Expect to see some positive media coverage shortly….about positive media coverage.
According to BIS, new research shows that media coverage of entrepreneurs:
“is helping more people to consider a career as their own boss”
And:
“one in five non-entrepreneurs are being motivated to start their own business having watched programmes such as Dragons Den, etc.”
Good news? Certainly. But delve into the research report (Impact of Media on Entrepreneurial Intentions and Actions, Nov 2010) and a more, how shall we say, rounded picture emerges.
In practice, in recent years there has been a significant decline in people agreeing “that you often see stories in the public media about successful new businesses” and in those agreeing “that most people consider starting a business a desirable career choice.”
And whilst one in ten new and established entrepreneurs state that the media has been a major influence on them starting their own business, that is only the seventh most frequently mentioned major source. Family and friends are mentioned five times as often. Work colleagues and education and training are higher up the league. And newspapers were mentioned as often as TV.
Indeed “leading enterprise campaigns and business reality TV programmes provide useful input to the generation of an entrepreneur-friendly culture, but have an immediate effect on the entrepreneurial activity of relatively few participating individuals.”
And “TV business programmes tend not to directly trigger actual entrepreneurial intentions. However they have a positive effect on social norms….in this sense, they do, albeit indirectly, influence actual patterns of entrepreneurship.”
So what does all this tell us?
Firstly, read the report not the press release. More importantly, I have always believed that enterprise promotion goes hand in hand with enterprise support. The research actually supports this view. It’s no point getting people excited about starting their own business if there is no practical support for them. Dragon’s Den might get you motivated, but it won’t teach you how to draw up a cash flow forecast. And equally, it is no good having a practical enterprise support structure if people are not interested in entrepreneurship, don’t realise that help is available, and don’t know where to obtain that help.
As the researchers put it: “These findings provide support for a more holistic approach. Media has an important role to play in raising the level of desirability and future intention to engage in entrepreneurship, which can then be more readily translated into entrepreneurial outcomes through initiatives designed to develop skills and capacity building aimed at business start-up”.
Capacity building aimed at business start-up? Now there’s an idea…..
You can read the full report here