Texas to New Zealand? Or why I love my colleagues!

Babson and New Zealand!

This week is the annual Babson College Entrepreneurship Research Conference (www.bcerc.com) this year at TCU in Fort Worth. I then have to get to Wellington in the GodZone for the global conference of the International Council for Small Business  (www.icsb2012.org).

The #1 research conference (2 papers) and the world’s largest collection of entrep educators (2  papers & 2 workshops)

Hectic to be sure but... what a chance to go hobnob with some of the most passionate entrepreneurial champions in the world! Passionate and brilliant, yes, but most also really “get it” – they deeply get the entrepreneurial mindset and how to promote it. They are immersed in the entrepreneurial community in ways that most schools simply do not. 

Two examples - Franziska Gunzel, a young German scholar now working in Denmark is the brightest prospect studying business models and how they evolve. About the only one who gets the bottom-up nature of the process. Funny thing, though.. she has now become a Startup Weekend fanatic & is working overtime to immerse herself in the real world of entrepreneurship. Good on ya, Franziska!

Another is my friend Suresh Kumar- on his second Inc. 500 company and now a PhD in entrepreneurship. Amid his entrepreneurial adventures and doing good research (if you like Startup Visa, read his stuff), he & I are part of a group working to find ways to bridge the gap between Academe & entrepreneurs.

(You can scan the blog for the great folks like this at Twente, Chalmers, etc.)

Put it another way: I will be around hundreds of scholars/educators who if they moved to Idaho would instantly be the best entrepreneurship professor in Idaho… by a large margin. 

Even if I was still teaching.

That’s how good they are. I am so blessed.

Check the links - www.bcerc.com and www.icsb2012.org - look up the papers and participants & let me know if I can hook you up with papers or introductions!