Food For Thought

Pictured at the Food For Thought breakfast session on Tuesday 14 June 2011 are from L to R: Jonathan Ryan, Enterprise Ireland, Ken Hardy, KPMG, Senator Mary-Ann O'Brien of Lily O'Brien's and Mark Fielding, ISME CEO.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT was a highly successful Breakfast Briefing with over 180 attendees, chaired by ISME CEO, Mark Fielding, on 14th June at KPMG.


As a business owner, you know that every cent matters and every hour counts, so it pays to make sure you really are doing the right things to make the most out of your business. The presenters spoke about some of the smart things you can do, from attracting and keeping customers to innovation and tax credits for R&D in SMEs.

Speakers were Ken Hardy, Partner, KPMG; Jonathan Ryan, Manager of Commercial Evaluation, Enterprise Ireland and Senator Mary Ann O'Brien, Managing Director, Lily O'Brien's Chocolates.

Characteristics common to innovators and in most cases Entrepreneurs:
1. They are not over-troubled by the idea of failure
2. They know innovation requires that one works in advance areas where failure is a real possibility
3. They realise that failure can be learned from and that the 'failed' technology can later be reused for other purposes
4. Innovators are curious about what is happening in a myriad of disciplines, not only their own specialism
5. Innovators are open to third-party experiments with their products
6. They recognise that a useful innovation must be "robust", flexible and adaptable
7. Innovators/Entrepreneurs delight in spotting a need that we don't even know we harbor, and then fulfilling that need with a new innovation
8. Innovators like to make products that are immediately useful to their first users.