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Russ: Good morning. This is The BusinessMakers Show, heard here and online at thebusinessmakers.com, and this is that show about the business builders. This is that show about those that aren't even applying for bailout money right now.
John: I know, but they're going to be the ones paying for it, and it's going to be a very interesting experience and experiment to see the producers of the country being, I would say, penalized because of their success so their money can be transferred to the nonproducers.
Russ: Yeah.
John: This is Atlas Shrugged, by the way, we're living through right now.
Russ: Yeah, and these guys aren't even getting any attention, you know? The bailout guys get it, even kind of the re-bailout guys.
John: Yeah, the failures get it.
Russ: Yeah.
John: They get all this publicity and all the money.
Russ: The re-defaulters get it.
John: It's a transfer of wealth from the successful businesses to the nonsuccessful.
Russ: That's right, that's right. With all these things cooking, it reminds me, remember when we had John Chaney on the show from PreCash and he was talking about visiting with the Minister of Fixed Assets in China?
John: Yeah, right. Well, there you go. I'll tell you, we need a Minister of Fixed Assets.
Russ: That's right.
John: All right.
Russ: All right. But we've got an exciting lineup today.
John: There you go.
Russ: First up, a couple of weeks ago, the first ever Mom 2.0 Summit was held here in Houston at the Four Seasons, and Katie Laird is going to come in and talk about this very successful national event with the 2 hosts, the 2 very happening mompreneurs-Laura Mayes, the founder of Kirtsy, and Carrie Pacini, the founder of OpMom. And then for our Featured Guest segment, first up, we'll share my discussion with Guy Kawasaki, who was one of the keynotes at the Mom 2.0 Summit. Guy is pretty much known as Mr. Startup. And then we'll share Erica O'Grady's discussion with Lisa Stone, the founder of BlogHer, and then I'll be back with my discussion with Karen Walrond the founder of Chookooloonks. But first... That's right. It's time for the BusinessMakers School of Business. It's valuable information. It's infotainment for businesspeople.
John: That's right.
Russ: All right.
John: Okay.
Russ: And we kick it off each Saturday morning with the Quote of the Day.
John: Quote of the Day.
Russ: And all this talk about capitalism and socialism made me go after my favorite Winston Churchill quote. Here it is: "The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries."
John: That's right. Everybody's equally miserable.
Russ: All right. And that brings us to This Week in Business History. What do you have for us?
John: Well, down there in a buttonwood tree down there in Wall Street-
Russ: A buttonwood tree? I remember-
John: -the New York Stock Exchange is founded in 1817 This Week in Business History.
Russ: Reminds me of a year ago with your emphasis on the-
John: Buttonwood tree.
Russ: -buttonwood tree.
John: Okay. There you go.
Russ: All right.
John: All right. This Week in Business History in 1849, Abraham Lincoln applies for a patent. He's the only President of the United States to do so.
Russ: Wow. The only innovator we've had there.
John: That's right.
Russ: He applied for a patent? What was it for?
John: It was a device to help boats get over shoals-
Russ: Wow.
John: -if they became somewhat grounded. There were these air billows on the side of the ship, on the side of the boat under the waterline, and you'd pump air into it and it would raise the boat and get over the shoal. This Week in Business History in 1876, Alexander Graham Bell patents the telephone, and we covered that a couple weeks ago. He had a big fight with another person who claimed to invent the same-
Russ: Yeah, and this must be the week that he actually got the patent and won that argument.
John: They had a race to the patent office. Whoever got there first won.
Russ: And Alexander did it.
John: This Week in Business History in 1908, Cincinnati mayor Mark Breith stood before city council and announces that women are not physically fit to operate automobiles.
Russ: You gotta be kidding me.
John: I am not kidding. In1908. Now, he may have had a point-
Russ: You think?
John: -because the way cars started back in those days was a hand crank, and you had to be pretty strong to do that, I would think.
Russ: Well, I've gotta tell you, if you watch the women's pole vaulting events now in the Olympics, you would think-
John: But that's now. That's now.
Russ: Yeah, that's true.
John: This Week in Business History in 1931, the birth date of Rupert Murdoch, Australian publisher of the New York Post and Fox TV and now the Wall Street Journal.
Russ: He's doing pretty well, don't you think?
John: I guess so. I don't know how that investment in Dow Jones is turning out because print media, present company accepted, our American city business journals are-
Russ: Doing fine?
John: -have done pretty well over the period.
Russ: Good.
John: So we'll see.
Russ: You bet.
John: This Week in Business History in 1933, the game of Monopoly was invented. This by an entrepreneur who lived in Atlantic City, and that's why all those streets are named after streets in Atlantic City.
Russ: It's interesting that this was, in the midst of the Depression that somebody would come out with a game like that.
John: I wonder what game people are going to come out this time around. All right. This Week in Business History, same week that is, in 1933, FDR conducts his first fireside chat.
Russ: Wow.
John: You know, Joe Biden said he was on TV all the time back in those days.
Russ: Yeah, right.
John: Assuaging the trepidation people had.
Russ: Right. Before TV was invented.
John: Before TV was invented, yeah. Okay. This Week in Business History in 1950 is the birthday of Bobby McFerrin, singer of that song, "Don't Worry, Be Happy."
[Music: "Don't Worry, Be Happy"]
Russ: You know, I think we're going to have to listen to that a lot now.
John: Okay. This Week in Business History in 1950, General Motors reports net earnings of over 650 million bucks.
Russ: Wow.
John: The record profit.
Russ: I bet you they long for those days.
John: How the mighty have fallen.
Russ: Yes, no kidding.
John: Okay, but I think they're going to have another record. It'll be a record of bailout money.
Russ: Right, that they're setting right now probably.
John: I think they're setting right now, along with Chrysler. Ford, God bless them, are-
Russ: Yeah, they're doing okay. People need to start saying good things about Ford, man.
John: Well, their market share has increased a little bit every month for the past 5 or 6 months.
Russ: Yeah. Wow.
John: This Week in Business History in 1952, Ronald Reagan marries Nancy Davis who, of course, changed her name to Nancy Reagan after they got married.
[Music: "Going to the Chapel"]
John: This Week in Business History in 1953, an American B-47 accidentally drops a nuclear bomb on South Carolina but the bomb doesn't go off due to 6 safety catches.
Russ: Are you kidding me? This happened? Man, if it happened-
John: That's what it says here. Yeah.
Russ: If this happened now, man.
John: Yeah.
Russ: Even if it didn't explode into a nuclear mushroom cloud. Whoo.
John: Okay. This Week in Business History in 1959, Groucho, Chico, and Harpo Marx's final TV appearance together.
Russ: Ahh. Now, you were a big fan of Groucho, weren't you?
John: Yeah, Groucho was a pretty cool guy.
Russ: Yeah, he was.
John: Yeah. He smoked a cigar and had a big mustache.
Russ: Oh yeah.
John: Okay. This Week in Business History in 1965, the Beatles' "Eight Days a Week" single goes number 1 and stays there for 2 weeks.
[Music: "Eight Days a Week"]
Russ: "Eight Days a Week?" That's a good song for entrepreneurs though.
John: Yeah, I know. That's right. I never get tired of those Beatles' songs.
Russ: There you go.
John: Okay. This Week in Business History, Radio Hanoi broadcasts Jimi Hendrix's "Star Spangled Banner," another example of the entertainment business back in those days consorting with the enemy.
Russ: Now, do you think that maybe the Viet Cong was making fun of the national anthem by choosing that version?
John: If we come across a This Week in Business History where Jimi Hendrix repudiated Radio Hanoi broadcasting his song, then we'll cut him some slack.
Russ: Okay.
John: This Week in Business History in 1971, Rolling Stone Mick Jagger marries Bianca Perez Morena de Macias.
[Music: "Wild Horses"]
Russ: Yeah, that lasted a while, didn't it?
John: Yeah, but it fell apart without the horses. The horses had left the stable, and it fell apart on its own. Okay.
Russ: Okay.
John: Okay. This Week in Business History in 1983, IBM releases PC DOS Version 2.0 and then 2 years later, IBM PC DOS Version 3.1, which was an update of the 2.0, was released.
Russ: Yeah, well, a lot going on back then because IBM's PC DOS was still made by Bill Gates and Microsoft, and that was sort of in the period of time where IBM was trying to come out with OS/2 and that's when Bill Gates just took over the world.
John: Okay. This Week in Business History in 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev replaces Konstantin Chernenko as Soviet leader.
Russ: I remember it well.
John: Now, Konstantin Chernenko only lasted about a year, but the mainstream media-you know-if they would've just covered this guy's resume, just put it in the paper. But interesting point in his life, he spent the 1930s writing propaganda to support Joseph Stalin's campaign to liquidate the Kulaks.
Russ: Wow.
John: These were wealthy Siberian peasant farmers. In 1941 he became head of the Krasnoyarsk Territorial Party Committee and then from '48 to '56 served as head of the Agitation and Propaganda Department of the Moldavian Republic.
Russ: Agitation and-
John: The Agitation-
Russ: -Propaganda Department?
John: He just went in there and agitated people.
Russ: "You're in charge of agitation from here on in."
John: But anyway, it just goes to show you, these were nasty people.
Russ: Yes, they were, man. Wow.
John: Okay. I mean, I don't care what you say about it.
Russ: Wow.
John: 1986, This Week in Business History, Microsoft has its initial public offering.
Russ: And that's been a pretty successful offering, that's true.
John: Okay. All right. This Week in Business History in 1974, the Supreme Court of the United States rules in Campbell vs. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc., that parodies of an original work are generally covered by the doctrine of fair use.
Russ: And that means that parodies are legal. Thank goodness. That's good.
John: Yeah, because if you can't make fun of stuff-
Russ: Yeah.
John: All right. This Week in Business History in 2000, the NASDAQ composite stock market index peaks at 5,132.52, signaling the beginning of the end of the dot com boom.
Russ: Wow, and that was real high.
John: Yeah.
Russ: What's it at today? Do you know? The NASDAQ?
John: The last I looked, I get the willies.
Russ: Yeah? What about the heebie-jeebies?
John: Well, no. I just get the willies because my healthcare plan covers the willies. It doesn't cover the heebie-jeebies.
Russ: Okay.
John: But I get the willies. I think it's around 1,000 now or something.
Russ: Oh, my God.
John: Ay, ay, ay.
Russ: But it was way up then, man.
John: Yeah, well, what goes up goes down and if free market forces would be allowed to play out in this whole thing, it would be going back up again, but who knows?
Russ: Yeah.
John: All right.
Russ: Great history lesson, though. Thank you.
John: Well, thank you.
Russ: Great, great job.
John: Okay. All right.
Russ: All right. And that brings us to our vocabulary lesson-
John: Oh yes.
Russ: -also known as Navigating Business Jargon.
John: It's a vocabulary test.
Russ: It is.
John: I mean, if you're going to go out there in the real world, you've got to know the talk out there.
Russ: You bet.
John: Yeah.
Russ: And the talk, genre verses, the new words, the new acronyms, the new techno-speak-
John: Or business speak.
Russ: I agree. And the way we do this is I get to say the word.
[Music: "The Word"]
Russ: And then John, who doesn't know the word, right?
John: I do not. I don't know the word.
Russ: He doesn't know the word.
John: And I don't even want to know the word.
Russ: That's right.
John: But I have to anyway because that's part of the show.
Russ: Yeah. And he uses all of his cognitive skills, his intellect, his vast vocabulary-
John: And luck.
Russ: -to guess the meaning of the word.
John: Sometimes I do it and sometimes I don't.
Russ: That's right. All right. And here's the word.
John: Okay.
Russ: First I'm going to give you the abbreviation. It is EMV.
John: EMV.
Russ: There's no way you could guess it, so I'm going to tell you-
John: Empire of Motor Vehicles.
Russ: No. I'm going to tell you more. EMV stands for Email Voice.
John: Email Voice.
Russ: Email Voice. What do you think that means in jargon speak?
John: Email Voice. I think it's when you talk to somebody but you talk in, like, email type syntax and sentence structure.
Russ: I'm sorry. We've got a loser today. You were headed in the direction at first. It's the tone of a person's voice on the phone that signals he or she is reading his email instead of listening to you.
John: Oh, I do that all the time.
Russ: I know you do.
John: My wife asks me, "Are you reading your-are you looking at the computer?"
Russ: That's right. That's called an EMV, your Email Voice.
John: My Email Voice.
Russ: You bet.
John: That's a good one. I like that one.
Russ: Yeah, it is. Okay. We'll put a little asterisk on that one.
John: That's like duck shuffling.
Russ: That is.
John: It's up there with my favorite. Okay.
Russ: Duck shuffling is a great one. Okay. And that brings us to Dumbest Moments in Business. Do you have a story for us this morning?
John: Well, Russ, you know that every neighborhood, every town, every community has a common problem. I don't care where it is. Even in Antarctica I'm sure they have this problem.
Russ: And what's that?
John: That's dog poop.
Russ: Oh.
John: Okay, walking your dog, the dog poops, letting your dog run loose-
Russ: Particularly in the cities, man.
John: -in public areas, in the cities like Manhattan. I mean, goodness gracious.
Russ: Yeah, you're supposed to clean up, right?
John: Yeah. Well, there's a German politician that has a solution.
Russ: All right.
John: The guy's name is Peter Stein. He is a conservative politician in Eastern Europe, and he's told the press about his proposal that they would collect a DNA database of all the pooches.
Russ: You make a database?
John: Yeah, you make a database and what you do if there's some stray poop somewhere, they'll have a way of taking a poop sample and matching the DNA of the poop against the DNA of the pooch.
Russ: You gotta be kidding.
John: If the pooch matches the poop, okay, the dog owners are fined 30 to 40 Euros-that's about 40 or 50 bucks.
Russ: Yeah. Maybe this guy's an innovator, you know.
John: I know.
Russ: Yeah. He's going to go out there and they're going to test dog poop, the DNA, and match it against the database.
John: It's called the Pooch Poop DNA Plan.
Russ: Great story.
John: Okay?
Russ: I think it qualifies-
John: How would you like to be the guy going out there or the woman or the kid collecting dog poop DNA?
Russ: I know, man.
John: It would be like a Law & Order episode.
Russ: All right. Great story.
John: All right.
Russ: All right, and before we wrap up the School of Business this morning, it's time for that very popular PKF Texas Entrepreneur's Playbook, so let's welcome Greg Price on the piano.
John: There's Greg. Come on in, Greg. Have a seat.
Russ and John: A one and a two and a-
[PKF Entrepreneurs Playbook]
Russ: And that wraps up this morning's School of Business. You're listening to The BusinessMakers Show, heard here and online at thebusinessmakers.com.