2014 Queensland Small Business Week (September 1-5) was a busy time for ACE, with lots of external exposure and great networking. It started on the Monday with the high profile event “Are You a Business Tiger?”, organised by the Small Business Minister’s office, in QUT’s exquisite “Room Three-Sixty”. ACE Director, Per Davidsson, was one of the key presenters-panelists, along with Dhruba Gupta, Paul Niederer, Kit Kriewaldt and Emily Jade O’Keeffe. Per’s speech was one of “encouragement and caution” – based on research – in relation to canonising the most rapidly growing firms in the economy. The event was also streamed to over 700 participants in regions throught out Queensland. The Queensland Minster for Tourism, Major Events, Small Business and the Commonwealth Games, Honourable Jann Stuckey MP, closed the plenary part of the event. This was followed by roundtable sessions, many of which were facilitated by ACE and QUT Business School affilates, Paul Steffens, Rowena Barrett, Stephane Tywoniak, John Polichronis, Sukie Sawang, Sandeep Salunke, Tonis Mets, Julienne Senyard and Deb McGregor.Tuesday morning Per got another chance to interact with the minister at the ‘When small business things big’ forum, which was facilitated by Professor Josh Lerner from Harvard. Josh was also the speaker at the ensuing lunch, hosted by the QLD premier, Campbell Newman, who somewhat belatedly took the opportunity to officially open the Small Business Week. The lunch sponsored by QUT Business School was attended by the Executive Dean of Professor Robina Xavier, along with Rachel Parker, Paul Steffens, Peter Green, Karen Taylor and ACE Engagement Board Member, Monica Bradley.
Wednesday to Friday saw three events hosted by ACE. The first was ‘Small Firm Growth – Lessons from systematic research’ where Per Davidsson again got a chance to elaborate on one of his favourite subjects: the good, the bad, and he ugly aspects of small firm growth.
On the Thursday, Scott Gordon and Per jointly presented findings from the many reports from the CAUSEE study, under the heading ‘The business creation process: What works and doesn’t work for Australian start-ups?’ This included, among other things, Scott summarising eight comprehensive reports in less than 15 minutes followed by Per doing the same with four doctoral dissertations.
Finally, Professor Paul Steffens hosted a session on ‘Entrepreneurship in Australia: How does our start-up activity hold up against other countries?’ on Friday afternoon, based on the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor and other projects comparing entrepreneurial activity across countries. Paul’s main message was positive: Australia is doing comparatively well. All the ACE events were well attended and seemed genuinely appreciated by the audience.
LINKS to all the ACE Hosted QSBW events will be made avaible in the coming weeks via You Tube and the ACE Website.