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In Part I of To Be (or not to be), I mentioned the lifestyle issues that plague students when considering the entrepreneur's path, and the daunting, binary decision-making that business students can fall prey to.  In Part II, I wanted to mention the kinds of academic support our students are encouraged to accept.

The core courses of an entrepreneurship curriculum include topics on innovation, market assessment and feasibility, and business modeling and planning.  They are fundamentally about how to take an idea and advance it to a business opportunity: How to identify, test, and deploy an idea; how to take it from some stage of creative insight to something that is tangible and viable.  Entrepreneurship courses teach students how to do exactly that. 

How many people think they have an idea but have no clue what to do about it?  The world is filled with such people and a huge number of possibly excellent ideas lie dormant for lack of a basic understanding and the skills to act on them.  Those skills and the understanding of the critical thinking and assessment process that are required are critically important to start-up business ideas.  But the same skills are valuable in many organizations including emerging growth companies, established companies who are searching for new business opportunities or simply trying to be more innovative, and even to non-profit organizations. (As I mentioned in Part I, this is often called "Intrapreneurship.")

These courses, especially the feasibility analysis and business planning courses also add another dimension to a business education.  Business planning requires the integration of every aspect of business. It requires a financial plan, a marketing plan, a strategy, the identification of required management skills and an operations plan - and further the integration of all of these different business disciplines.  Students go through many business programs without every understanding the value of that integrative process - the bigger picture.

The process of starting with an idea, analyzing it, organizing a plan for building a business around it and then being able to organize their vision into a business model and being able to articulate it and present it to potential investors is a fundamentally valuable experience.

During the course of my interactions with the wide range of people I meet here on campus and elsewhere, the conversation often turns to the subject of social entrepreneurship. These conversations are usually lively and make for a feel-good interaction, but I'm still asked from time to time: What is a social entrepreneur anyway? 

Social Entrepreneurship, Defined

According to Ashoka.org--the global association of the world's leading social entrepreneurs--"social entrepreneurs are individuals with innovative solutions to society's most pressing social problems."

Wikipedia calls a social entrepreneur "someone who recognizes a social problem and uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create, and manage a venture to make social change."

While social entrepreneurship isn't a new concept, it has gained renewed traction in a world characterized by a growing divide between freedom and servitude. With this heightened awareness, entrepreneurs are defining and distinguishing themselves from others by considering change as currency. And here we are, at the forefront of social entrepreneurship's latest round of reinvention; interest is exploding among students on college campuses today.  

Social Entrepreneurship On Campus

The Deming Center and Leeds School are very involved in social entrepreneurship through curriculum, particularly as part of our Center for Education in Social Responsibility (CESR).  

The Deming Center participates in SEED @ CU, an organization that started as a funded research project to explore the dynamics and impact of social entrepreneurs in the development of sustainable communities. That interdisciplinary effort has now taken on many roles as a convergence of interest in social entrepreneurship is evolving and with the selection of CU Boulder as an Ashoka ChangeMaker Campus.

And there's now a self-organized student group for social entrepreneurship.

Social Entrepreneurship In Denver/Boulder

 During the 2nd Annual Entrepreneurship Day in the fall of 2008, we heard a presentation by Pete Kellner about Endeavor, the organization he co-founded, which has supported funding for almost 500 social entrepreneurs for close to 300 companies. That meant the creation of over 100,000 jobs.

More recently, in Boulder, we have another wonderful example of an organization created to raise funding for social entrepreneurs: The TouchPoint Trust Group, founded by Casey Verbeck and colleagues. 

One of the most exciting new organizations to be launched in Boulder is The Unreasonable Institute.  Through a wonderfully creative model, the Unreasonable Institute has raised funding to sponsor 25 social entrepreneurs from 17 countries to attend a 10 week intensive summer incubator program.  It will be a 24x7 live-in intensive experience with over 50 mentors and the opportunity to develop amazing networks.  The founders of the Institute are all recent graduates of CU Boulder; the network of mentors, the creativity of their model, and the nature and quality of the social entrepreneurs that were selected for this summer's Unreasonable Institute--their first--are truly extraordinary.

We welcome, as always, your thoughts and observations about this topic, and encourage you to share your experiences with us, either in person, or online. 

To learn more about the Unreasonable Institute, watch episode one of Unreasonable TV.

Something happened on the way to April.  We're all familiar with Malcolm Gladwell's book, "Blink".  I must have blinked as I came to the blinding realization that the spring semester is coming to an end.  This being the last week of classes for our MBA students with finals and project presentations next week, I'd like to take stock of just a few of the remarkable accomplishments and stories of progress that occurred during the past 3 months.

One of our greatest assets is the approachability and engagement of Boulder's entrepreneurial business community.  That characteristic of Boulder offers one of the greatest values outside of the classroom that we can offer to our students - but only if the students make the effort to take advantage of it.  Great evidence of how that is thriving at the Deming Center and Leeds School is showcased by various student groups.

We've had a number of Deming Center connected student groups.  They form for many purposes, but most prominently to create points of connection between groups of our students with shared interests and with members of/and organizations within our business community.  Here's a brief summary of some of our leading groups, including a number that are quite new - some having started late in the fall semester but all achieving meaningful traction in this current semester.  This is a summary - more will be coming on each of these as they move forward.

•    GEA (Graduate Entrepreneur's Association) - the Deming Center has sponsored and supported this group for several years.  Never have they had such an active and successful year with Learn-from-the-Best sessions, ideation sessions, and the GEA annual entrepreneurship retreat.  
•    Organics Student Group - this self organized group is the center of gravity for the Deming Center's Organics Business Initiative and has developed a great working relationship with Naturally Boulder
•    CU Energy Club - this group was launched by a group of Leeds School MBA students who immediately set out to create a full campus, inter-disciplinary organization, and now numbers over 500 members from all across the CU Campus. Trent Yang of the Deming Center, who serves as Director, Entrepreneurship and Business Development for RASEI  has been advising this student group in fostering connections with students and researchers around campus, and with entrepreneurs, investors and business leaders in the exploding cleantech industry.
•    Social Entrepreneurship Student group - this is a group of graduate and undergraduate students from the Leeds School, working with students from throughout the campus and all sharing a passion for social entrepreneurship.  The Deming Center and Leeds faculty have been collaborating on research and development of curriculum and programs, particularly though our relationship with SEED@CU; with CU Boulder's recent selection as an ASHOKA ChangeMaker campus, our students have become particularly involved with the program.
•    MBA Biotech Club - this group self-organized during the spring semester, and has already had several meetings with industry business leaders. Further, its work with our colleagues in the Colorado Initiative for Molecular Biology (CIMB)  has already expanded to include Ph.D. Science students from CU Boulder and from Fitzsimmons.
•    Outdoor Industry Student Group - having laid the ground work very thoroughly since last semester, this group has hit the ground running with approximately 40 members and great industry connections, especially with the Outdoor Industry Association  and the ActiveBoulder Business Cluster (supported by the Boulder Chamber.)
•    The Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization - led by undergraduate business students committed to the entrepreneurial spirit, this group is open to all CU-Boulder undergraduate students.  CEO's focus is to provide an environment in which students can meet to share ideas, forge new friendships, and develop business skills. The organization, with insight from local business community leaders, strives to promote an environment conducive to brainstorming and new-venture creation. Members learn skills necessary to intelligently develop their own business. Through a series of guest speakers, roundtable discussions, and social and networking events, students have an opportunity to meet and learn from local entrepreneurs and community business leaders.

Of course, there's more. Our developing collaboration with Colorado Initiative in Molecular Biotechnology, our recently re-launched Deming Center Venture Fund, the increasing number of students involved with TechStars and their startup companies,  the success of this year's Venture Capital Investment Challenge team, the success of our March Sustainable Opportunities Summit and Cleantech Venture Challenge, and all that is going on with our role in the Renewable And Sustainable Energy Institute immediately come to mind. Not to mention that I'm sure I'm missing some things among my growing lists of other activities and progress that have come to pass this semester. What's most important is acknowledging and saying thanks to the organizations and individuals that make these student activities so valuable. Thanks, too, to our students who see the opportunities and take the initiative to make them happen.  It's been a great year.
 

As interest grows and investment increases in support of the energy sector, a growing number of business leaders have expressed interest in gaining a better understanding of the technologies, markets and opportunities that exist--and lie ahead.

The Deming Center is now offering a four-day certificate program, known as RETool, that provides an in-depth look at all of these topics and more.  RETool addresses questions such as:

•    Which technologies are the most promising and in what time frames?
•    What is changing with costs and pricing of alternative energy sources?
•    What are some of the main challenges with the different technologies and in different sectors of the industry?

That, and a myriad of other topics pertaining to policies, market demographics, and geographical considerations - are included in the curriculum.

The program was created by and is led by our own Steve Lawrence, Professor and Chair of the Management and Entrepreneurship Division of the Leeds School of Business and Paul Komor, who is a lecturer in the Environmental Studies Department, and also a researcher, author, business advisor, and the Energy Education Director for RASEI (Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute).

The energy industry is undergoing a transformation, the complexities and scale of which are  almost unimaginable. ReTool provides a terrific opportunity for people to substantially advance their understanding of this emerging industry. We're proud to offer it to the community and our colleagues in the energy sector and beyond. 

Learn more about RETool.

During one of my first entrepreneurial experiences - as part of the management team of an early stage software company - a group of us was sitting around late one night at the end of a challenging day.  One of the guys observed that everyone in the room had left a much larger company to join our relatively small one for similar reasons - to escape the policy and procedures, the layers of management, and with a personal desire to have a bigger, direct impact on a business. And yet we had just spent the better part of a couple of days attempting to draw from those prior experiences in order to implement many of those same processes into our new business!  We all realized that it had become necessary to bring some order to what had become a pretty chaotic situation. 

I frequently encounter misperceptions, or myths as I call them, about entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial environments.  Among them that entrepreneurship is narrowly defined, that it's about only small companies, and that in education it is somehow a lesser business skill than the traditional disciplines of business - finance, accounting, management and strategy.  I call one of these myths the "Big Bang Theory" - that it's all about finding the big idea and that the idea alone will create the success.   That oversimplified perspective ignores the hard work and tenacity that are required for entrepreneurial success.   I've also experienced a corollary to that view during a discussion with a Leeds MBA student.  The student expressed his amazement at the creative entrepreneurial energy that he'd observed since joining our program at the Leeds Business School.  But he was about to disqualify himself from pursuing an entrepreneurial career because he felt that he lacked "the big idea."   These misperceptions can cast a negative view on the perceived value of an entrepreneurship education and how a curriculum that emphasizes entrepreneurship can have broadly applied value.

I recently had a conversation with a group of Leeds MBA students about these topics - about the fundamental importance, value and applicability of entrepreneurial skills.  The process of building an entrepreneurial company --startup or emerging growth-- requires the application of all business skills in what I would describe as the most difficult management environment - one that is undercapitalized, rapidly changing, unpredictable and often seemingly chaotic.  To succeed in such environments, entrepreneurial businesses must have the best talent - the best financial skills, the best marketing skills, and the best strategic selling skills.  These companies can't afford to compromise because they have so little margin of error.  The key is that the members of an entrepreneurial team not only have those specific skills but that they can apply them in such a challenging environment.

At the end of the day, entrepreneurship is still about basic business and management fundamentals - just applied in a demanding, challenging, innovative and highly rewarding environment.  That's a great combination to strive for in any business career.

Earlier this week I attended the first fall Learn from the Best (LFTB) speaker event hosted by the Graduate Entrepreneurs Association (GEA). Thanks to Tim Falls and Jay Wilson for pulling it together - great event, great speaker guests (more in a moment) and great student participation. Standing room only and Tim and Jay finally had to ring the bell to bring the event to a close.

Thanks to Ari Newman, founder and president of FiltrBox, and Eric Marcoullier, co-founder and CEO of Gnip. After brief background and introductory comments from Ari and Eric the floor was opened to students and the questions were non-stop. Ari and Eric were great and very open and transparent about sharing their personal experiences, details of challenges they'd faced, decisions and hurdles they'd had to meet specific to their current and past businesses.

Here were some of my key takeaways. I want to give attribution to Ari and Eric for some great insights - but the attempt to encapsulate them reflects my own words.

Throughout their comments they both stressed the critical importance of listening to customers. When asked about his most valuable resource in building his businesses, Ari stated that it has for years been his network of personal trusted advisers. Eric agreed and offered another perspective - talking about the need for both passion and clarity - that without passion a new business doesn't have a chance, but without clarity (aka reality checks) passion can also get a business into irretrievable trouble.

At the Deming Center we stress that domain expertise is critical; that many great new business ideas don't come from the blinding disruptive insight but rather from new ways of solving old problems. Eric summed that up roughly as "The best way to solve a pain (fill a need) is to have deeply experienced that pain yourself. In other words - become very competent in your domain."

I look forward to the next LFTB session!

This time of year is always exciting at the Deming Center as we invite fresh faces into the Leeds entrepreneurial community. Recently I met the new MBA students - the Class of 2011.

Every time I welcome a new group of MBAs I feel reinvigorated about what the Deming Center does for our students to facilitate opportunities and create access to the entrepreneurial community. We have the good fortune of being in Boulder, which has extraordinary entrepreneurial resources. We do the best we can to leverage our contacts to benefit students, and year after year we find that the benefit goes both ways.

Many of our new MBAs have come to Leeds specifically because of our reputation in entrepreneurship studies. At Deming we offer a broad philosophy and approach to entrepreneurial education - we believe it's a capstone and adds value to every student's business education. We give students skills that enable them to integrate all of what they learn in the traditional business curriculum, and that are applicable in any business setting. I've talked to a lot of colleagues and members of the business community and described the view we take, and I've never had one tell me, "No, we wouldn't want a student with those skills."

For instance, in feasibility and market analysis courses we walk students through a very rigorous creative and analytical process so they know how to identify and validate true product or business opportunities. The Business Plan course shows students how to integrate everything they've learned around marketing, finance and strategy in order to take an idea to fruition. We give students the opportunity to articulate their ideas in front of seasoned entrepreneurs and investors, and to benefit from feedback from people who have actually created companies.

I think of that as a capstone to a business education - an experience that ties together all of elements of business. You can go through business education and never have these experiences unless you take entrepreneurship courses.

While we have some great stories about students who have graduated from Leeds and started their own highly successful ventures, we don't gauge the success of our entrepreneurial program on whether our graduates go out and start companies. We position our students to go out and build industry sector expertise and their professional networks so that when they want to start their own venture, or are invited to join a start-up team, they'll be ready when the great idea comes along -- whether it's the day they walk out of this program or 15 years later.

I feel incredibly enthusiastic about launching into another year of cultivating the future business leaders and entrepreneurs at the Leeds Business School. I also look forward to using this new blog to keep our friends and partners updated on the most current happenings here at the Deming Center! Stay in touch and let me know what you'd like to hear more about.