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This paper presents a vision of the Internet eight years from now (i.e. in the year 2010). The study underpinning this vision was performed in two steps: the definition of requirements and drivers together with an extrapolation of technology developments. The vision is a direct result of the author’s extensive experience with working with the development of the Internet including his technical leadership of the Mobile Wireless Internet Forum and as a contributor to the Internet Engineering Task Force.

Nations with high levels of economic inequality tend to have high rates of entrepreneurial activity. In this paper, we develop propositions about this relationship, based upon current research. Although we provide some descriptive analyses to support our propositions, our paper is not an empirical test but rather a theoretical exploration of new ideas related to this topic. We first define entrepreneurship at the individual and societal level and distinguish between entrepreneurship undertaken out of necessity and entrepreneurship that takes advantage of market opportunities. We then explore the roles that various causes of economic inequality play in increasing entrepreneurial activity, including economic development, state policies, foreign investment, sector shifts, labor market and employment characteristics, and class structures. The relationship between inequality and entrepreneurship poses a potentially disturbing message for countries with strong egalitarian norms and political and social policies that also wish to increase entrepreneurial activity. We conclude by noting the conditions under which entrepreneurship can be a source of upward social and economic mobility for individuals.

In 2004, BT Retail Online enlisted the help of coaching consultants Trinity Horne, to identify methods of improving and optimizing its performance management framework. Ian Brumwell and Paul Reynolds of Trinity Horne explain how implementing a MasterCoach program with management development workshops significantly benefited the business.

The work of Scott, Bruce and Cooper on small firm growth and development is reviewed. It is shown that by adapting exponential smoothing forecasting procedures it is possible to monitor the commercial health of a small firm. This is achieved by ‘tracking’ key indicators and producing an exception message when a signal exceeds certain predetermined control limits. The procedure is equally effective for either a step or ramp change in the underlying input data. This suggested approach requires little sophistication in either data or technique and has a practical application to small firm management, while adding to our understanding of the process of growth of small businesses.

The entrepreneurial marketing paradigm is open to several interpretations. One such is that we should consider, in particular, the behaviour of small firms, and in particular, small entrepreneurial firms; another interpretation is to argue for the building of a completely new, and substantive, paradigm that builds upon, for example personal contact network development and focuses upon marketing activity being compressed, non‐linear in outlook and application, and informal. In this article the author asks a fundamental question highly pertinent to the developing subject of marketing within small firms. Is conventional marketing theory and practice from the “classical school” applicable to all types of organisations no matter what their size, or do smaller firms need a different sort of marketing, more suited to their particular needs? The paper concludes that in many cases the central core hub of marketing that has become known as the classicist philosophy of strategic marketing management (see Brennan, Baines, and Garneau, 2003) is appropriate and can often be employed to the smaller enterprise with beneficial commercial effects. However there may be some reluctance on the part of small firms to accept the notion that conventional marketing is of particular use. The author hopes that this short paper will provoke a subsequent debate about the current “state of play” concerning the entrepreneurial marketing paradigm.

Sophy Hallam (consultant) and Patience Seebohm (independent researcher) discuss what makes an entrepreneur, and Paul Grey, Ross Parker and Mark Swift (all experts by experience in mental health and enterprise) share their views on what it takes to set up and run your own business

Originally undertaken on behalf of a national multiple food retailing chain concerned about a 50 per cent fall off in sales at a new store within six months of its opening, this research includes a comparative study of two other supermarkets in the same town. Interviews were conducted with 321 store customers and 189 people at random locations elsewhere and a standard questionnaire completed to determine the store features important in attracting their patronage, including price, layout, selection and variety of goods, opening hours, parking facilities and convenience of location. It was established that there was nothing radically wrong with the client company′s store and subsequent implementation of recommended “fine tuning” of a number of its features has led to its developing a comparably favourable level of popularity. However, it is concluded that marketing research should be commissioned at the initial planning stage, with particular reference to suitability of location, rather than as a means of sorting out deficiencies which become apparent only after completion and opening.

Cognition has always been central to the popular way of thinking about entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurs imagine a different future. They envision or discover new products or services. They perceive or recognize opportunities. They assess risk, and figure out how to profit from it. They identify possible new combinations of resources. Common to all of these is the individual’s use of their perceptual and reasoning skills, what we call cognition, a term borrowed from the psychologists’ lexicon.

This article considers that one way to help the small‐ and medium‐sized enterprise (SME) to survive is to offer it a robust but simple monitoring and control technique that would help it manage the business effectively and this, in turn, should help to increase its chances of survival. This technique should also be of interest to all people involved with monitoring or advising a large number of small enterprises or business units within a larger organization. For example, a bank manager or a small business consultant responsible for a portfolio of firms. The authors utilize process control techniques more often used in production and inventory control systems to demonstrate how one might monitor the marketing “health” of small firms.