We humans adore measuring things. The love affair started as early as the 4th and 5th millennia BC when the ancient peoples of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and...

One of the mantras of the current labour market is that, despite high unemployment, the war for talent is still being bitterly fought. Captains of industry complain about the difficulty of recruiting good people, that competition for the best and brightest has never been greater.

It's a personality trait that is often overlooked by the media who prefers to report on the more glamorous parts of seemingly overnight multi-billion dollar exits or cataclysmic failures - but nothing in between, which makes for the vast majority of business cases.

When was the last time you thought about your business vision and goals? How much of what you do every day is moving you toward that vision and those goals? What can you do to improve the alignment between the two?

So, it's started again. For the next three months the viewing public will be treated to and will lap up a 'fly on the wall' vision of what makes an entrepreneur - except we won't and it isn't. But many people, who aren't in the know, will think it's meant to be this way.

Think for a minute about how much easier it is today to both start and scale your startup? When I started my first business eight years ago we had to get servers, server cabinets and IT managers to set it all up, buy software licences for practically every tool I needed to run the business.

What we need to tackle now is making the infrastructure and cultural change that will make growth and long-term development easier and more achievable for start-ups and micro businesses.

This eclectic city must overcome a number of obstacles if it's to challenge established startup zones and communities in Israel and the US, while also fending off competition for its European crown from Berlin.

This is a sphere of thinking, which too many companies still completely ignore, when putting together their communications strategy. Maybe, this is because it is beyond the lexicon of traditional marketing. However, in a digital, web enabled world, it is probably the single biggest aspect to contemplate.

Perfecting your pitch won't come straight away. You need to practice at home, first on your own and then in front of an audience willing to be critical. Take their comments on board and practise some more.

Today in the UK around 1,800 businesses will register to start trading. Put it another way, that's 75 an hour or just over one a minute. And by setting up, these young firms join the wave of entrepreneurs starting a phenomenal odyssey of adventurous independence and a life lived on their own terms.

With youth unemployment just under a million, young people are turning their hand to gardening, graphic design, baking and beauty therapy to escape the dole queue and kick-start their careers. For many young people, the transformation from unemployed to entrepreneur is life changing; giving them back the skills, confidence and motivation that being out of work has taken away.

When a client sub-contracts a research project they have to make decisions about who they want to work with and who they think will get the job done. Imagine you could choose a university, or an agency with hundreds of staff, or a boutique firm with ten staff. These are my competitors. And then there's me, a sole trader.

To provide context, it's been an uphill struggle and I can't ever forget what I've overcome. After having a tough time at school, dropping out of University, finding out I'm in the bottom 2% of the world in reading due to my severe dyslexia, it was hard to believe I could achieve success. Especially doing it all on my own.

For almost everyone reading this blog, there will be one person, whether a teacher, a friend or someone in business, who has given you a vital leg up at one stage in your life and without whom you would not have done so well.

In business, no person is an island. You need people. They need you, and never be too prideful to think that you can do it alone - you can't.

I'm not going to tell you that you need to quit your job to start your business, that's your decision to make, but just because you're in a job doesn't mean you can't get started. Don't sit around. Get into action!

I dedicate a day a fortnight to meet with people who inspire me and add spice to my thinking. Spending time with such people feeds my soul with new ideas. I always leave elatedly excited.