New Venture Thinking - An Entrepreneurial Mindset

The good news has hit recently that starting January 2011, Ben and I will deliver a teaching gig at Cass Business School in London (link), one of the leading business schools in Europe.
We will deliver a 11-week module that we are currently developing called 'New Venture Thinking', a core module to the students of the BSc Business Studies degree. The module will enclose the latest academic theory on entrepreneurship, creativity, ideation, and venture planning while placing a strong emphasis on the actualisation of ideas into concrete actions. Accordingly, the module will have a strong participative, hands-on element to it in an attempt to train students in not only thinking (critically) - but thinking action.
At the heart of the module stands - what we dub - the 'Entrepreneurial Mindset', a paradigm that finds its origins in systems thinking, social psychology, play theory, design thinking, and of course, the magnificent powers of entrepreneurship. It sets out to provide a worldview which facilitates and encourages the initiation, delivery, and multiplication of the productive activity that are ventures. It is action philosophy, so to speak, though with a pertinent focus on holistic value creation that extends well beyond the traditional realm of profit-making and shareholder value.
The module will cover areas such as a non-linear view on the entrepreneurial process, a systemic approach to entrepreneurial opportunity, multi-dimensional value theory, techniques and tools to ideation and creativity, an entrepreneurial take on the business model, and the importance of a venture story in the planning and execution process, whereby the synthesis of all these individual aspects into an enabling perspective is the overall goal of the module.
In our research for the module, we recently attended the Entrepreneurship Summit (link) that took place at the Freie Universität in Berlin, organised and hosted by Prof. Dr. Günter Faltin, the founder of Stiftung Entrepreneurship and author of the magnificent entrepreneurship book "Kopf schlägt Kapital - Die ganz andere Art, ein Unternehmen zu gründen" (link). Besides the interesting and stimulating ideas that we got exposed to during the summit, it was very motivating and exciting to see that the logic of a new entrepreneurial mindset - and with it, a new entrepreneurial culture that spans much wider than the narrow business context with which the concept of the 'entrepreneur' is so often associated - seems to be part of an emerging Zeitgeist and is gaining momentum, indicating a change in social character.
Of course, a word of doubt can be uttered over the idea of 'teaching an entrepreneurial perspective' to drive entrepreneurial productive activity. Isn't it precisely the problem today that already too much thinking (and talking) is going on and nowhere close to enough action in regards to the pressing issues of our time?
Our answer to that is: Yes, but.
Stay tuned for an expansion on that 'but'. In the meantime, we're always eager to entertain your thoughts in response to the above, so don't be shy if you have any comments or thoughts.

Yours truly, ARRRGHHH