Dr Jeff Cornwall

Tag Archives: entrepreneur. cornwall

We-Cycle Social Venture Needs Your Help

We have a group of our MBA students who have the Dell Social Innovation Competition. http://www.dellsocialinnovationcompetition.com/ 

 

Their social venture implements and manages bike sharing programs for cities, businesses and universities (you can find more on bike sharing programs here).    

 

They need your help to make it to the next round of the competition.  

 

All you have to do is:

1.  go to http://www.dellsocialinnovationcompetition.com/

2.  go to register now  http://www.dellsocialinnovationcompetition.com/ideaSiteRegister

3.  Create a username and password

4.  Search Ideas by typing We-Cycle

5.  VOTE for for We-Cycle

 

Thanks for your help!  If they win we get $50,000 to help launch their concept.

 

From Bad Policy to Worse

It seems that we are going from one administration that fumbled and bumbled its way through what was called an economic stimulus to a new one that is using the economic crisis as a springboard toward an increasingly socialistic agenda.

Sadly neither the Bush nor Obama teams seem have their eyes on the entrepreneurial engine that has been sustaining us for the past two decades.  Their words of help for struggling Main Street seem to just that — words.

From Pajamas Media:

The ability to start a small business and grow it into a much larger enterprise is the greatest wealth creation opportunity in America. Studies have shown that 2/3 of all millionaires are small business owners.  Entrepreneurs and their children and grandchildren make up almost the entire Forbes 400 list of richest Americans.

If small businesses are the economic engine that creates jobs, builds wealth, and makes the American dream possible, then naturally our new president plans to support and rely upon them and give them everything they need to pull us out of the economic slump, right?  Well, no.

Small businesses are facing the most hostile climate in a generation, and it is not just the slumping economy and credit crunch.  With the quiet scrapping of the $3,000 job creation tax credit — which was “never set in stone” according to a senior Obama adviser -  there is no more small business tax relief on the horizon.

And what about that tax cut stimulus that seemed to offer us some hope?  From James Pethokoukis of US News:

But when Republicans meekly suggested cutting the lower two marginal income tax rates, they got a presidential reply of “suck eggs.” (Well, more or less.) Heck, economic adviser Larry Summers seemed positively eager on Meet the Press yesterday to eliminate the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts (for everyone it seemed) as soon as the economy shows even the faintest pulse: “I don’t think there’s any question they have to be repealed. The country can’t afford them for the long run. … As soon as the economy recovers we are going to have to find ways of getting the government’s finances under some kind of control.”

Yeah, let’s raise taxes right as the Fed is yanking away all of its monetary stimulus. Can anyone say double-dip recession?

I am beginning to think all those economists predicting a turnaround beginning the second half of 2009 may be whistling past the grave yard.

 

The “Not So Entrepreneurial” Generation?

The millennial generation is, as they say, an enigma wrapped inside of a contradiction.

In a column at Forbes, Dr. Steven Berglas wonders about the entrepreneurial mettle of those born from the 1980s to the 1990s:

I admit I harbor some concerns about the country’s evolving entrepreneurial ego. Joseph Schumpeter, the famous economist who coined the term “creative destruction” and likened entrepreneurs to nothing less than “heroic” innovators, believed that self-made men and women possessed a “rugged individualism” and a “will to conquer”–not exactly millennial DNA.

I think what we have to get used to is that they are redefining what entrepreneurship is all about.  To them, it is not simply a ticket to unimaginable riches. 

When I talk to students about why they want to be entrepreneurs, the answer “to become the richest person in town” does not come up like it did back when I was teaching Gen X-ers.

They are using entrepreneurship as not just an economic tool, and not just a social tool as we see with their fascination with Social Entrepreneurship, but as a cultural tool.

I go back to a comment one of my students posted at this blog a few years ago:

My generation is really focused on keeping family first, even before career. Some say that this is because we watched so many baby boomers screw this whole family thing up. My take on it is that because the baby boomers sometimes grew up wanting, they determined in their minds that their families would want for nothing. Unfortunately, my generation has all they want, but grew up with workaholic parents who were absent in their lives. I believe we’re searching to find that balance between family and career.

And they view entrepreneurship as the path to help them rebuild what they see as a damaged culture.

Paul Orfalea, Founder of Kinko’s, succinctly summed up this viewpoint when asked shortly after selling to FedEx about his biggest success:

“Success in life is having kids who want to come back to visit your when they’ve grown up.”

Berglas ends his essay as follows: 

My prediction: The best and brightest millennials will combine missionary zeal, hardcore management skills and Silicon Valley-style creativity to attack social ills. Will that recipe lead to serious overall wealth creation, even if piles of money aren’t the stated goal? I think so, though the paradigm shift will take some time.

A paradigm shift indeed!

Today’s young entrepreneurs are telling us that “this is not their father’s entrepreneurship.”