ADVENT is NOT Over!

ADVENT is NOT Over!

Well, not if you spell it correctly.

“ADV-ENT”.

As in ADVancing ENTrepreneurship! (You know I’m relentless on this… LOL)

We are coming up fast on 2014 and my New Years wish is for all of us to tap into our inner entrepreneur and figure out something magnificent to do in 2014. Are you with me?

Looking back at 2013, I am amazed at two things:

1. How many adventures I have had [http://goo.gl/v4uR4m] and

2.  How poorly I’ve been paid (LOL but…)

2014 is shaping up to be just as adventurous… maybe more [I have been invited to give a keynote address at a major new entrepreneurship conference in…. Tehran! Gulp.] but it is time for me to ask your advice about getting paid.

To paraphrase that eminent philosopher and businessman Calvin Broadus, “Business isn’t in the telling, business is in the selling.” [A cup of coffee or a beer to those of you who know Mr. Broadus’s nom de plume… without google.]

Especially fun stuff from 2013…

I got mentioned in Business Week right under a photo of Sir Richard Branson and a few of my friends thought it was a really crappy picture of me. http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-11-04/to-teach-entrepreneurship-get-out-of-the-classroom

This was from the World Entrepreneurship Forum where I got to do my ecosystem-building workshop with an all-star cast. [You really should have me do this in your community – powerful stuff and great fun!]

Got to help launch the ICSB’s cool new Online Learning Excellence workshops – how do you pull off deeply experiential entrepreneurial learning… online? (Got to lob a few more hand grenades on that too… )

I won’t bore you with more (for now…. Ha!) Instead I’ll close with some advice I got to share with high school programs in Texas who want to “go big” entrepreneurially but they are at Square One right now. Here’s what I shared. What would you add/change?

Great Things That High School Students Can Do!

Ice House: World class introduction to entrepreneurship

short video (3 min): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qsmsxzuu2PI 
if you click on only one link, click on the one above! Are you in???

longer video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mg2GPWc0Go 

sketchpad: http://www.kauffman.org/newsroom/2013/11/the-ice-house-manner-and-mindset-of-teaching-entrepreneurship-featured-in-new-kauffman-sketchbook/

website: www.whoownstheicehouse.com

"Entrepreneurial Heroes"

Have your students identify and vet a local "Entrepreneurial Hero" and shoot a short video with a phone on what makes them a true Entrepreneurial Hero. What is their special sauce to create vlaue? How did that business model evolve? Focus on substance not style. Good opportunity to introduce them to business models!)

Speaking of business models, look up Steve Blank's Lean Launchpad class on Udacity (free!) If you go to www.steveblank.com (his blog) you'll see where they tried the Udacity class in a Cleveland-area HS... and it worked without dumbing it down [except maybe for the teachers? ;) ] Next, they tried it in a junior high. Still worked.  

HUGE opportunity to reach out to the entrepreneurial community - as speakers and especially mentors! 

Ecosystem mapping - SAOSW (Students Are Our Secret Weapon!)

Students can help connect your school with the entrepreneurial community - one thing that every entrep ecosystem needs is good mapping. From NACCE: http://www.slideshare.net/norriskrueger/nacce-2013-ecosystem-workshop 

Other ecosystem-building tactics that students can help with: http://goo.gl/WLQZrH