Peter Jackson column

Dec 2 2004 By Peter Jackson, The Journal

In business, as in life, one normally gets what one expects, but, occasionally, for better or worse, things turn out differently.

Over the last week, for instance, I have been surprised three times.

And it was not just me. I read on Monday that the organisers of Dresden's Christmas market were shocked to discover that the singer who, for the past five years, has played the part of Snow White at the market, had posed for nude photographs in a bathtub.

Serena, 22, has been dismissed from the part, although, reportedly, the mayor of Dresden and others are asking that she be reinstated.

Then I read a report that Boots has been in discussions with condom maker SSL International to stock its range of sex toys in its high street stores. What next - Ann Summers in Marks & Spencer?

On a less dramatic note, last Thursday I was in Glasgow for the annual dinner of the Entrepreneurial Exchange Awards.

I have attended many business dinners and, in my experience, some are good, some are bad. I had been assured that the Entrepreneurial Exchange event was something special, but I was still seriously impressed. I was probably not as pleasantly surprised as the mayor of Dresden, but I still felt this was something out of the ordinary.

It was not just the size of the event, or its slick glitziness, it was the sheer quality of the entrepreneurs who were shortlisted for Exchange's annual awards.

Take for instance John Kennedy, who in 18 years has built up the Kenmore Property Group into an international player with a portfolio worth more than £600m. Or Alan Kinney and Jim McGonigle, who created d2, a clothing retailers with a turnover of £55m and 1,200 staff in 80 stores throughout the UK. And there is Bill Hazledean, named Entrepreneur of the Year. He formed the Macrae Food Group in 1994 and sold it earlier this year for £40m.

The Entrepreneurial Exchange has a real vibrancy and unashamedly beats the drum for entrepreneurship in Scotland.

Fortunately for us, the Entrepreneurial Exchange is being replicated here in the North-East, where some of our own leading business figures have set up the Entrepreneurs' Forum on the same model with the support and blessing of their Scottish counterparts.

It is a relative youngster compared to its cousin North of the Border, but if it can grow to match its verve and influence, then we could all be in for some pleasant surprises.