These Uncertain Times?

Received a invitation to an exclusive business club spam e-mail today inviting me to join the Entrepreneurial Club (Eclub) and to “potentially claim an exclusive place within this network” whatever that’s supposed to mean. On it goes “It is free to join, and is a powerful way to reinforce your business through this period of business and economic uncertainty” and on again “Now more than ever, we as SMEs need certainty through these uncertain times“ and then, ever so professionally…

What are the main aims, objectives and features of the EClub  (yeah, that’s right no ?)

<!–[if !supportLists]–> <!–[endif]–>To be a fun medium to start the process of developing people and relationships.
<!–[if !supportLists]–> <!–[endif]–>To be a platform for identifying areas of mutual need so as to be able to support each other as small business people.

And a dozen more

<!–[if !supportLists]–> <!–[endif]–>blah blah blah

Including

“<!–[if !supportLists]–> <!–[endif]–>Mutual support through tough economic times”

 and even

 

 

<!–[if !supportLists]–> <!–[endif]–>Positioning ourselves for the next economic boom.

And finally the irrisistable

<!–[if !supportLists]–> <!–[endif]–>Creating greater mutual and individual business sustainability through lasting trust-based relationships.And the bottom line…

“ There is no membership charge. You only pay for what you utilise in the EClub, and you can use as much or as little as you would like”

How can resist?

But seriously, having been an Entrepreneur for many years, the very idea that there ever was a “period of business and economic certainty” or “easy economic times” is laughable. There are always people that procrastinate and won’t act for fear of failure, there will always be fools that rush in, and there will always be those that follow up ideas and act on them!

It’s easier for anyone to set up a business today than at any time in history – no need for “bricks and mortar” just a “virtual office”, a server somewhere in the world to host some web pages and away you go! There’s easy access to Pay-Pal and micro-payment systems, and vendors offering to process credit-card payments without the need for begging letters or showing a gazillion years of accounts to a High Street Bank to get them to provide a “Merchants Account”.

Even the process of publishing web pages is far easier today than at any time since the start of the commercial WWW, Web hosting companies now provide simple CMS systems to enable almost anyone to write a web page without having to learn HTML…

Now if only I could get this Blog to take card payments and let people sign up for an Entrepreneur’s Club…

Beijing Paralympics Medals

Back from a break – so let’s kick off with more great news from Beijing!

Rank	Country	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	China	45	47	33	125
2	Great Britain	37	21	19	77
3	United States	24	18	21	63
4	Ukraine	16	12	21	49
5	Australia	15	19	21	55
6	Russia	15	16	14	45

The table speaks for itself! Well done Team GB! Pity that when I searched on Google for Beijing Paralympics BBC it came up with the 2004 Paralympics page! Come on BBC pull your socks up – give it the coverage it deserves on the main News page and not just hidden away on the Sports pages.

These disabled athletes are an inspiration for everyone, unlike whinging Labour MPs who seem to think leaking news to BBC journalists about how unhappy they are with their leader is somehow professional; do they think it is going to win them, or their party, votes or promotion?! Well done to whoever sacked the Assistant whip Siobhain McDonagh, if she did the same while working for a company she would have deserved the same for jeopardising the shareholders investment.

Gordon, you might want to consider the future of Janet Anderson, Karen Buck, Patricia Hewitt, George Howarth, Eric Joyce, Sally Keeble, Stephen Ladyman, Martin Linton, Shona McIsaac, Margaret Moran, Tom Levitt, and Paddy Tipping, over their article for New Labour magazine Progress stating, as the BBC are quick to extract, that Labour has “no explanation yet” as to how it will “steer the economy through the troubled waters ahead”. Frankly, if these MPs think the public wants a meaningless strategy dressed up in Blairite spin from you, then they are truly out of touch; but more importantly, just like Siobhain McDonagh, they are truly naive if they can’t foresee that certain journalist, like those at the BBC, looking for an anti-Labour story will take their statements out of context and use it to damage your reputation. I for one trust a man that is honest enough to say that there are no quick fixes, keep on in there Gordon.