Human Capital--Trust and Leadership and Health

We've talked leadership and trust to death. These are two major forms of human capital the entrepreneur needs in spades. If you're still foggy on them, check out some of my earlier blogs. Just search for them and they'll come up. These bring up the complex of forms of human capital you will need.

But there's other things. For example good health. You have to have good health to start a business. You can't be at the top of your form if you're always fighting an illness. If you do have health problems think again what you are up to. If you have a partner who can help you out, that's to the good.

If you're starting a business, get as fit as possible and practice behaviors that promote good health so you can get in the game and stay there.

My goal here is to help entrepreneurs climb all the way to the top. How am I doing?

Entrepreneurship is the life's blood of all my professional activities. It makes them go. It informs my connection strategy.

It makes Sherpa Real Estate , my real estate referral business, go. See www.yourstopforrealestate.blogspot.com.

It powers my Sherpa Literary. Go to www.timswritingblog.blogspot.com for my ideas on writing and publishing and read my mystery for free at wwww.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com or buy it from Amazon.com more cheaply than you can print it out.

It fuels my publishing enterprise, By and for Writers go. See www.byandforwriters.blogspot.com where you can get a poem or a short story published.

My goal here is to help entrepreneurs climb all the way to the top. How am I doing?

Entrepreneurship is the life's blood of all my professional activities. It makes them go. It informs my connection strategy.

It makes Sherpa Real Estate , my real estate referral business, go. See www.yourstopforrealestate.blogspot.com.

It powers my Sherpa Literary. Go to www.timswritingblog.blogspot.com for my ideas on writing and publishing and read my mystery for free at wwww.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com or buy it from Amazon.com more cheaply than you can print it out.

It fuels my publishing enterprise, By and for Writers go. See www.byandforwriters.blogspot.com where you can get a poem or a short story published.

Ron Burt Revisited

Here again is Ron Burt. I've drawn on his work before on social capital. If you want to read about that search on Ron Burt.

Here's a quote from Structural Holes; the Social Structure of Competition(Boston, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992, pp. 8-9):

A player bring at least three kinds of capital to the competitive arena...financial capital: cash in hand, reserves in the bank, investments coming due, lines of credit. Second...human capital. Your natural qualities--charm, health, intelligence, and looks--combined with the skills you have acquired in formal eduction and job experience gives you abilities to excel at certain tasks. Third...social capital: relationships with other players. You have friends, colleagues, and more general contacts through whom you receive opportunities to use your financial and human capital.

We'll talk more about Burt's ideas on social capital later. First let's talk more about human capital.

My goal here is to help entrepreneurs climb all the way to the top. How am I doing?

Entrepreneurship is the life's blood of all my professional activities. It makes them go. It informs my connection strategy.

It makes Sherpa Real Estate , my real estate referral business, go. See www.yourstopforrealestate.blogspot.com.

It powers my Sherpa Literary. Go to www.timswritingblog.blogspot.com for my ideas on writing and publishing and read my mystery for free at wwww.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com or buy it from Amazon.com more cheaply than you can print it out.

It fuels my publishing enterprise, By and for Writers go. See www.byandforwriters.blogspot.com where you can get a poem or a short story published.

Social Capital

The third form of capital, social capital, is basically who and how many people you know. According to Ron Burt:

The player (actor) has social capital: relationships with other players...friends, colleagues, and more general contacts through whom you receive opportunities to use your financial and human capitalStructural Holes; the Social Structure of Competition(Boston, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992, pp. 8-9).

Burt goes on to elaborate:

The social capital of people aggregates into the social capital of organizations. In a firm providing services--for example, advertising, brokerage, or consulting--there are people valued for their ability to deliver a quality product. Then there are the 'rainmakers,' valued for their ability to deliver clients. Those who deliver the product do the work, and the rainmakers make it possible for all to profit from the work. The former represent the financial and human capital of the firm. The latter represents it social capital. More generally, property and human assets define the firm's production capabilities. Relations within and beyond the firm are social capital.

Wikipedia, the free, on-line encyclopedia, says:

Social capital is a concept developed in sociology and also used in business, economics, organizational behaviour, political science, public health and natural resources management that refers to connections within and between social networks as well as connections among individuals. Though there are a variety of related definitions, which have been described as "something of a cure-all" for the problems of modern society, they tend to share the core idea "that social networks have value. Just as a screwdriver (physical capital) or a college education (human capital) can increase productivity (both individual and collective), so too social contacts affect the productivity of individuals and groups".

I'm going to have more say on all three of these forms of capital.

What do you think about this? How's your social capital? Are you flush with it? Post a comment.

Entrepreneurship informs all of my professional activities. For entrepreneurial real estate, go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com./blog and for entrepreneurial writing, go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com

Ron Burt on Entrepreneurial Capital

Ron Burt, Hobard W. Williams Professor of Sociology and Strategy at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, writes:

A player brings at least three kinds of capital to the competitive arena....First, the player has financial capital: cash in hand, reserves in the bank, investments coming due, lines of credit. Second, the player has human capital. Your national qualities--charm, health, intelligence, and looks--combined with the skills you have acquired in formal education and job experience give you abilities to excel at certain tasks. Third, the player has social capital: relationships with other players. You have friends, colleagues, and more general contacts through whom you receive opportunities to use your financial and human capital.(Structural Holes; the Social Structure of Competition(Boston, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992, pp. 8-9)

In evaluating your likely success as an entrepreneur, you can do an appraisal of all three. How about your human capital? Do you have the skills you need to do the job? Are you healthy? If you're sick all the time, how are you going to work 10-12 hours a day to get the thing started. Are you charismatic (you don't have to be)? Do you have the passion for it? Do you have the ability to see things through? What financial capital do you have? Do you have assets you can dedicate to the project or access to it through someone else? Thirdly, what about your network. How many people do you know? Are they likely to do you any good? If you're deficient in any of these aspects, what is your plan to remedy them.

This is the supply side of entrepreneurship. You need to assess your capital in each of these areas, then go on to look at what you will need to be fit as an entrepreneur.

What do you think about this? Post a comment.

Entrepreneurship informs all of my professional activities. For entrepreneurial real estate, go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com./blog and for entrepreneurial writing, go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com