Entrepreneurship Courses

[worchyld]

Anyone know of any good, short-term evening classes in Entrepreneurship or e-Entrepreneurship within the North East England area?

Anything under and including one-year is considered short-term.

I've found quite a few via LearnDirect and from WorkTrain.gov - but I'm not sure if there are others.

If you know of any, I'd appreciate your help in generating some interesting leads for me to follow up.

Thanks a lot.

[Statler]

Hi,

You might find the Events section on the Shell LiveWIRE North East portal of interest:

http://northeast.shell-livewire.org/events/

The Where Now website also contains details of training organisations, colleges, etc, in the North East of England:

http://www.where-now.org/

[worchyld]

thanks alot

[Adam]

Minor point here and not to be picky but I do not believe you can teach Entrepreneurship.

You can certainly teach the skills needed for running a small business or even a large one but being an entrepreneur is a state of mind.

[James Smith]

Adam put his finger on it.

I really think the best way to learn about business is by doing - even if this is very small scale and part time and goes horribly wrong.

And this is from somone who has a degree in business related matters, and all manner to certificates and letters after his name - i'm not anti-education I just dont think you can teach somone to think like a business person.

[kjmcculloch]

I don't really agree totally with the previous comments.

Being enterprising is a state of mind, a way of thinking. But this way of thinking can be and often needs to be facilitated and encouraged.

I have recently qualified to deliver a course from Scottish Enterprise called 'Get into ENTERPRISE' and I think it's a quality course to help develop a critical thinking, something which is not developed through mainline education. And indeed why would teacher's want the develop critical thinkers, it would only make their job more difficult.

[Adam]

What qualifications/experience will you be calling on in order to preach your message?

I will be holding classes on "How to win the National Lottery jackpot" If you are interested please email me for details of where to send a cheque for £49.99 to.

I do not want to knock you as an individual but I hope you see my point about classes to teach the un teachable.

In a hairdressing or mechanics course I would imagine 90% of people that wanted to do it would pass (it is a skill that can be learnt - not necessarily an easy skill), what % of people go on to become entrepreneurs from these courses? (excluding those that do it just to brush up on a few book keeping skills and marketing skills)

[kjmcculloch]

Thank you Adam.

I myself was sceptical about the course. But it really does work.

A large percentage of people taking the course go on to be more entrepreneurial, in many different ways.

A small proportion will thake the jump into business, but thats much more to do with the fact the course I deliver is in an area with high poverty and disadvantage.

It has however created many of the new breed we call Social Entrepreneurs. For anyone who knows little about socail entrerprise they concentrate on more than just profit, they have a triple bottom line which balances profit, socail aspects and the environment.

So, I understand and appreciate that you don't think it can be taught, but I strongly believe from my personal experience and that of fellow facilitators that this package does work. So much so that the Scottish Enteprise has now poured millions into the creation of the follow up "more exciting stuff".

Facilitation not teaching is the key!

[James Smith]

I am very interested to read there is such "facilitation" available, and it is highly commendable there is a push in that direction.

During my education I learnt very little that has been useful in any practical sense in running a business. The main barrier in my experience has been that the teachers or lecturers themselves had never actually run a business themselves, and therefore really didn’t have a clue when it came to stepping outside the gates into the real world. (Cue flood of complaints from teachers who run businesses – but it seems unusual for teachers to do something in the real world before they teach, maybe this is changing now)

I can recall one exception at university (who was roundly despised by the more academic type lecturers) who did try to teach about real business, and I always enjoyed his lectures, which where normally a discussion of a case study as if the lecture room was the board of directors of that company, and what we would do with it. I actually re-read one of my papers I wrote for this chap when I moved house about three years ago (for which I received a very high mark), and I must admit I cringed at what I had written as it seemed so naïve.

I do believe however some people have that spark of an entrepreneur, and some people just don’t. In general its the sort of person who aged 12 sells their train set to friends and sets up car washing business with the money that learns the skills of business and is more likely to be an entrepreneur than the one on the study course.

[worchyld]

I found this one at Durham University,

Very Long link;

http://213.219.10.120/pls/hotufi2/hc...st=10&firsta=1


Thanks for all your comments and thoughts. I wasn't looking to start a fight, just get some answers. I'm going on some evening courses to learn basic business skills next week - so that help me a little.

Thanks alot.