Dream out loud!
8/01/2010
Youth entrepreneurship is alive and well in Southern Illinois
Recently, I had the pleasure of speaking with a group of enterprising young men and women at the 2010 Educate, Lead, Inspire Tomorrow's Entrepreneurs (ELITE) Youth Entrepreneurship Camp. The program is the brainchild of several women who have shown a longstanding commitment to advancing entrepreneurship in Southern Illinois.
Donna Raynalds is executive director of Southern Illinois Delta Empowerment Zone (SIDEZ), Norma Turok is a business educator and former member of the University of Illinois Extension office in Carbondale, and Candy Eastwood oversees the Illinois Small Business Development Center at Shawnee Community College.
The weeklong training camp helped students gain a greater knowledge of their own business personalities and understand the basics of business planning, while meeting successful entrepreneurs. Despite the obvious attractiveness of small business for our young people (money), there are other reasons to support youth entrepreneurship.
Benefits for our youth
In my 16-year involvement in youth entrepreneurship, I have noticed the following long-term benefits. Some of the great inventions of our day have come from progressive thinkers whose dreams materialized once they took the leap of faith. Entrepreneurship allows young people to envision a future they may not have thought possible. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation grew out of the couple's success at Microsoft, and it has allowed them to not only change lives in communities around Redmond, Wash., but also in communities throughout the world. Entrepreneurship allows successful young people a greater opportunity to contribute to the revitalization of their communities. Lastly, entrepreneurship provides young people with alternatives to unemployment, low-paying jobs and destructive life choices.
They're perfect for it
Take a close look at some of the world's top entrepreneurs and you will find that today's young people have a lot of the same characteristics. Spend more than a couple of minutes with our young people and you will see that they are overflowing with creativity. What these young creative minds dream up is their reality. Young people are often brimming with confidence and believe that they can do anything because they have yet to be limited by our adult constraints. Today's youth also have amazing vision and can tell you (in detail) all about their goals, aspirations and what they believe their futures will look like - all of this while many of us might be trying to figure out what we will be doing next week.
Creating a different future
I often wonder how different things would be if Bill Gates Sr. had discouraged his technology-driven son when he and friends started their first company, Traf-O-Data (a first attempt at writing software for computer hardware). Teaching our young people about entrepreneurship represents the gift that keeps on giving and will provide them with a skill that they can use for a lifetime. Chinese philosopher Confucius said, "Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime." Now is the time to support youth entrepreneurship because the latent talents of today could pay big business dividends for the region in the future.
CAVANAUGH L. GRAY is director of business development for The Entrepreneur Café, L.L.C. in Carbondale. He can be contacted at cgray@ecafell.com or 618-206-7013. For more information on how you or your organization can get involved with youth entrepreneurship or for ideas on how to start, grow and succeed in small business, be sure to follow The Entrepreneur Café, L.L.C. on Twitter, www.twitter.com/TheECafe, or at www.ecafellc.com.
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N.C. colleges cater to future entrepreneurs - Columnists/Blogs
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By Christopher Gergen and Stephen MartinAfter earning a degree in dance at UNC Greensboro, Amanda Smith did what a lot of arts majors do: She scrambled to make a living.
She taught, waited tables and performed, while also studying Pilates. "I never planned on having a business in my wildest dreams," Smith said. "It wasn't part of what I thought I needed to prepare myself for."
Seven years later, though, she finds herself running Core Integrity Pilates out of a sunny second-floor studio in a Greensboro office park.
"Some times I feel like I'm the spokesperson for what not to do as an entrepreneur," said Smith, who earned numerous Pilates certifications, started training a few clients at her house and gradually realized she had a business on her hands. She plunged into her accidental career with no knowledge of accounting, marketing, management or other fundamental skills.
She's not alone. Nearly two-thirds of people who start businesses have never taken a business course. That isn't necessarily the best course of action.
"Take swimming lessons before you're drowning," Smith advised. "You need to know what you're getting into."
This fall, Smith's alma mater will offer a new way to help when it launches a bachelor's of science degree in entrepreneurship. It will be only the second major of its kind among the state's public universities (Western Carolina University also offers one) and the first with a fully cross-disciplinary focus. Students will take a series of core courses in such areas as finance, planning and innovation through UNCG's Bryan School of Business and Economics.
The program's electives, ranging from dance and apparel design to hospitality and tourism, will also prep students on the basics of entrepreneurial success in various industry sectors.
'Being creative'
"Our vision of entrepreneurship involves being creative and innovative in anything you do," said Dianne Welsh, who directs the new major as Charles A. Hayes Distinguished Professor of Entrepreneurship at UNCG's business school. "That could mean being entrepreneurial in a corporation or a university or a nonprofit, as well as having your own business."
As North Carolina attempts to shift away from its manufacturing roots to an economy powered by knowledge and service industries, entrepreneurship is taking center stage. It offers one of the best hopes for job creation and is grabbing the imagination of growing numbers of people.
At UNCG, Welsh said, the number of business studies majors choosing the entrepreneurship/small business concentration has soared by nearly 50 percent in the past five years. That's part of a nationwide trend.
Fostering startups
In the 1970s, just a handful of colleges and universities nationally offered courses in entrepreneurship. Today, more than 2,000 of them do, including many in North Carolina. UNC-Chapel Hill, with major support from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, has developed a robust minor in the field in recent years. N.C. State also offers a concentration.
High Point University offers a major in entrepreneurship, and Elon, Wake Forest and Queens University are among the private schools offering entrepreneurship minors or concentrations.
Duke also has an expanding set of entrepreneurial offerings. Among them: the Fuqua School of Business' Center for the Advancement of Social Enterprise, the Law School's new Law and Entrepreneurship LLM program and the entrepreneurial leadership training for undergraduates within the Sanford School of Public Policy (where Christopher teaches). The state's network of community colleges also provides numerous resources for aspiring business owners and is starting to dabble in social entrepreneurship.
In Smith's opinion, it's about time.
During her academic career, the instruction she received on how to make a living with a dance degree was limited to a single course on career management. In building her own company, she has relied on trial and error.
She's succeeding and is highly energized by her work but also looks back with regret at time wasted and business deals gone wrong.
"I'm just now learning about communication as a business owner, how to delegate and trust people," she said.
Smith hopes her experiences can help today's students make a smoother transition to the real world, regardless of their field.
She recently spoke at UNCG's Southern Entrepreneurship in the Arts Conference. Her subject: "They don't teach bookkeeping in ballet."
Christopher Gergen is the Founding Executive Director of Bull City Forward and Director of the Entrepreneurial Leadership Initiative at Duke University. Stephen Martin, a former business and education journalist, is a speechwriter at the nonprofit Center for Creative Leadership. They can be reached at authors@bullcityforward.org.Get the biggest news in your email or cellphone as it's happening. Sign up for breaking news alerts.
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Entrepreneurship = Innovation = Growth | The Twitter Blogger
You are here: Home / Twittblogger Posts / Entrepreneurship = Innovation = GrowthEntrepreneurship = Innovation = Growth
Posted by admin on August 1, 2010 · Leave a Comment
Entrepreneurship = Innovation = Growth
Entrepreneurship = Innovation = Growth
To define entrepreneurship, we can say that appropriate resources are gathered to achieve a goal. The goals involve certain risks. These risks can affect an entrepreneurs’ wealth and time. The ventures could be focussed towards many different outcomes. These ventures may support philanthropic ideas, environmental initiatives, profit, etc. Examples of entrepreneurship could be starting up a company like Microsoft, or a charity organization. An entrepreneur brings a new product or service to our economy. This means that a new idea or innovation is created.
Innovation determines there are new ways of creating value for consumers. Entrepreneurs strive to impress investors for support on new business ideas, these business ideas aim to add value for consumers. When there is innovation, we find new ways to improve the lifestyle of regular people. Consumers have better options to improve the quality of their lives. The same way Thomas Edison introduced the light bulb, we have entrepreneurs pitching ideas. Entrepreneurs in business want to keep doing this, simply because its the path towards starting out a company. By starting a business, growth and profits can eventually be established. This leads to a successful venture.
A successful business facilitates the internal and external environment. Not only is the company a great source for creating new jobs, consumers and contracting companies find use in the product provided. In other words, better efficiency is created in different places that support the product. This contributes to the gross domestic product (GDP). The GDP shows improvement in goods and services domestically. This is a good indicator of how well the economy is doing. When there is an increased GDP, the economy is doing well. In this case, there are better employment rates and citizens are happy with results. Innovation also helps trade, businesses may send their products out overseas or branch out globally. This is great for building relations with economies from other countries.
Since entrepreneurs contribute towards innovation, they are needed in the domestic system. The entrepreneurial lifestyle should be supported by the general public and the government. To have many entrepreneurs means potential for new ideas, products and services. It means potential for new business start-ups and business engagement. Entrepreneurship should be continuously funded by the government. By funding entrepreneurship, we are investing in future improvement and technological growth. In other words, globalization exists through entrepreneurial activity. Entrepreneurs lead a difficult task of gathering resources to fulfill a purpose. They not only have to find financial support, there is also the hard work needed in creating a business plan and making the appropriate decisions. Nowadays, entrepreneurs need to be persistent and stay focussed towards their goals. Most ventures don’t succeed, which is why its common for entrepreneurs to try many different ideas. It is important for entrepreneurs to receive all kinds of support during these rough patches. Our economy needs it.
Written by Basim MIrza
Wikipedia. Entrepreneurship. [6st September 2009].http://walmartstores.com/FactsNews/NewsRoom/8437.aspx
Entrepreneurship. Resource Center. [6th September 2009].http://www.entrepreneurship.org/ResourcesCenter/
Innovate on purpose. Invention, innovation and entrepreneurs. [6th September 2009]. http://innovateonpurpose.blogspot.com/2006/10/invention-innovation-and-entrep...
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Tiflisi.info » Blog Archive » Entrepreneurship In Action by Moses Isaac
Entrepreneurship In Action by Moses Isaac
Posted by | Posted in Business Opportunities | Posted on 01-08-2010
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The Rewards And Challenges Of Being An Entrepreneur:Would you enjoy being an entrepreneur? Are you prepared to deal with the rewards and challenges? although many entrepreneurs “fell into” their roles, the fact that you’re interested in studying entrepreneurship and trying to learn all you can about it. Part of that education is understanding the upside and downside of entrepreneurship.There are many rewards associated with being an entrepreneur! many individuals pursue entpreneurship primarily because of the high degree of independence that it allows them. Infact, researchers have found that the freedom from other constraints – that is, being independent – is the dominant attraction for entrepreneur. Other positive aspects of being an entrepreneur include getting to use a variety of skills and talents, having the freedom to make decisions, being countable only to yourself, having the opportunity to tackle challenges experiencing feelings of achievment and pride in accomplishing goals, and, ofcourse, having the potential to make loads of money can be quiet tempting. However, the financial rewards, which for most entrepreneurs are a nice secondary benefit, are not the primary reason for being an entrepreneur.What about the challenges associated with being an entrepreneur? Successful entrepreneur will tell you that it’s an all – consuming passion, that it’s hardwork that involves sacrifices (both personal and professional), and that it’s never the same day to day. To be an entrepreneur means that you must be comfortable with change and uncertainty. In fact, the very essence of entrepreneurship implies that change is the normal state of affairs for entrepreneur. With change comes uncertainty and risk. Entrepreneur must be comfortable with change and with taking risks. In addition many of the challenges associated with being an entrepreneur involve making choices. Entrepreneurs face a bewildering array of decisions, which may at times, mean making tough economic choices and dealing with reality of failure.Entrepreneurship is attracting a lot of attention these days. After reading this blog you should now have a better understanding of this strong interest in entrepreneur and entrepreneurship. And you, hopefully, have begun to decide whether entrepreneurship is the correct choice for you.Moses Isaac
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ASA : Federal Medical Marijuana Legal Challenge Bolstered by New Veterans Policy Directive
For Immediate Release: July 28th, 2010
Federal Medical Marijuana Legal Challenge Bolstered by New Veterans Policy Directive
VA policy undermines federal position that "marijuana has no currently accepted medical use"
San Francisco, CA -- Medical marijuana patient advocacy group Americans for Safe Access (ASA) filed an important legal brief today in a Ninth Circuit case which aims to correct statements by the federal government that "marijuana has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States." The ASA legal filing points to a policy directive issued last week by the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), recognizing medical marijuana and distinguishing it from other illegal controlled substances. In its brief, ASA contends that the VHA directive bolsters advocates' arguments that marijuana does indeed have medical value.
"Recognition of marijuana's therapeutic benefits by a federal agency makes it more difficult for the government to argue against marijuana's medical value," said ASA Chief Counsel Joe Elford, who filed the notice with the court. "The government's reasons for maintaining an outdated and harmful position on medical marijuana are running out." In the July 22nd policy directive, the VHA reversed its position that medical marijuana is no different than other banned controlled substances, and instructed VA physicians that "patients participating in state medical marijuana programs must not be denied VHA services."
The Department of Veterans Affairs Under Secretary for Health Dr. Robert Petzel also clarified in a July 6th letter to veteran advocate Michael Krawitz that, "If a veteran obtains and uses medical marijuana in a manner consistent with state law, testing positive for marijuana would not preclude the Veteran from receiving opioids for pain management." The letter further stated that, "Standard pain management agreements should draw a clear distinction between the use of illegal drugs, and legal medical marijuana." ASA has received numerous reports of veterans being denied pain medication for refusing to discontinue their use of medical marijuana. In many cases, the therapeutic use of marijuana has significantly diminished veterans' need for pharmaceutical medication.
ASA filed its lawsuit in February of 2007 in an attempt to correct the government's position on medical marijuana. After the challenge was denied by the U.S. District Court, ASA filed an appeal in April of 2008 and is still awaiting a decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal. ASA's lawsuit was preceded by an administrative petition filed in 2005 under the Data Quality Act, a law passed during the Clinton Administration to ensure that the government bases its policy decisions on sound science and not politics.
According to Krawitz's group, Veterans for Medical Marijuana Access, more than 100,000 veterans, or 27% of veterans treated by the VA, have been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Based on reports received by ASA, PTSD is one of the most common medical conditions that veterans treat using medical marijuana.
Further Information:
Veterans Health Administration policy directive issued on July 22nd: http://www1.va.gov/vhapublications/ViewPublication.asp?pub_ID=2276
Letter from Department of Veterans Affairs to veteran advocate Michael Krawitz: www.drugsense.org/temp/Undersecretary-Jun6.pdf
Legal brief filed today by ASA: http://AmericansForSafeAccess.org/downloads/DQA_Rule28.pdf
Data Quality Act appeal filed by ASA: http://AmericansForSafeAccess.org/downloads/DQA_Appeal_Brief.pdf
Why Are Democrats Ignoring the Next New Dealers? | womens nike sale
By E.J. Dionne
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Young Americans are the linchpin of a new progressive era in American politics. So why aren’t Democrats paying more attention to them?
The relative strength of conservatives in American politics since the 1980s was built on generational change: Voters whose views had been shaped by the New Deal were gradually replaced with the more cautious puma ferrari mens souls who came of age after FDR.
Then the Millennial generation came along. The Millennials—generally defined as Americans born in 1981 or after—are, without question, the most liberal generation since those New Dealers, and they puma sales could transform our politics for decades. But this will happen only if progressive politicians start noticing their very best friends in the electorate.
Progressives who doubt this could usefully spend time puma trainers with the Pew Research Center’s exhaustive portrait of the Millennials that was released Wednesday. The study underscored the new generation’s “distinctiveness,” and a big part of that distinctiveness is how progressive younger Americans compare with the rest of the country.
For one thing, they are not allergic to the word liberal. Americans under 30 include the largest proportion of self-described liberals and the smallest proportion of self-described conservatives of any age group in the country: 29 percent of the under 30s called themselves liberal compared with 28 percent who called themselves conservative.
Becoming the Boss Can Cost Plenty
By SARAH E. NEEDLEMAN
In late 2007, Taylor Senatore and Jennifer Frank withdrew most of their personal savings—a combined $250,000—to launch California Wine Merchants in New York. The duo, who teamed up after discovering by chance that they shared the same entrepreneurial goal, figured that amount would cover all of their start-up costs and even leave change to spare.
But Mr. Senatore and Ms. Frank didn't realize that the property they rented came with special restrictions for turning the raw space into a retail store. As a result, they ended up spending 80% of their budget on construction costs alone.
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"We had not even thought about the monumental bureaucracy that was to come when we signed our lease," says Mr. Senatore, a former attorney who decided to pursue entrepreneurship after moving for his wife's career.
When starting a business on a tight budget, a single spending gaffe can spell disaster. For this reason, experts in entrepreneurship recommend taking precautions, such as doing research to identify potential hidden fees, focusing only on necessities and setting aside emergency funds.
Question Everything
"You don't want to overextend yourself or run through your reserves before you're even up and running," says Dennis Ceru, adjunct professor of entrepreneurship at Babson College. "It really comes down to keeping a close eye on every aspect of your cash flow and asking yourself, 'Do I really have to spend this money today?'"
Kimberley Debus says she regrets spending $2,000 on annual memberships to several trade groups upon starting her writing, editing and publishing business, Word Alchemy, in 2008 out of her home in Round Lake, N.Y. She didn't need many of the benefits she gained, such as access to discounted health insurance. "I wasn't seeing the return," she says.
In hindsight, Ms. Debus, who opted to work for herself after experiencing a back injury, says she should have paid to attend a few of the groups' events as a nonmember instead. "The networking is the same," she says.
Costly Website
Similarly, Susan Miller of Anderson, Ind., admits she wasted $2,700 on a website for Ewing Miller Communications, a solo public-relations practice she launched in April 2009 after her former employer closed down. "I bought into the belief that I needed to have a website to be a legitimate business," she says. "In reality, I'm in a fairly small market and my business comes through referrals more than anything else. I could've done just as well without it."
Other first-time business owners say they wish they'd gone about making some of their early investments differently. For example, Blane Fitzgerald Stoddart and Fred Werner say they probably could have held the grand opening for their Philadelphia construction-management firm, BFW Group, inside a friend's office building for free rather than spend $5,000 to hold it at a restaurant this past spring.
They also say they could've avoided spending $18,000 on business cards and various marketing materials if they'd shopped around for less expensive options. "I love the quality, but that's a lot of money in this economy," says Mr. Stoddart.
The pair expected to have their first few clients within three months of launching, but now predict it will take until the fall because of the poor economy. "We went in overly optimistic," says Mr. Stoddart, who was laid off in December from a job in the same industry.
Math Mistakes
In other cases, rookie business owners say they made spending snafus because they underestimated how much critical items would cost. For example, before opening Calisto's Sweet Treats Bakery in Southington, Conn., in June, business partners Michael Cirrito and Giancarlo Garcia-Zimmitti figured they'd need to set aside at most $1,800 a month for food expenses. But now, halfway into the summer, it has become clear that their approximation was off by a whopping 100%.
"We're struggling," says Mr. Cirrito, a former chef for a casino who turned to entrepreneurship after his work hours were cut in half last year. Had he and his partner examined what they truly needed to spend to get their business started, Mr. Cirrito says they would've held off opening their doors until they'd gathered more start-up capital.
Tom Kruczek, executive director of the Falcone Center for Entrepreneurship at Syracuse University, says a common reason why first-time entrepreneurs mismanage their start-up budget is that they let their emotions get in the way of rational thinking. "They want to be successful so badly that in their haste they end up spending money in the wrong places," he says.
For Mr. Senatore and Ms. Frank, the wine retailers in New York, failing to read the fine print of their storefront's lease meant they needed to take out second mortgages on each of their homes to be able to keep their dream alive.
"As a new business owner, you're excited," says Mr. Senatore. "But the mistake we made threw off everything for us."
Write to Sarah E. Needleman at sarah.needleman@wsj.com
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