Thought leadership

A number of years ago I had a meeting with some teenagers. They were bright people: so bright, in fact, that they'd taken the company they set up as part of the Young Enterprise scheme (a charity which encourages young people in the UK to get involved in business by setting up their own, in school) and turned it into a real-world operation.

By Fiona Czerniawska

Is powder best kept dry?  Should you hide your family silver in case your clients steal it?

Friday 12th November, 2010. It's been a long day. My presentation went well enough, but it's a tough gig telling the marketing managers of some of the world's most celebrated consulting firms that their marketing isn’t working, especially when you're a slightly airy Englishman and they're a bunch of hard-nosed New Yorkers who've been in the business a lot longer than you. There were nods of agreement - it wasn't, frankly, that contentious, what I was saying - but there was hostility, too. I guess I knew there would be.