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Russ: This is the BusinessMakers Show, heard here and online at thebusinessmakers.com. And now it's time for the Aflac BusinessMakers flashback, brought to you by Aflac. Ask about it at work. And for this morning's flashback, we're just going to roll back to earlier this week when I was on the campus of Texas State University where I visited with Dr. Bob Hill from the McCoy School of Business Management. And Bob is heading up the launching of the Center for Entrepreneurial Action at Texas State University. We enter the discussion where I ask Bob, "What is the status of teaching entrepreneurship at Texas State these days?
Bob: Today, we have a real good focus on entrepreneurship. We have the courses in place that we can walk people through the basics of entrepreneurship. We have courses starting from the first one with the undergraduate, which is a very popular one, where we have speakers, really well known speakers, who are very successful entrepreneurs who come in once a week. They get to learn a bit from some of the tumbles and the high spots of those people. They get to actually meet them when they show up for the receptions before and after. And then they go on after that through a process of really working on business planning, and then ultimately they launch a business of some sort in the final course, the fourth course at the undergraduate level. At the graduate level, we've got four courses that go under that. They have basic entrepreneurship course. The have a course in managing creativity and innovation and there is a course deal with project, with local business essentially as consultants, and then you get back to the course where they're actually expected to launch a business.
Russ: Okay, well it sounds like you have a pretty in-motion program existing today, correct?
Bob: That's true.
Russ: So when you ratchet it up a notch by implementing the Center for Entrepreneurial Action, what additional well will they be able to experience and learn?
Bob: We think we're doing pretty well at Texas State, but we want to take it up to another level. We want to have more opportunities for them to do real hands-on work. We want to be able to reach more people, and we also want to reach across campus in this process. And the key part, again, is connection with the community. But we need an additional network out there to locate really good projects for them to do such that there's actually a market where people are coming and trying to get our students to work on them. And the other thing is that the launch class itself where they're supposed to launch a business. With the additional support of having the Center for Entrepreneurial Action, we'll be able to make those more meaningful things that we do see people carrying after here. We're quite fortunate that the good people at Ozona National Bank gave us a fairly nice amount of money to use as seed capital, but we're going to build a venture fund that's somewhat larger so that people can dream a little larger in what they try to do.
Russ: Cool. Well now I know, Bob, that you've got other academic experience and entrepreneurship programs. Share with us a little bit about that. We find that to be real interesting on The BusinessMakers Show.
Bob: My intro into teaching entrepreneurship was kind of an offhand one. My first job offer, when I got out of PhD. Program, was at the University of Illinois. I thought I was a strategic management person, and that was what I thought I was interviewing for, but while I was there, they asked me if I'd be willing to teach this entrepreneurship stuff. But the conversation went on, and I realized that they'd seen my full resume, and that I'd once had my own business, and I'd done some stuff in new ventures, published some stuff in that area. So they thought that I would be a fit and so I said, well, sure. They got books on this, and they assured me that there were. Well I basically backed into one of the most wonderful things in the world. I wouldn't trade what I get to do for anything. But that got me started and there at University of Illinois we had one course, one course only, in entrepreneurship. The interesting thing was it was open to anyone across campus. You didn't have to be part of the business school. You could be an undergrad, you could be a PhD. student. And we had some wild teams in there, and very often it was the case that the ideas came from somebody over in the arts or something and maybe someone with a PhD in designs working with a group of undergrads. That was a good education for me. And it was one that I carried with me when I went on to teach in the University of Houston, where I was for 10 years, teaching entrepreneurship, and one of the directors of a tech center there on campus, Alex Exnotiev, came over to the business school looking for help. They were getting funding from NASA, and they were supposed to be coming up with commercial applications in space and said, you know, we're doing real good on this research stuff and maybe some on the development, but we really haven't gotten this commercialization stuff. And so I offered to a group of MBAs one semester the opportunity to rather than doing the normal business plan do a feasibility analysis or a business plan for one of the technologies being developed within their labs. And more than half the class wanted to go with those, and that worked so well, we started doing it more and more. Eventually, we created a new course. And then with significant support from the Shell Foundation, we ramped it up, and we made a full campus interdisciplinary effort where we would have student groups-now the job of each team was to take technology at that point and advance it.It was a very exciting program, and I never thought I would leave until I was offered an endowed share out at Fresno State. And basically, sort of like James Bond's License to Kill, just a license to go out there and do anything in entrepreneurship, and I teamed up with a guy named Tim Sterns who actually got their program started there and had been a friend for awhile. We did all kinds of programs, both for community and with the students. So I've learned a lot along the way from this stuff. One of the biggest things I think I learned is that no one has a crystal ball, at least I have no crystal ball on what works.
Russ: Well we know for a fact at The BusinessMakers Show that no one has it, but passion and execution and a good idea can come together and really make a difference.
Bob: Sometimes a bad idea.
Russ: Well that's true.
Bob: Quick vignette. While at Illinois, these two guys I thought they should have been slapped for this. It was called "cheesecake on a stick." And I said that is disgusting, nobody's going to want that. But you know, they proved me wrong by getting help and developing it and finding a factory where they had spare capacity. They made some for free, gave them out and got feed back. Went back and forth and the next thing you know they are selling product with Southland Co.
Russ: Wow! That's one of your students from Illinois?
Bob: Two of the students.
Russ: Wow, that's cool.
Bob: And again with an idea, and I am sorry it was a bad one.
Russ: And that wraps up our discussion with Dr. Bob Hill of the McCoy College of Business Administration at Texas State University. And that concludes the Aflac BusinessMakers flashback, brought to you by Aflac. Ask about it at work. And now it's time for another advantage point. So let's welcome Katie Laird.
Katie: This is Katie Laird with another advantage point providing upgrade advice for turning your small business into a not-so-small business. Green is the color of the year with headlines everywhere about companies getting eco-friendly. While it's great karma to be earth conscious, it's also good to know about the financial impact going green can have on your business. So let's take a look at some very simple ways you can decrease your footprint and increase your profitability all at the same time. Start easy by going back to basics in your office kitchen. Hold off on those Styrofoam cups and plastic utensils and opt for a few sets of inexspensible reusable coffee cups, dishware and silverware sets for guests and employees. Take a look at what your company is throwing away like ink cartridges, used computer equipment and old cell phones. Not only can you recycle all of these, you can often make money through websites like freerecycling.com that even offer free shipping to their facilities. For in-house printing, consider encouraging employees to print double sided and use old printouts for scrap paper and notes. Cut down on further paper clutter by sending electronic newsletters and even posting brochures and agendas online as PDF files, giving participants the ability to print if they need to but saving some beautiful trees in the process. If you'd like to take your green endeavors one step further, considering offering incentives for your employees to carpool. Some companies are also testing out remote work days and 4-day workweeks to cut down on electricity and air conditioning usage, often saving tens of thousands of dollars a year. One last thought-have you ever left a conference with armfuls of t-shirts and other swag that end up in a trash can? Try organizing a donation booth at an upcoming even to let people unload their unwanted conference goodies which can then be donated to charity. This could be significantly cheaper than setting up a traditional expo booth and will also be a memorable way to connect to your community. To read and comment on this advantage point, visit us online at thebusinessmakers.com website.
Russ: You're listening to The BusinessMakers Show, heard here and online at thebusinessmakers.com.