Growing Power
Will Allen Many ventures are largely inspired by a single idea, but the founder of the nonprofit Growing Power used several diverse sources of inspiration in order to develop his international organization. After leaving the corporate world, Will Allen began growing, selling, and teaching others how to grow produce in an urban setting. These activities […]
Adele
Marketing Research She doesn’t have runway model looks, doesn’t dress provocatively, and has no gimmicks added to her music, says 60 Minutes reporter Anderson Cooper. However, what Adele does have, besides talent, is a grasp of business principles. Consider: after her Grammy win several years ago, the singing sensation took a part-time job in a […]
Critical Thinking for the Budding Entrepreneur
What Would You Do? You open a pizza parlor in a small college town, and business is great. However, the following summer, 20,000 students, your customers, leave town for several months. It’s vacation time. *You overlooked this detail when you bought the restaurant. What will you do for income? The scenario points out two common […]
The Business of Books
The Pitfalls of Statistics Editor Sarah Weinman of Publishers Marketplace discusses the industry’s hits and misses for the year. It’s an important overview for aspiring entrepreneurs who are considering entering the industry in one form or another. Weinman also explains why sales figures for traditional versus electronic books may be biased and inaccurate. Lesson: Regardless […]
John Brown: Entrepreneur and Abolitionist
Photo: Martin M. Lawrence, 1859. Library of Congress. Editor’s note: This post and several others show error messages in their views count and have been noted and updated on the respective posts…As of 12/18/2024, the actual count is 305…not 31. John Brown struggled throughout his life as a businessman, living near the […]
Critical Thinking for Potential Entrepreneurs
Class Notes Using Sound Judgement The ability to reason well, to question and confirm the validity of information or data is a key skill at lacking in many entrepreneurs and business school graduates. Some experts believe that there is a tendency to relay too heavily on online search engines and peer-generated information from social […]
The Cutthroat World of Management Consulting
Don Cheadle The Oscar-nominated actor explains how he’s broadened his skill set and philanthropic efforts. Cheadle dishes background info on his new comedy for Showtime TV’s House of Lies. It’s about the underbelly of the consulting industry. Just a guess, but given some of his remarks about consultants, I’ll bet Cheadle won’t be a keynote […]
Andrew Jackson Beard
Railroad Safety In the 19th century, 6,500 people invented a device that would solve the problem of workers who were often killed or maimed during the process of attaching trains on the railroad track, and they applied for and received patents. Beard’s design was by far the most advanced, and although there seems to be […]
George Lucas
Business Superstar In the 1970s, with the exception of Disney Studios, movie merchandising was a tiny industry when George Lucas offered studio executives a deal they couldn’t refuse: he would work for free as the director of a new release in exchange for their granting him product licensing rights to the movie. Lucas’s offer was […]