New rules for Open Capital in the UK

The FT on Mar 11 on Open Capital - with links to The 10 Principles

The UK's Financial Conduct Authority (part of what the FSA used to be) yesterday confirmed new rules on crowd funding (or as we prefer to call it in The 10 Principles of Open Business, Open Capital).

At first glance they appear sensible - and not a million miles away from how Seedrs operates (which as of time of writing Open Business, was the only FSA approved platform in the UK).

Like Seedrs the FCA rules impose a limit on how much you can invest - as a percentage of your investable assets. The FCA sets that limit at 10%. In other words it won't let you bet your farm on a Crowd Funding proposition (and the FCA are talking about security and loan-based crowd funding, not simply funding the production and purchase of an item) no matter how passionately you may believe in it.

This is actually a higher level of restriction than that placed on most people taking a punt on the stock market. For example, when I recently invested in Royal Mail shares, no one made me sit an exam to check I could afford to lose the amount I was putting up. You may therefore reasonably ask why this test is being applied to the crowd, and how indeed this crowd differs from the one making online share transactions every day?

Having said that, I'd be all for the retro fitting of this test to anyone investing in the stock market. It may prevent the odd crash or two... (imagine it applied to the banks)

My only concern with singling Crowd Funding out in this way is that it leaves it in the 'hobby money' field - a place where people dabble for a bit of fun - which doesn't feel quite a match with backing your beliefs and all the attendant generation of new kinds of businesses which mean more to more of us, that my chapter on Open Capital describes.

That said, the FCA is not closing the door to those who really want to push the boat out. If you want to invest more than the 10% of the assets you have available you can - you just have to prove you are doing so having conducted due diligence and been given professional advice.

Will we meet in March?

Via: http://seanwes.com/

I'm going to be at The Association of Online Publishers Spring Conference in London on Wednesday March 12 to join a panel directly after the opening keynote. The subject matter is still being confirmed.
If I don't mention Open Business - shoot me.
And I've just confirmed that I'll be doing the closing keynote at the Digital In Kent conference on March 26 - talking about Open Business, in some detail. Copies of the book will be available at the latter.
If you are attending either, please do come find me and say hello.

10 Principles of Open Business launches in London

Last night I was delighted to host a gathering of friends, supporters and influencers, most of whom had been involved one way or another in shaping the output of my last seven years of work - a book.

The 10 Principles of Open Business is the result of a great deal of collaboration, of shared thinking, of wise counsel and challenge. But it struck me that while I knew all of the people involved in my journey, few knew each other.

Yes I wanted to celebrate the launch of a book, and yes it was great that we even sold some copies at the event, but the most important thing for me was that those who came got to meet each other and spend some time talking to each other.

I hope everyone gained from it. I'd like to thank the folk at Grey London and colleagues at The Social Partners for providing the venue - and everyone who showed up, naturally.

The pics above are from Stephen Waddington's instagram. I'll try to gather up a few more to add as I come across them or they get shared directly with me.

High Streets as celebrations of the self

Image via: http://www.huntingdon-town.info/

I found out my local art gallery is closing down when I strolled in to get a couple of pictures framed.
Just another victim of the recession? Well yes and no. More a victim of a structural change in how we shop.

High Streets are becoming the home to those things which require our presence to benefit. And mostly to benefit means those things which give us some corporeal satisfaction or improvement: restaurants, coffee shops, beauty salons, hairdressers, nail bars and tatoo parlours. Even the estate agents are thinning out.
There are more places in my High Street (and I bet in yours if you live in any small town in the UK) where I could get a massage, than places I could buy groceries.

The supermarkets have supersized and stalk the edges of towns.

What's left in our town centres is a celebration of the self, where we go to make pilgrimages to pampering.
Oh - and what else? Banks and mobile phone shops.

My guess is that unless your business is serving physical need/improvement and you are surviving in the High Street, your business model just hasn't been disrupted hard enough yet. Yes, banks and mobile phone operators... your time will come.

What time is that? Well let's stroll back to that art gallery. The owner told me artists have used the web to disintermediate the middle man - the galleries. Today people wander into his gallery, see an original they like then go look up the artist and find they can buy something very similar for a few pounds cheaper direct.
And since the gallery has its High Street overheads, it can't compete.

So next time you are thinking about your next mobile phone contract - go online and see if you can't find something a bit like it (or a lot better actually, like giffgaff which features in my book) for less money and you'll be hastening the process those inside the large mobile phone retailers are already preparing for - the decline and relatively rapid removal of the High Street mobile phone store.
Now, what's next for banking I wonder?

Kindle version of The 10 Principles of Open Business arrives - and you can try before you buy

The Kindle version of my book went live today - and with it comes the opportunity to 'try before you buy' with Amazon's Look Inside feature.
The sampling allows you to read the first two and bit intro chapters, which I hope will be enough to hook you!
The good news for Kindle fans is that the book is considerably cheaper in e-form than in print.
Amazon's pricing model never ceases to surprise me - it seems to have little to do with the authors or the publishers. In the pre-order phase pricing varied from around £15 to around £18.
After one day on sale (Jan 28), which appeared to go quite well, the price for the print version has gone up to £19.99 - zero discount.
So if you are looking for a bargain and can forgo the new book smell and feel... the Kindle version is £13.73 - more than a third off.
That is, it appears, subject to change. I'll be watching closely.
Choose from either option here.
In the meantime a big thank you to those of you who have already bought one - I'm really looking forward to your thoughts and the space remains for the first review on Amazon.