“Some regard private enterprise as if it were a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look upon it as a cow that they can milk. Only a handful see it for what it really is – the strong horse that pulls the whole cart.” – Winston Churchill
Great week – great conversations
- Dinner with Lord Howard Flight, Permjot Valia - http://www.helpwithsales.com/, Jamie Constable of Little Chef, Rosemary Forsyth; found Lord Flight to be one of the most knowledgable people – his recounting of history was fascinating.
- Spoke at Julia Hobsbawm’s Editorial Intelligence Comment Conference giving a thought-let around “David and Goliath Must Dance”; Giles Gibbons spoke alongside of me –
- Met the wonderful Lara Morgan of Pacific Direct
- Caught up with John O’Connell at Morton’s; John’s one of Ariadne’s Investor Members, and a significant investor in UK software firms; he was the founder of Staffware, sold to Tibco in 2004 for north of $240 million
- Had breakfast with Clive Jacobs of Travel Weekly; Clive’s an interesting guy – he sold Holiday Autos to Lastminute.com years ago, and now is investing in new businesses; liked him a lot
- Went out to the beautiful countryside in Warwickshire to speak at a Siemens Enterprise Communications Conference; this is England!
- Lunch with friend Mick Buckley, Head of CNBC Europe ... great guy, and has done a great job at CNBC building out the business.
The two best ideas I heard this week were:
- Run the British University system as a massive, global business; attract the best students from around the world, and make a heap of money to fund tuiton for British students
- To decrease divorces, force parents to put in the children’s names the bulk of their assets following a divorce
Off to lovely Marlow in the morning...
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