example, one of them wrote: “I hope to work few kilometres away from my home”. Another one said “I hope that the economic crisis let me find a job”.

We think that these thoughts are an effect of the continuos bombing of bad news that we are living at the moment in Italy. In a certain sense, we are experimenting a sense of crushing of our lives and this is particularly true among the youngest generations.

The crisis gave to our students a perfect alibi: we do nothing because the economic conditions don't let us doing something. It's all worthless. There's no excape from our conditions. So we put our aims at the lowest possible level, to avoid disappointments. We are afraid of the future.

Terrible, isn't it?

What we are trying to do with our training is to change the perception lens they use to watch the reality. Yes, we are currently living a strong and long economic crisis. But behind every great economic boom there is a previous downturn. This is the moment to start seeing opportunities where others just see problems. This is the time to adopt and train the entrepreneurial attitudes. To start the game. To put ourselves to the test. Yes, it will not be all roses. There will be difficulties and obstacles to overcome. But... what is the alternative? To keep still and complain? This is the perfect recipe for failure. For something that isn't really life.

We live in exponential times, with incredible tools to communicate, to exchange ideas, to build relationships with people all over the world. This is the perfect moment to keep high our aims and work hard to reach them. Or to arrive nearby them as much as possible. And even if we will not succeed, it's worth it. We will have learnt something. We will have lived. Because we are alive, not zombies!

When we stop dreaming

When we stop dreaming?

Doing lessons in different classes in different tipology of schools, we realized that most students dream less as they grow up.

Why? Because we are surrounded by so-called “dreams wreckers”.

They are everywhere: at home, among friends, at school, on the street, hidden between the lines of newspaper articles, in the tv news. People who provide advice based on their personal experience, done at other times, ways and places. We are invaded by the armies of dreams demolition. They teach us to walk on known and safe paths, but these paths do not lead to our very personal dreams, to our idea of success.

If we let our dreams fade under the blows of hammers, we may no longer see them and then not being able to turn on all those attitudes to achieve, with the effect of changing road and reach the safe path of others.

People tend to emulate, to follow the example and the history of the record for the mile explains it very well. For years, many athletes have tried to break down the record for the mile race trying to get under four minutes without succeeding, even increasing the conviction of improvised gurus who claimed that it was impossible for the human physique to exceed that record. Roger Bannister, however, changed the path, he was convinced he could do it and the belief turned into concrete behaviour, that is, the search for new means of training to achieve the goal. In 1954 he obtained the record. But the most surprising thing is what happened after: in the following year were made by other athletes over three hundred repetitions of the record. Among these not only great players like Kip Keino, but also college students. This means that when an extraordinary performance proves to be feasible, it increases in all the people the belief that they can achieve the desired result. It removea a barrier and opens the door to commitment.

Too many times we claim commitment by young people without giving them a perspective. It is always useful to tie the present, the effort for a goal, to a dream. This method inspires a person to a deliberate practice, making him or her able to achieve a goal, trying to break down the mental barriers as much as possible. This is the absolute power of dreaming.

Change is inevitable

There is a more powerful, diffused and dangerous fear than failure in our society, and it's the fear of change. It's a very human habit, because change is perceived as something that can “steal” what we have, what we achieved. Moreover, our brain, especially the left hemisphere, encourage routines to save energy. Just pay attention, for example, on the rituals that everyone has in the bathroom in the morning, or what we buy every week at the supermarket, or the route to the office that very often we drive automatically while we are thinking to something else.

Well, there is nothing bad in that. That's true, but habits are dangerous because they make lazy the rest of our brain. And we start to fear for every kind of changes, from the smallest to the biggest one.

There are some students that if they don't find free their usual seat in their classroom become nervous. There are workers that get angry if a new machinery (or a new software to elaborate data) is introduced to produce differently a good or a service, breaking previous rules. There is people that take to the streets to shout against gay marriage or the “sinful Western lifestyle”. What they have in common is fear of change, they feel threatened by innovations, by something unknown, sometimes they also refuse to watch the evidence because change requests an act of commitment, responsabilities, energy to understand and to learn.

But change is inevitable. British artist Charlie Jeffery designed it clearly in his artwork that lays on the external wall of a wool mill in Biella, in Italy, showing three eras of the continental drift with the claim “Change is inevitable”. And it's really significant that this work is on that wall. Because economy is the place where innovations are more rapid and they affect us all.

 We think that is better to accept changes (if they are really improving, of course), instead of fighting them.We know that it's not easy to do that. The only tip we have is to try to change starting from the most little things. For example, move from your usual seat at your kitchen table where you have dinner every day. Or change your furniture arrangement. It is not difficult and it will also help you to see your room from a different perspective. Think about how many problems could be solved adopting a different perception len, in your kitchen and, maybe, in the world.

Good change to everyone!

JK Rowling and the benefits of failure

Famous author JK Rowling, creator of Harry Potter, the wizard grew up with a whole generation, in 2008 gave a magnificent speech to the graduates of Harvard, a speech that all young people should hear.

She focused on a special theme: the benefits of failure. The richest author in the world wanted to speak to young people, that faced the so-called real life, about what she learned from her failure.

This is an incredibly formative approach, because instead of talking about dreams realized, goals achieved, the meaning of being a famous writer and what she can feel about selling 11 million copies of her book within 24 hours of release, she told how the poor failure of his life when she was in her early twenties led her to strip off everything that was not essential for her to understand what she really wanted to do in life and focusing on  it.

Describing with ruthless honesty the feelings of that time, "I found myself to be the biggest failure that I had known, it was a dark period in which I had no idea that there would be what the press now calls a happy ending. I had no idea how much the darkness would last for a long time and the light at the end of the tunnel was a hope rather than a reality".

JK Rowling explained, however, that it was precisely in that period that she succeeded in channeling her energies on what she truly loved: writing. The failure became the basis from which she started with determination to do what she had always wanted to do, without fear of losing anything because she had yet lost everything.

She started again from there, "I had an old typewriter and a big idea."

This is the reason why, she said to the graduates, "each of us, in different forms, should experiment with his/her own idea of ​​failure." And from it, to start again.

At the centre of entrepreneurship there is always a human person

Last week we had a great afternoon in Fiesole, near Florence, talking with José Manuel Leceta, the outgoing Director of European Institute of Innovation & Tecnology that since last August is a visiting fellow at the European University Institute (EUI) Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, whose headquarters are exactly in the wonderful hills surrounding Florence.

The first time we met José Manuel was in November 2013, in Budapest, during the EIT Awards, where a number of successful entrepreneurial start-ups came out of the different EIT’s Knowledge and Innovation Communities were highlighted. During his speech, he underlined the importance of nurturing not just the usual entrepreneurial skills (business plan, idea development, marketing, etc.) in the young people that attended the KICs, but also their entrepreneurial attitudes, paying attention on training also motivation, vision, resilience, uncertainty management, and others.

Carla and I were really excited when we heard those words, because it was exactly what we tought (and we still think) about entrepreneurship and about what is the current way of teaching to aspiring entrepreneurs. There is a psychologycal, behavioural aspect that, at the moment, is completely ignored.

So, during the networking lunch we approached José Manuel to talk with him about our book and to analyze our common vision about entrepreneurship training. And less than a year after, we had the opportunity to meet him again. He read our book and appreciated it and he is still convinced that there is still a lot to do to put in contact ecomics and psychology. One of his central ideas (and he said it during the Madrid TedxTalk, last March) is that at the very centre of everything - innovation, economics, technology - there is still the human person. This is also the thesis of our essay, what a stunning sensation to have such an intense and so similar feeling!

Thank you so much, José Manuel, for your welcome, for your kindness and openness! And many thanks again for discussing with us about several arguments, projects and visions! For Carla and I that has been a great moment of exchange and learning! We hope to see you very soon, and all our best wishes for your job in Florence to maximize the co-operation opportunities between the EIT and the EUI!

Can entrepreneurship be learned? An intriguing question

This week the prestigious Italian university “Luigi Bocconi” presented a new Chair in Entrepreneurship, created thanks a philantrophic gift of Carlo Debenedetti in memory of his father Rodolfo, one of the most brilliant 20^th century entrepreneurs in Italy.

The “lectio inauguralis” of the Chair had an intriguing title: can entrepreneurship be learned? The chair holder, Fabiano Schivardi, as the following speech hold by Josh Lerner of Harvard Business School, focused mainly on the macro-economical factors that can facilitate or be an obstacle to entrepreneurship. So their final reply to the above question is: yes, it is possible to learn to be entrepreneurs, it depends by external factors as, for example, the place you live, the number of companies and entrepreneurs in that place and many others.

Carla and I think that this approach to entrepreneurship is correct, because also the cognitive psychologists that study the entrepreneur mindset arrived (at the moment) at this end: actions are driven by intentions, intensions are influenced by attitudes, and the latters are shaped by external factors. But the main important external factors are the family and the school; the birthplace, the companies concentration in that area, the number of entrepreneurs and so on are secondary factors.

That's why we think that the capital aim of every nation should be to introduce entrepreneurship into the education systems not just as a new subject to teach but changing the way subjects are teached. Teachers should become learning facilitators that go along with their students explaining them that is more important to learn from everything, at every age, that just to memorize data. Showing them how to see opportunities instead of problems. Training them to be motivated, resilient, focused on their aims, to take decisions and assume responsabilities.

It is not a simple change, but it is necessary. Some countries, like the USA, are really advanced by this point of view. But others have a lot of work to do. We need to find and improve new methodologies to teach and train an entrepreneurial mindset in everyone.

Our suggestion? Mixing psychology and economics, we think that the new Bocconi Chair could be much better in “building” the future entrepreneurs.

In our past lay the seeds of our future

I always loved historic places. Or places with some interesting histories behind. Yesterday evening I visited one of the most ancient ones in Biella, an industrial city in the Nort West of Italy nearby I actually live, that really fascinated me and let me think about past and future.

The place I visited has lived different changes during the centuries. On the left side of Cervo river, in 1550 settled a paper mill; then, a century later, a silk spinning plant has been builded. In the 18^th century the real estate had been enlarged to make room for a wool weaving factory, that developed its activity thanks to the Industrial Revolution. The site still have the name and is a property of Sella dynasty, that started with the textile mill and go on during the time with other activities, including the foundation of a bank in Biella, Banca Sella. In the 1990s they moved here the data processing center of the bank. In the huge complex, located in a wonderful environment, there are also the Sella Foundation, the bank training center and, since 2013, the SellaLab, a start-up incubator and accelerator full of passionate, young people that are co-working on new ideas and new ventures.

What struck me during the explanation of the past and present life of this incredible group of buildings is that here history and future blend together to create inspiration and new visions. In the old, massive halls, in the restored rooms, it is really perceivable a sense of  identity, what Latins called “genius loci” or the spirit of a place, where generations of entrepreneurs and workers faced their challenges, pursued their dreams and lived their bad or good luck.

I think that good ideas can come out everywhere, but in my opinion they can born better in a place like the Maurizio Sella wool mill. Here you can breathe that sense of “I can do it!”. That gave me a great hope, because we have roots and they could give us the seeds for our future. Let them grow now!

www.sellalab.net (sorry, just in Italian!)