Professor Bainbridge makes an interesting post in light of our discussion at this site on the differences between publicly held and privately owned businesses. While I have argued that entrepreneurs can, and should, integrate their values into their businesses, Professor Bainbridge argues that a public corporation is not a moral actor and cannot be held responsible as an entity.
Business Book Blog Tour
Come one and come all! Join in the business book blog tour next week. This segment of the tour will be featuring Barry Moltz’s book “You Need to be a Little Crazy”. The tour will visit the Entrepreneurial Mind on Thursday, February 5th. Barry will be making stops at my site throughout the day to join in the discussion on his book and his premise that you need to be a little crazy to be an entrepreneur. It should be great fun! For all of the stops on this book tour next week, visit this site.
Martha?s cautionary tale
As the trial of Martha Stewart gets underway, it might be wise to look beyond the surface a bit. Yes, this is can be viewed as a story of greed, elitism, class warfare gone mad, jealousy, or simply corporate corruption. All of these spins have already been put on Martha?s case.
Good advice for start-ups
No matter if you are a software start-up, trying to build a consulting business, or creating a service business of any kind, you should take a look at this posting at startupskills.com. For any business that is selling services or software, this article correctly argues that you need to remember that you are not selling your software or service, but rather a solution to a potential customer?s problem. Their problem is something tangible and real to them. Your software or services usually are not. Therefore, sell to what they understand and to what will move them to act: a solution to their problem.
Carnival of the Capitalists This week
This week has an impressive collection of posts for Carnival of the Capitalists. For those who have visited the Carnival of the Capitalists before, you will find this week’s collection to be rich and diverse. For those who have not been to the Carnival before, I encourage you to take a look. Each week a different Web Log hosts the Carnival of the Capitalists. The rest of us send our posts for the week. It provides a unique collection of ideas and information.
Best practices for small town entrepreneurial development
The National Center for Small Communities has put together a best practices guide for supporting entrepreneurial economic growth in small towns. This is a very comprehensive guide for effective and sustainable economic development. Here is the complete study.
This is no jobless recovery
Bill Hobbs offers his latest report on the myth of the jobless recovery. This includes some very powerful evidence of how well the economy is actually doing.
Growing Pains
Here is a quote that Dr. Susan Williams of Belmont University passed along to me. It describes so well the experience that many of us have gone through as our businesses go through periods of rapid growth and change. For me it describes both what I experienced and what our business experienced.
“Everything alive is surprisingly alive– and on a twitchy, searching, self-aware, self-organizing upward journey. Such living systems periodically break into severe twitchiness and appear to fall apart. They do not. It is actually at such vibrating times that living systems are shaking themselves to higher ground. Transition to a higher order is universally accompanied by turbulence. The disorder and disharmony is a necessary activation of growth to a higher level. The greater the turbulence, the more often it will go into apparent disharmony in order to re-jiggle itself to a higher level.” Ilya Prigogine, Nobel physicist.
Entrepreneurial Blocking and Tackling
When prospective entrepreneurs talk with me, many want to know what they need to learn about to improve their chances of success. I tell them that Vince Lombardi had it right: you have to know the basics. Blocking and tackling.
Good Advice from Fred Smith
Dr. Susan Williams, a colleague of mine here at Belmont, passed along this link to remarks that Fred Smith, Chairman, President and CEO of FedEx Corporation gave to a conference on entrepreneurship in the Dominican Republic in 2001. His five key points are as good a basic set of ideas as I have seen. Any potential entrepreneur would be well served to think very carefully about Mr. Smith?s words of advice.