Spreading the entrepreneurship addiction [Net Prophet]

No one can deny that the entrepreneurship bug has bitten: everyone wants to be one and people are beginning to teach it.

Now it’s a disease and Stephan Lund thinks we ought to spread it. Lund is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Nova Scotia Business Inc.

“When we think entrepreneurs, we all think of people like Richard Branson, that is the traditional way of thinking,” Lund told the Net Prophet tech conference.

He declares that he suffers from entrepreneurialism.

He figures that there are too many answers to the question of what an entrepreneur is. “Everything from being a risk taker, inventor, a small business owner, to being just plain crazy or lucky. But none of these things have anything to do with entrepreneurialism,” he says.

Being an entrepreneur is something far different than what most people think. It’s about attitude, confidence, trying, and not being afraid to fail or win.

Entrepreneurialism is an addiction we share, Lund says. It has some basic symptoms: persistent, risk taker, optimistic and eager to improve everything and anything.

I think and I hope we all have this. It’s not something we want cured. In fact, it’s something we should want to spread. We all know that entrepreneurship is much more than starting a business, being your own boss, converting ideas into revenue; or being socially responsible, and the like. Entrepreneurship is an attitude.

For Lund it’s about looking for the power of entrepreneurship in the most unusual places such as government. Telling challenging stories and not wanting to learn how things are done but to do things in new ways.

Entrepreneurship should work in government by “allowing business needs to shape government policy, not forcing businesses to conform to archaic government standards”.

Entrepreneurship — shifting attitudes — influencing others.

“It’s not enough to be an entrepreneur — to create a solution, create a product and go to market. Look at where you live. How can you improve the conditions of your environment? Be an ambassador for, and spread, entrepreneurship in places that need it,” says Lund.

He reckons it is time our addiction to Silicon Valley ended and we look at where we are and can influence – then infuse a culture of innovation.

“One of the best places to observe the power of this addiction is in the tech world with its increasingly younger social entrepreneurs.”

Environment does not limit entrepreneurs, and the strength of an economy is only as strong as its knowledge economy.

It is important to try and fail as an entrepreneur, while spreading the addiction in the process.

He argues that entrepreneurs are driving the shape of the world, and supporting a thriving ecosystem that fosters entrepreneurship is key to that.