Crowd sourced economic policy

Who’s a clever boy then?
No sooner had I posted a missive to put the economy into the correct perspective and another to put it squarely back on the right course; that clever clogs George Osborne has set about doing some crowd sourcing for more ideas.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/feb/04/chancellor-crowdsources-budget-ideas-george-osborne

I’m not going to make a political point about not having a clue, as I think he has the right idea. More Government should be run like this. Go the pub with your mates, get the old economic creative juices flowing and before you sober up, pop them in an email to Her Majesty’s Treasury.
I have, we’ll see just how sensible an idea it is. Roll on 23rd March.

Don't Panic, innovate

Following on from my Frazeresque (Dad’s Army, not Seattle) piece on the state of the economy on Monday, I thought I would set out a simple approach to saving the economy.  It is pretty well proven that;



• Small businesses can generate employment faster than large enterprises;


• Small businesses will seize on opportunities faster than large organisations can bring together a cross departmental working group to even write 2 sides of A4 on what their ‘terms of reference are;’


• Younger people save less and spend more as they start to build a home for themselves and think buying anew car is somehow an investment;


• Iced on top of these universal truths are political leaders that proclaim how to remain competitive the UK must be leaders of the knowledge economy and we have a greater number of graduates today than we have had at any time in the past.

So now, more than anytime in the past 30 years, the Government should use fiscal policy to generate a massive shift in their own and investors approach to small companies that can innovate. What does this mean?


Well, any company that employs less than 100 people should be able to hire up to 1 employee per 10 already employed on a 24 month fixed term contract. As long as they are under 25 years old at and paid least twice the minimum wage (around £23.5k). In return the Government will let them deduct the total tax take for that individual from the company’s corporation tax (around £3.5k excluding NI) for the first or second year as chosen by the employer.

These are generous terms that would contribute to increase the UK’s aggregate demand, generate growth from spending, reduce unemployment and the long term burden on Government spending.

More importantly than benefiting the economy as a whole, is the lasting effect on companies that innovate in a tough environment that will gain the most. These organisations would be able to access bright young talent more cost effectively with a manageable risk profile and have a global advantage to go on and innovate even more.

Never in the field of human economics

UK GDP growth has slowed to the pace of South Eastern train passing through London Bridge, unemployment is proving to be stubborn, especially for young people, inflation appears to be uncontrollable by the cadre of venerable olds that run monetary policy and the pound is as popular as fart in a space suit.

All roads seem to be leading to some kind of stagnation, although politicians will use wording that won’t panic the masses of home owners for whom the margin between what their home is worth and what they owe on their mortgage continues to narrow.

There seems to be several solutions being peddled endlessly with out a taker. The Banks should lend more money to more people, everyone working within the banks ecosystem should not take bonuses and the Government should give up on their endless march to return the public sector to a size more aligned with the value it can really deliver. Each repeated with gusto daily in the press and broadcast media, none that can be seriously executed without seriously affecting another part of the economy.

Surely there hasn’t been a time for the need of some Herculean innovation since we were led by Winston Churchill into the field of human conflict.

So what would I do if sufficient people had failed to read their ballot papers and voted to me in charge? Well a part from taking a leaf our of Mr Berlusconi’s for being entertained by talented young meteorologists, incentivise innovation.

Details in my next blog.

Incremental not breakthrough

If you're truly innovative in what you offer, brilliant at what you do and good at communicating that, surely you won't have any competition.’ This approach is at the core of Seth Godin’s book the Purple Cow, and of course he is correct.

Last week I had the opportunity to speak with some stellar senior people about innovation projects my colleagues and I delivered in 2010. Rather proudly, half of the 10 initiatives were instigated or delivered by me (the relevance of that little nugget is purely for my ego and not the substance of the blog).

For me, I thought the value of our dialogue wasn’t in what we had delivered or even the ‘outcomes’ of delivering the initiatives. Although some are pretty sexy. No, the real value is in how the initiatives had been originated, implemented and overcome the challenges.

As I talked through initiatives that had cost from virtually nothing up to a million dollars, I reinforced that most projects were incremental to what we were already doing have therefore been more widely adopted, and those that were more disruptive, while attracting more interest, have not been adopted without on going intervention.

Sadly, what these global senior leaders, and I think most leaders in general, fail to appreciate is, incremental, all other things being equal, is more sustainable than breakthrough. And that most important. in achieving an incremental approach to innovation, organisations should enable everyone in the organisation to originate, implement and overcome challenges.

Innovation is not the exclusive domain of the guy in the corner with the iPad and job title, it should be in every colleague’s job description, annual objectives, scorecard or whatever format you use. Everyone should be charged with continually innovating, not to break through, but to incrementally improve our offer, deliver it better and communicate it more effectively.