Top of Mind

At Embark Community Connection we read and review many Entrepreneurial sites on the web, and will occasionally re-publish articles of interest. This week we found two interesting stories from the National Dialogue of Entrepreneurship, who publish a very informative weekly newsletter.

Business Support in London

The British government and many of Britain's regional development agencies are in the midst of several interesting and innovative experiments in how to effectively support local entrepreneurs. The latest edition comes from the London Development Agency (LDA), which has recently published a series of consultation documents regarding reform of London's business support services. The reports contain interesting ideas for making the process more efficient and effective. According to the LDA, their vision is to create a business support system that is "easy to use, accessible, useful, removes disadvantage, and, most importantly, results in an improvement to business performance." The LDA is seeking public comments on this report between now and March 31, 2006. In an accompanying study - Enterprise Support in Seven World Cities - LDA staff developed a comparative assessment of business support services in seven world cities. In addition to London, the list includes Berlin, Milan, New York, Singapore, Sydney, and Toronto. While each of these cities has a unique approach, they are all actively seeking ways to bring private sector services and support to aspiring entrepreneurs and new business owners.

To offer your feedback or to review the reports accompanying the London Development Agency's Business Support Review, please visit http://www.lda.gov.uk/server/show/ConWebDoc.1365. The public comment period ends on March 31, 2006.

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Hiring Strategies for Entrepreneurs Seeking Top Talent

Identifying and hiring the top team to help take a company to the next level is one the toughest challenges faced by entrepreneurs. A new collection of articles on the Kauffman eVenturing website addresses that challenge, looking to help business owners become more successful in their quest to hire more "A-list" winners. Filled with practical, actionable advice written by experienced entrepreneurs and hiring experts, the articles emphasize the longer-term value of using a more structured, disciplined approach to add an element of "science" to the art of hiring the best people for an entrepreneurial company.

To read the full collection on "Methods for Evaluating Top Team Candidates" please visit Kauffman eVenturing at www.eVenturing.org.

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All stories © 2006 The Public Forum Institute National Dialogue on Entrepreneurship: www.publicforuminstitute.org/nde.