Reports in Canada suggest it is losing the global innovation race because companies aren’t investing enough in research and development: Statscan say Canadian businesses will spend less on R&D for a third straight year in 2010. Canadian companies intend to spend $14.8-billion this year, 2.6 per cent less than in 2009. The same companies spent $16.6-billion [...]

Getting enough funds to start a new business sometimes feels as likely as winning the lottery! But there is a silver lining – at least in the UK. Hi-tech startups can apply for the all new UK Innovation Investment Fund. Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced that life sciences, plus digital and advanced manufacturing businesses are at [...]

It used to be that entrepreneurs were looked down on. ‘The pirates of business’. Thanks to Richard Branson and Steve Jobs that’s changed. In some places it’s changed more than others. The US West Coast is full of entrepreneurophiles while parts of Europe are still violently anti. Some believe that the 21st Century will be [...]

Governments are hell bent on regulating big business and banks. Not that they don’t deserve it. But where’s the focus on innovation? 100 years post industrialisation the world’s leading economies are controlled, even strangled, by monopolies or cartels. This does need to be governed – I just think the focus is wrong. Leading economies should [...]

Research by the Kauffman Foundation has just shown that ALL net job growth in the US over the last 30 years was created by businesses less than 5 years old. Let me repeat that: ALL net job growth. ALL. Governments and analysts used to think that small businesses generated most net employment growth. They measure [...]