I have spent the past few days analysing the Tourism BEE Charter and Scorecard, and trying to understand it - especially the implications for the hordes of small businesses that make up that sector

Isn't it wonderful how the government makes us feel more important than we feel? All this talk about being a small-business owners being a fundamental to our future economy, and even thinking so much of our businesses that they want to force us to share those businesses with previously disadvantaged persons

Delegation is such an ugly word for us business owners. We each know that nobody on earth can do the job as well as we can. And we each know that each job we do is so critically, vitally, intensely important to the immediate future of our business that if that blessed charity case we're donating our hard earned income to at the end of each month [the law calls this person an employee] makes a minor mistake, then our business will fold and collapse with the speed of a burst balloon.

In Burma elephants are used for lugging trees about. (Modern business folk would call this "forestry operations".)

Let’s look at the risk profiles of business owners when compared to business managers.

A simple premise: everybody wants to be inspired. But most of us aren't very inspiring.