Structural holes

Trying to get my head round bridging and structural holes so found a couple of papers by Burt. He writes:

"The outsider proposing an idea that bridges groups has to borrow social capital in the sense that she has to work through a strategic partner, a person who has the social capital of a network that spans structural holes."

This is what consultants have to do - use social capital and bridge holes.

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Burt, R., The social capital of structural holes accessed from http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/ronald.burt/research/SCSH.pdf (page 237)
Burt, R., Structured holes versus network closure accessed from http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/ronald.burt/research/SHNC.pdf

Open University Society of Entrepreneurs

OUSEN, or the OU society of entrepreneurs has just started, courtesy of two fellow students, Thuta and Andy.

Apparently, OUSEN is also a Japanese word that means accepting the challenge (stress on second syllable), so it is extra appropriate for a society of entrepreneurs.

We had several speakers, of which Brigid Heywood was the most amusing. She thought the society was a great idea as the OU is one of the entrepreneurial universities of the world. She admired the brand design and the fact that the organisers had got it designed and approved and ready in less than six weeks - that was inspirational!

Other speakers were Chris Dunkley, the director of the Milton Keynes Enterprise Hub, Prof Rob Paton and Prof Colin Grey.

Have a look at the video. You can see the inaugural meeting at http://stadium.open.ac.uk/webcast-ou/, but you should be logged in to the OU or there's limited access. I've also discovered that you have to have QuickTime to view it, and my new eee PC doesn't have QuickTime and I'm not quite sure how to install it under Linux.