Dr Jeff Cornwall

We are still floating on air around here after our award this weekend. To be honest, we thought it would take several more years to reach this level. Thanks to everyone for their kind words. Thanks to Anita Campbell for her nice write up at her blog site. She has become a good friend over my years of blogging.
Here is a picture of our team from San Antonio. That look you see in my eyes is total shock and amazement!!

From Today’s Tennessean:

Middle Tennesseans dominated a national entrepreneurship awards show over the weekend, with Belmont University and “The Bun Lady” taking top prizes.
The awards were given in San Antonio, Texas, at the annual United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship conference, the largest such conference in the world.
On Saturday, the Belmont University Center for Entrepreneurship received the 2008 National Model Undergraduate Program award, beating out Ball State University of Muncie, Ind., said director Jeff Cornwall.
“Oh man, it puts us on a national stage in terms of our program, and will help us attract better and better students,” said Cornwall, who writes a regular column for The Tennessean.
“It’s going to open the door for future funding and support for the program. It’s clearly a step to take us to a much higher level than we’ve been able to get to so far.”
The school also won the Outstanding Case Study award for its study of Cordia Harrington, president and CEO of the Tennessee Bun Co. in Dickson. Harrington, who delivered a keynote address at the conference, was named Woman Entrepreneur of the Year, Cornwall said.

My colleague Mark Schenkel, Chris Gray(our former grad student), and I wrote a case study on the Bun Lady. We were thrilled to find out that it won the Outstanding Case Award here at USASBE. And how cool it was that Cordia “The Bun Lady” was here to see us win!

(Thanks for the picture, Bruce!).

Our kick-off speaker this morning at USASBE was Guy Kawasaki.
Guy Kawasaki is a managing director of Garage Technology Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm, and a columnist for Entrepreneur Magazine. In addition to his blog, which I know many of you frequent, Guy is the author of several books including The Art of the Start.
Guy began his career as an Apple Fellow at Apple Computer, Inc., where for four years he evangelized Macintosh to software and hardware developers and led the charge against world-wide domination by IBM. Guy left Apple to start a Macintosh database company called ACIUS, which published a product called 4th Dimension.
Later, he returned to Apple as an Apple Fellow, where his main task was to maintain and rejuvenate Macintosh customers. A few years later, he left Apple to co-found Garage Technology Ventures, a venture capital firm and making direct investments in early-stage technology companies.
Guy offered many pearls of wisdom, but one of the best that I had not heard from him before was this:
“An old Chinese proverb says this: ‘If you wait by the river eventually the body of your enemy will float by.'”
Too many entrepreneurs are impatient and impulsive. They lock themselves into a cat and mouse game with competitors. In doing so, they become too clever by half. Put your energy into your employees and your customers.
Good things take time. It takes time to build a successful business and it takes time to build wealth. Take the high road, work hard, stick to your vision, make your customers your evangelists, and all those competitors you are obsessing about will take care of themselves.

This evening I had the distinct honor of introducing Cordia Harrington, founder of Tennessee Bun Company, as the kick-off keynote speaker at USASBE.
Cordia Harrington, best known as The Bun Lady, is the President and CEO of Tennessee Bun Company. Founded in 1996, Tennessee Bun Company (TBC) produces 60,000 buns an hour and supplies these to restaurants such as McDonalds, Chili’s and Pepperidge Farm. TBC is one of the most highly automated bakeries in the world, producing 1,000 buns per minute, and ships to 40 states east of the Rockies and to the Caribbean. In 1999, Harrington also opened Nashville Bun Company, a producer of English muffins for McDonalds, Sheetz, Perkins, and Wolferman’s Gourmet English Muffins. She added a Hearth line to Nashville Bun Company in 2005 to supply McDonalds and O’Charleys.
Prior to baking, she owned three highly successful McDonald’s restaurants in Illinois. Cordia’s enthusiasm and passion for her work are highly contagious and laid the foundation for her success. Cordia is a graduate of University of Arkansas, Kansai Gaidai and Osaka Japan, and Hamburger University. She has built several successful companies including real estate, fast-food restaurants and commercial bakeries from start-up.

Cordia offered humor, wisdom, and inspiration in telling her story of going from bootstrapping her real estate business through the $50 million multi-national company she operates today. If you ever get the chance to hear her speak, make sure to take advantage of it. It is rare that an entrepreneur can wow a group of academics — but, Cordia pulled it off.
At the end of her speech, Cordia was named the USASBE Woman Entrepreneur of the Year for 2008. A well deserved honor, indeed!

I am blogging the rest of this week from the 2008 annual meeting of the United States Association of Small Business and Entrepreneurship (USASBE) being held this year in San Antonio.
USASBE is the leading voice in entrepreneurship research, teaching, and application. USASBE’s mission is to advance knowledge and foster business development through entrepreneurship education and research.
I will be posting the highlights of the conference for the next several days.
Today should prove to be an exciting opening. Belmont has organized a pre-conference session today that will be hearing about a variety of exciting new innovations in entrepreneurship education from schools from across the country. This pre-conference is sponsored by a grant from the Coleman Foundation.
Then this evening I have the honor of introducing one of my favorite entrepreneurs from Middle Tennessee. Cordia Harrington, best known as The Bun Lady, is the President and CEO of Tennessee Bun Company. Founded in 1996, Tennessee Bun Company (TBC) produces 60,000 buns an hour and supplies these to restaurants such as McDonalds, Chili’s and Pepperidge Farm. TBC is one of the most highly automated bakeries in the world, producing 1,000 buns per minute, and ships to 40 states east of the Rockies and to the Caribbean. In 1999, Harrington also opened Nashville Bun Company, a producer of English muffins for McDonalds, Sheetz, Perkins, and Wolferman’s Gourmet English Muffins. She added a Hearth line to Nashville Bun Company in 2005 to supply McDonalds and O’Charleys.
Cordia is a regular speaker to our classes at Belmont.

Fast Company has released its 2008 Social Entrepreneur Awards.
They now include a category that includes for-profit social entrepreneurs. This is a growing trend as social entrepreneurs see fewer advantages and more headaches associated with non-profit status.

Being a life-long Green Bay Packer fan, I remember fondly the Vince Lombardi days. A couple of Lombardi memorabilia adorn our Rec Room, which has become our Packer shrine. And I still will throw in one of his quotes about leadership now and then in one of my lectures.
It might be time to say move over Vince and make room for Mike. Green Bay Packer coach Mike McCarthy seems to set the leadership tone just right up in the frozen tundra.
From Mike Vandermause’s column at PackerNews.com:

If you’re searching for reasons why the Packers are 13-3 this season, start with the second-year coach’s no-nonsense approach that includes a twist.
McCarthy demands commitment and production, but he trusts his players and treats them like adults.
Too many coaches make the mistake of micromanaging, which can have a suffocating effect on a team. McCarthy seems to have struck the perfect balance between setting a high standard and giving his players the freedom to carry it out.

Set high standards, communicate those standards clearly, expect results, and most importantly, treat people with respect and trust that they will perform. This is a great leadership formula. Does it result in 100% success? Of course not. No leader can ever make that happen. There is too much random chance out of our control, and people are people. Adjust to the surprises that come your way, and if people do not respond to being treated with respect and autonomy, find new people who will.
Treat your employees with respect, and they will respect you. Your job is not to be their friend, but to be their leader. Listen to the words of veteran defensive tackle Ryan Pickett from Vandermause’s column:

“I like it that he’s approachable. He’s tough, he means what he says, says what he means. At the same time, the guys can all go to him, and he listens. And players, they rally behind a guy like that. It’s easy to play for a coach like that. Everybody respects him.”

And don’t forget to have some fun. Much of a leader’s role using this style is to keep everyone loose and foster a positive culture.
Go Pack!!!!

(A note a full disclosure — I am also a shareholder of the Green Bay Packers. But no worry. I am not trying to push up the value of my stock. Once you buy the stock you can never sell it and it will never pay a dividend. But it makes a really cool addition to our Packer collection in the Rec Room!)