FAMILIARITY can breed contempt, but we in Inverness must never forget all that we have working in our favour. We have an exceptional city in an exceptional setting. What do we do to protect and promote this?

TODAY is the Scottish Government's National Conversation day in Inverness. This is a wide-ranging debate about the future of Scotland — what powers we want to have and by when.

PASSION — emblazoned on the forehead or latent and waiting to be discovered.

SCOTLAND is rightly proud of its reputation in education. International comparisons show that schools, universities and colleges all perform towards the upper end of league tables.

ALL businesses in Scotland with a total rateable value of less than £15,000 are eligible for a discount of between 20 per cent and 80 per cent on their annual rates bill.

AS a self-employed businessman I believe in profit and therefore, by definition, in capitalism and the power of market forces.

A FRIEND recently e-mailed me a link to an internet blog about a Scot living in America. He was diagnosed as clinically depressed, tanked up on anti-depressants and scheduled for controversial shock therapy when doctors realised he wasn't depressed at all... only Scottish.

WHEN the Highland agricultural community, food businesses and public gathers for this year's Black Isle Show in early August, they will chew over the fact that the products on show are higher up the political and consumer priority list than for many years.

CONSUMERS and governments around the world are struggling with the high price of oil. Fortunately, UK fuel taxation is the highest in Europe and probably the highest in the world, giving the UK Government the greatest opportunity to avert economic catastrophe by reducing taxation on fuel.

THE famous opening lines of the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" sees the Earth being blown up to make way for an hyperspace bypass, the official in charge claiming it is not his fault if no one went to Alpha Centauri to examine the proposals.

WITH summer almost upon us it is a good time to push ahead with a new business venture.

LAST week the Scottish Parliament's Energy Committee launched an inquiry into what type of energy future we want in Scotland.

INDEPENDENT shops have been badly let down by the Competition Commission's investigation into competitiveness in the grocery industry. The case for the Scottish Government and local councils to take on the plight of small retailers is now stronger than ever.

HOW do we put Inverness on the map? Throughout Scotland the leisure and tourism industry is enjoying a sustained boom and we must make sure that this increased spending finds its way in to our city centre too.

MANY Inverness Courier readers will be pleased that a new campus is being proposed for the University of the Highlands and Islands on a 200-acre site at Beechwood between the A96 and A9.

THE remarkable phenomenon witnessed a few years back when lengthy queues of desperate homebuyers camped out overnight to snap up new build properties as soon as they came onto the market might have gone.

WHAT is your vision for sustainable economic development in Scotland until 2030? What are the big trends and challenges we face? Where are the opportunities? How can the delivery of the really nationally significant infrastructure projects be speeded-up?

FOR a long time Inverness has been in dire need of a cohesive body of people who can bring about some much needed improvements to the city centre.

THE business community in Inverness has recently voted by 73 per cent in favour of creating Scotland's first city centre Business Improvement District, or BID.

THE word "procurement" may not mean an awful lot to readers of The Inverness Courier but, in Scotland alone, the amount spent by the public sector on procurement – or purchasing – runs into the billions of pounds and Scottish business depends on it.

SKILLS development is the top priority for improving economic performance, according to many SCDI members.

DURING a presentation at a recent business dinner, I made reference to the Employment Grants Scheme and was disappointed to learn that none of the 30 or so business people attending the event had heard of this wage subsidy programme managed by Highland Council.

GOOD decisions are well-informed decisions. No one person has the monopoly on knowledge — and the best decision makers know this. What information do leaders of our public bodies use to base their decisions on?

GOVERNMENT intervention is not always popular with businesses whose standard mantra is to let market forces drive the economy.

HOUSING issues have shot up the political agenda in the last year.

SCOTLAND has invited all Scots around the world to come home in 2009 and help us celebrate our culture and heritage. Homecoming Scotland is an initiative with £1 million of Government funding for core events.

IT has been said that city centres are everyone's neighbourhood but nobody's baby. Over the years many approaches to regeneration have been tried — traditionally "top down" projects foisted on hapless residents and businesses.

"AN Inverness cleaner has been forced to take 'early' retirement from a job she loves."

JANUARY 2008 sees the start of my first full year as chief executive of the North Scotland Industries Group (NSIG) and it promises to be one of advancement in promoting the energy businesses of the North of Scotland.

PAROCHIALISM does not sit well with my view of the world but there are times when we need to speak out in the best interest of our patch.

TWO thousand and eight is now upon us and Saturday's Highland Lights event in Inverness marked the culmination of the year-long Highland 2007 celebration of Highland culture.

RETAILERS commonly make a large part of their annual profits over the Christmas period: a good festive season is critical to seeing many businesses through leaner months.

POLITICIANS are not renowned for keeping promises but this time the Scottish Government has come up with the goods on reducing business rates. The benefits should not be underestimated.

LAST week, city centre businesses were reminded that the future of the Highland Capital is very much in our hands.

READERS of The Inverness Courier will have seen the recent headline: "Highland development agency faces funding cuts of £50m".

IT is often said that the greatest asset of any organisation is its people.

THE Competition Commission announced the initial findings of the Groceries Inquiry on 31st October and once more failed to address the adverse impact of supermarket dominance. This is the third inquiry in seven years. Sadly, it is not third time lucky.

THE Inverness Winter Festival which starts on 22nd November and runs for seven weeks, is the business community's response to the challenges currently facing our city.

IT is Saturday morning and I walk from my home in the village of Beauly past Campbell's Highland Tweed store.

I AM pleased to provide an update on our programme for tackling the skills gap/shortage which is all too evident in engineering services provision.

THE new Scottish Government will publish its first Budget proposals on 14th November.

IN HIS pre-budget report on 9th October, the chancellor announced a major change to capital gains tax (CGT).

LAST week, plans for the next phase of Inverness’s city centre Streetscaping initiative were revealed: Union Street, mid Church Street and Queensgate will be worked upon from mid November. Traffic and bus flows will be revised and temporary street closures introduced to accommodate the works.

AS the new chief executive of Inverness Chamber of Commerce, my first few weeks have been a whirlwind of activity.

"DE-CLUTTERING" is a term which has been bandied about regularly since the elections as the new Scottish Government has moved swiftly to fulfil its manifesto commitments to bring forward reforms of the enterprise networks and a new skills strategy.

THE latest Royal Mail proposal for later delivery and earlier collection of post may be the final straw for small businesses.

TRAFFIC congestion is a fact of modern day life. Those of us lucky enough to live in the Highlands do not suffer the hours of second gear crawling that our southern counterparts endure.

DID you know that the Cromarty Firth is by far the leading UK centre for mobile offshore rig repair work and has been for many years?

IT is 40 years since the landmark programme of equal opportunities legislation in the mid 1970s which sought to banish all forms of discrimination from the British workplace.

SMALL retail businesses have never been on the list of priorities for financial and business support from public agencies.

HIGHLANDERS are famed for a friendly and hardworking ethos — and those of us working to develop businesses in the city centre are no different.

WHEN I announced, some 30 years ago, that I was leaving Edinburgh and moving to Inverness, one feature of the city was mentioned frequently in people's responses; it was that Inverness had a wonderful new theatre.

SKILLS in the oil and gas industry. This subject has been talked about, debated, had papers written on it, and a lot of well-meaning and important initiatives started because of it.

IN recent years, BBC2’s reality TV show “Dragons’ Den” has popularised the image of business angels — individuals of means who are ready to invest in small growing companies in return for equity and a share of the anticipated profits.

THE FSB is seriously disappointed to learn that the University of the Highlands and Islands Millennium Project (UHI) currently has no specific target date for achieving university status.

“CAN'T Buy Me Love” goes one of the best known songs of all time, articulating what many find hard to put in to a few words — that money can’t buy the things we value most in life. What is it that makes us happy?

COMPLETING nationally significant infrastructure projects on time and on budget has been a task which Scotland has often — sometimes notoriously — been bad at doing.

COLLECTIVELY, we are not renowned for being a nation of optimists but we have chosen to change our government so why not change our attitude?

AS INVERNESS grows, we attract more events and special one off investments — the Six Cities Design Festival, RockNess, Imagining the Centre arts events and much more bring a 'wow factor' to the city, raising the bar in terms of what Inverness has to offer residents and visitors alike.

AN interesting debate has been triggered by the Edinburgh Business Assembly, who are arguing that the money raised through business rates in Edinburgh should be ringfenced for reinvestment in the city.

EARLIER this month, and without too much fuss, a significant event occurred within the Inverness business community.

TOURISM being the focus of tonight's Scottish Council for Development and Industry (SCDI) dinner, it is highly appropriate that the event will take place at spectacular Urquhart Castle with guest speaker VisitScotland chief executive Phillip Riddle.

THE Federation of Small Businesses Scotland has recently released the findings of its review of small business banking.

“DON'T talk about religion or politics” is oft-quoted advice that many no doubt adhere to in our professional lives.

ENERGY — we just take it for granted that when we flick a switch our electric gadgets will spring to life; when we turn on the heating our radiators will warm up; and when we go to the petrol station we can pump fuel into our cars.

DEATH and taxes are sometimes said to be the only certainties in this world. However, if you look at the results of most recent business surveys it seems as though there is a third grim certainty — regulation or red tape.

THE opening of the The Kitchen restaurant in Inverness may have done much more for the city than to merely provide a pleasant riverside dining facility.

LAST week Inverness was greeted by the sight of two security men chasing suspected shoplifters through Inverness city centre.

IT IS a well-known fact that the best time to ask a politician for something is just before an election!

LAST week, the Scottish Council for Development and Industry’s annual Forum took place in St Andrews.

BUSINESS Rates is the only form of business taxation under the control of the Scottish Parliament. As such, Business Rates is the key means by which the Parliament can reduce business costs and help small business to survive and grow.

WHAT does the phrase “Spring Clean” conjure-up in your imagination? Your annual “tip to toe” clean-up or something your Grandma used to do?

BUSINESSES which do not yet have their water supplied through a meter may be in for a shock under plans to introduce compulsory metering of water to “non-households” in 2008.

TODAY in Inverness, SCDI members will be considering whether the Scottish Parliament needs more powers over taxation to grow the Scottish economy. A big issue in itself, but controversy about another matter will probably make the debate even livelier: road tolls.

IT IS not always apparent that visitors and residents in Highlands and Islands region are paying more tax than is paid anywhere else in the UK.

FUSION is set to transform itself into a completely new source of unique support for all those running businesses.

THE Forth Bridge is in trouble. Not the rail bridge, which is such a triumph of Victorian engineering and design. It’s the road bridge which is feeling the strain and causing serious concern about its future ability to carry traffic.

PUNDITS have declared late January as the most depressing time of the year, but perhaps this news has not reached Inverness where watching the sun catch the snow on our spectacular mountain backdrop is enough to raise the spirits of even the most morose of Highlanders!

ONE theme of the recently launched Highland 2007 which has perhaps received less publicity but which is particularly welcome is the promotion of science.

THROUGHOUT 2006 the FSB kept a close eye on what was happening in the Scottish tourism industry.

THE Work Foundation, formerly The Industrial Society, put out a report slating excess pay packages for business leaders neatly published during the season of excess.

THE pre-budget report has been one of pluses and minuses for small businesses. On the plus side, we have indications of a move towards less regulation, better policing of the minimum wage and more emphasis on skills development.

CONGRATULATIONS to Roy MacGregor and his team and Mike Kydd and his team. It has been announced that Global Resources Group, an Inverness and Aberdeen-based business, has agreed terms to take a majority shareholding in Isleburn Mackay and MacLeod, an Evanton based concern, to create a business with an £80 million turnover.

OUR economy has recently become increasingly dependent on migrant workers and, with estimates that there may be as many as 5000 in the Inverness area alone, they already form a significant proportion of our workforce.

WHAT do the World Cup for homeless people and community land ownership have in common?

SCOTTISH Executive guidance on the new fire safety laws is proving to be totally inadequate.

THE DTI has recently published its Research and Development Scoreboard — its annual assessment of the state of innovation in UK industry in comparison with the rest of the world.

SCOTLAND and the Highlands did not show up well in a recent survey on quality of life.

VISIT Inverness! The city in the Highlands — magnificent scenery, wonderful people. Safeinverness, enjoyinverness. shopinverness, citybreakinverness.

EARLIER this month the Scottish Council for Development and Industry (SCDI) published its policy agenda "The Economic Development Challenge".

BUSINESS customers are getting a raw deal in the energy market. Current regulations in the market for gas and electricity are leaving businesses in danger of getting their fingers burnt.

I ENJOY talking to entrepreneurs. They are positive, optimistic, focused and are very clear about what they are doing. They don't beat about the bush. The experienced ones know what they've done well and they know the mistakes that they have made.

ONE of the questions which kept arising at the fascinating "charrette" process organised by Moray Estates for their planned new town at Tornagrain was "why do we want/need an additional 30,000 people?". The point being that the whole rationale for a new town might be based on a false premise of population growth.

THE compromise just announced by first minister Jack McConnell and Dennis Cannavan MSP on the latter's proposed Private Member's Bill to create a new bank holiday on St Andrew's Day has highlighted two issues of interest to almost all of us: how Scots celebrate their national day and if we deserve a little more time away from the coalface.

A RECENT report commissioned by Highlands & Islands Enterprise shows how small and medium-sized businesses in Scotland are literally throwing away £300 million a year.

ARE entrepreneurs born or are they made? I know it's an old chestnut and usually answered by most of us as "they're born". Those entrepreneurs that are known to us are often rather larger than life characters who are seen as exceptional with the implication that surely they haven't developed into those characters, but must have something exceptional going on in their genes or early childhood.

ARGUABLY the business event of the year, organised by Inverness Cham