P2P Entrepreneurial Learning

= mentoring

Discussion

Alan Moore:

"how participatory cultures can really enable increased capability in teams and organisations when knowledge is shared intensively.

Part of this is achieved through mentoring – in the book I describe the challenge we face in creating more start-ups / more companies and explain the quality of these organisations is not entirely defined by how much capital they raise – it is more defined by how they perceive their business and execute. By looking at a number of participatory learning eco-systems which live online and offline, and are sometimes combinations of the two – we can identify an important pattern.

This process works.

Peer-to-peer entrepreneurial learning

The mentoring programme that I was engaged with Springboard- offers a mechanism whereby it is connecting entrepreneurial startups with a vast array of businessmen and women who collectively carry something very valuable *intellectual capital*. Releasing that capital is what is going to fuel the innovation we need.

It is at the moment a drop in the ocean – however, the research conducted through NSL demonstrates that peer-to-peer learning through mentoring consistently delivers.

Why we need a national mentoring eco-system

Moreover, one could argue that entrepreneurship, the very commercial lifeline for this country, is being held back by a dysfunctional ecosystem and mindset. We just don’t have a big enough, and dynamic enough, vibrant academic, innovative, commercial, entrepreneurial ecosystem, within the European Union. This is a view that is supported by Stanford Professor Burton Lee, a specialist on European entrepreneurship and innovation, as well as people such as Will Hutton, from The Work Foundation.

The problem that sits at the heart of this is that there is no joined-up thinking, no national means to share current or hard-won knowledge, or a designed process providing access to these mentors who represent this extraordinary pool of talent and wisdom that are able to get entrepreneurs to accelerate their thinking to better develop and build their companies. That benefit would bring commercial success, resulting in job creation, inward investment and real regional economic development." (http://www.no-straight-lines.com/blog/why-britain-needs-a-mentoring-eco-system-for-entrepreneurs/)