Have A Happy Friday: Great example of viral marketing

Viewed over 9 million times and loved by people around the world, especially French women. Hank

Of Mermaids and Eight Year-Old Entrepreneurs

Since returning to our winter digs on Padre Island, Texas, and turning my interests more toward sailing our 27′ Hunter, I’ve expanded my reading list to include several monthly magazines about sailing. One of them is named simply Sail. In this month’s issue (Nov 2011) on p.17 there is an interesting blurb about a then eight year-old girl named Emily Ehlers (now 12) who went on a yearlong cruise with her family. While underway, she invented a game called Mermaid Beach which was picked up by Gamewright of Newton, Mass and is now in its catalog. From the previous link, the game has won numerous awards including Dr. Toy’s Top 100 Children’s Products.

Two points: Emily is off and running in the world of entrepreneurship, and second, with Christmas around the corner, you might think of Mermaid Beach for one of your gifts. Hank

Occupy Wallstreet versus Sustainability

Unless you have been residing under a rock in Siberia, you are aware of the Occupy Wall-street dealy; I don’t really know what to call it. It is not a demonstration, a political movement, nor support of a particular class. According to Wiki, which in this case is as accurate as anything, “According to a survey of Zucotti Park protesters by the Baruch College School of Public Affairs published on October 19, of 1,619 web respondents, 1/3 were older than 35, half were employed full-time, 13% were unemployed and 13% earned over $75,000. 27.3% of the respondents called themselves Democrats, 2.4% called themselves Republicans, while the rest, 70%, called themselves independents.” So they are from divergent social, economic and political groups. What seems to tie the group together, is an intent to “get their just share.” In fact, “”We are the 99%” is a political slogan, Internet meme and implicit economic claim used by demonstrators involved in the “Occupy” protests. It is intended as a statement of a trend, since the 1970s, for wealth and income to become concentrated within the top 1% of the United States population (also from Wiki link above). ”

In another life, I teach Sustainability Strategies, an elective graduate course at Krannert School of Management at Purdue University where I am on the graduate faculty. In Sustainability Strategies, we look at the three Ps businesses must strike a balance between – People, Planet and Profit. Although there are those who would argue otherwise, the balance is somewhat of a zero sum game. More for people, less for Profit and perhaps Planet. Obviously the measurement being used is $MONEY$. What the Occupy Wallstreeters are calling for, is LESS Profit, and MORE for People, wherein People is defined as exterior to the business, but society in general??? They are calling for the ubers to GIVE/Turn Over/Bequeath wealth rightfully (at least most of it) earned to People who have no stake or skin in the business game because they are what? Entitled? (I’m beginning to really dislike that word!)

Way back when I started my Ph.D. studies in the early eighties, we were drilled that the duty of management is to maximize stockholder wealth. In fact, management has a judiciary duty to do just that. Toward the end of my studies (1987 time-frame) the concept of stakeholders started gaining traction. Stakeholders were anyone who had a stake in the company – employees, communities, customers, governments etc. But, nothing was really said about decreasing profits to massage the gonads of the extended “People” now considered to have a direct “stake” in the business. Rolling toward today, we have businesses under the gun to appease the 3Ps, and recently, to extend their People “P” to providing employment and entitlements to both members and non-members of the business. Even entrepreneurship has not escaped this extension of the “purpose” of business. Your own president talks of supporting entrepreneurs because they are the source of jobs, which equals employment per se.

I disagree with all of this current BS and agree with Milt Friedman when he stated “the business of business is business.” The goal of entrepreneurship is NOT to create jobs for society, or to share its generated wealth at the expense of Profits or Planet, but to give rise to tomorrow’s businesses. Occupy Wallstreet is on the wrong street.

Mike Meier, a student from St. Louis, MO who is going to the University of Chicago and is a sophomore studying Cinema and Media, made the video of Occupy Chicage below. Thanks to Beth and her brother for the clip. Hank

My Original Droid Is No More but LG Optimus V Is!

Two years ago, the day Droids first became available, I signed up with Verizon for one. Yesterday, 11/6/11, my two years of servitude to Verizon was over, and I cancelled the service. In retrospect, it’s been an interesting two years. While I am not a texter, and didn’t use the keyboard, I found the original Droid to be a capable smart phone. It introduced me to the first public iteration of  Android, was a decent “phone,” and when it first came out would even support tethering via June Fabrics’ PDANet. Then Verizon got shitty, and cut off tethering, raised prices, and in general fell into the trap that Occupy Wallstreet is all about. I am not sad to see it go, saving almost $90/month which is not chump-change.

So what’s in my pocket now? Within the last year, Virgin Mobile introduced the LG Optimus V running Android 2.2 which you buy outright for $129-149 depending on the “deal” running. It’s sold at Radio Shack, Wal-mart, etc. It is a smart phone in every respect – runs Android Market, has a decent 3.2 MPixel camera etc. Is it a iPhone 4S – no, but it is “adequate.” Sprint provides the 3G service which for me, with taxes, is $27/month. For that I an entitled to 300 minutes/month talk, unlimited text, and unlimited data use. For data here in Corpus Christi, TX, I get about 1.6 down, and 2-300 up, plenty for email and text. It tethers nicely too, with nada hacking to root and doesn’t need PDANet either. Sprint doesn’t have nearly the coverage of Verizon nationally, but in the area in which we live six months out of the year, it just works. It shoots decent video (see two minutes of interior of our Hunter 27 sailboat directly below) and quality pictures (see bottom of us underway in Corpus Christi Bay.) What’s not to like? Hank

Looking for Magic Sauce

I received the following from Kauffman foundation last week: “If the best indicator of a country’s growth is the number of new firms started every year, as Kauffman Foundation research indicates, how do we get more companies to start and grow? What’s the magic sauce?

That’s the subject of the latest animated video in the Kauffman Sketchbook series released today. In “Magic Sauce, ” Kauffman President and CEO Carl Schramm points out that nearly 700,000 new businesses start every year, but the failure rate is high and many of them are not creating jobs. Schramm asks, how do we make those firms more successful at the outset?

The three-minute video goes on to outline the issues that the Kauffman Foundation is studying to learn how to help more entrepreneurs become more successful. “We do a lot of research, because if you don’t get the story right, you’ll get the solution wrong,” Schramm says.” Hank

Every semester our ENTR 200 students are assigned to do a video interview of an entrepreneur

Every semester our ENTR 200 students are assigned to do a video interview of an entrepreneur.  The fun begins when they find someone to interview.   Sometimes it is a family friend, others choose a local business owner and a few have had the initiative to contact a famous entrepreneur and managed to interview them from a distance.  Once the interviewee is chosen, the students set up an appointment with their entrepreneur, acquire the video equipment, write down some questions, and then do the actual interview.  The pain begins when they take what they’ve recorded, sometimes over an hour of footage, and edit it to 7 minutes.   It’s difficult to edit video, to choose what to leave in and what to cut.    Some students love the creativity process and add music and other interesting artistic expressions.  Others have a disadvantage because this is their first experience of creating a video.  No two videos are ever the same, even if the same subject has been interviewed.  All in all, it’s a great learning experience for everyone, and most students say they took a lot away from this assignment.  Here are two very different videos, one from each of my classes this semester:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxI-RBEAgf0

http://www.youtube.com/user/mgrudecki

Enjoy!

Beth Carroll

QR Codes & Malware: Not to fear

“Be careful the next time you scan a QR code, because it might just cost you money and wreak havoc on your smartphone” is the lead sentence in a Mashable story from last week. I have already been questioned about my opinion on the use of QR codes by one of the students in the recent EBV class at Purdue. I don’t think Russian-based hacks going to the equivalent of  900 #s here in the US is something we need to concern ourselves with.

Like all things involving computers/smart phones etc., look before you click. My response BTW to the EBVer query, was taken from a comment to the Mashable story, and is “Use a QR scanner (like RedLaser) that doesn’t automatically take you to the URL but asks first if you want to go to whatever link it reads, not one that autoresolves (like i-nigma which is still my favorite.).” by Lucretia Pruitt  She provided sound advice. Hank

Having Goals is Good: Our Hunter Sailboat

Over a year ago I purchased a 27′ Hunter sailboat sight unseen from Corpus Christi Craigslist while teaching a Maymester ENTR200 class at Purdue University. Today, after much sweat and tears and an ungodly amount of coin of the realm, we took it out on sea trails. My wife Linda shot the 13 minute video embedded below. You would have had to be there/here to feel the achievement. So like most good entrepreneurs, new goals now arise, including adding sailboat racing to my resume, starting 2013 after we get the kinks out. My profuse thanks to David Evans for his support and mentorship in getting us underway. Hank

Have A Happy Friday: Coming back to earth

Ever wonder what happened to the NASA payload that recently came crashing back to earth. See below. Hank

On Innovation

(Graphic to left from here) This past Monday, 10/17/2011, the WSJ ran a special report on technology. In it, Carolyn T. Geer had an article “Innovation 101.” While the general thrust was just about anyone has innovation juices in their bodies, our schools, screw students up. “Fear of failure is rampant among students who have been drilled in standardized-taking.” This mirrors my own experience in teaching 29 ENTR20000 Intro to Entrepreneurship & Innovation classes at Purdue University. Students come to the class with statements like “tell me exactly what you want.”  They either won’t or can’t deal with unstructured situations that surround innovative pursuits. The article suggests behavioral change leading to confidence is the key to turning students loose. I have my doubts this can be accomplished easily. What do you think? Hank