Sunday, October 14, 2012
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Bringing Innovation to the Ivory Tower
Here is my blog that appeared today in the Huffington Post:
A college campus should be an exciting interface between the academic and the real world, an institution at the cutting edge of social and technological change, an incubator for new ideas. We’re educating our students for the future…and many of our graduates will have careers that we couldn’t have imagined during our college days. To prepare them for a rapidly-changing world, we have to stay ahead of the curve.
If we expect our graduates to be leaders and innovators, then we need to model that by finding cutting edge real world opportunities to bring back to our campuses. We have to take learning beyond the classroom and give our students the chance to put theory to work.
The bad news? It’s not easy, it means shaking up the old “but that’s the way we’ve always done it.” The good news is that it’s fun, exciting, empowering and satisfying. If you are passionate, dedicated and creative, these opportunities can be found anywhere, even in your hometown!
Lynn University just finished a great student project with a hot tech startup, because the president of our school grew up in Boca Raton, home of the university, and happened to be friends with an entrepreneur with an interesting idea.
Sidebar: What many may not know is that this would not be the first new idea for our town or Lynn for that matter. Boca Raton was birth place of IBMs PC, in fact Lynn is across the street from where it was built and helped test the prototype keyboards. And Boca continues to be a fertile place for new ideas.
The idea our president heard about was a new venture called Voispot, and he was intrigued with the potential for a link to the university. Did he have an instant plan? No, but he saw possibilities…and he acted. There was no committee—just a quick email inviting the company’s founders, local business people, and campus leadership to a brainstorming session.
From that first meeting, we made the development and launch of Voispot a get-your-hands-dirty project for an MBA class, and our students worked with the founders to learn first-hand what it means to start a real-world business on the forefront of technology. Voispot is a brand new social talk platform that allows people to have group conversations about common interests. Voispot is a free, cloud-based, mobile app where users can speak, listen, ask questions, and engage in discussions using voice (no typing or texting needed) in real-time. The technology allows organized conversations with a virtually limitless number of people—think of the digital version of an audience participation panel event, except your audience is not limited by the number of seats.
Too often we’re accused of sitting in our ivory towers, out-of-touch and out-of-date. And, yeah, sometimes it’s true. But it doesn’t have to be. The “ivory tower” gives us access to the best and brightest, and can give us a vantage point that allows us scan the horizon, always searching for the newest and best educational experiences for our students. It’s about fostering a culture of innovation on our campuses, and it can begin in small ways but can make a big difference!
A college campus should be an exciting interface between the academic and the real world, an institution at the cutting edge of social and technological change, an incubator for new ideas. We’re educating our students for the future…and many of our graduates will have careers that we couldn’t have imagined during our college days. To prepare them for a rapidly-changing world, we have to stay ahead of the curve.
If we expect our graduates to be leaders and innovators, then we need to model that by finding cutting edge real world opportunities to bring back to our campuses. We have to take learning beyond the classroom and give our students the chance to put theory to work.
The bad news? It’s not easy, it means shaking up the old “but that’s the way we’ve always done it.” The good news is that it’s fun, exciting, empowering and satisfying. If you are passionate, dedicated and creative, these opportunities can be found anywhere, even in your hometown!
Lynn University just finished a great student project with a hot tech startup, because the president of our school grew up in Boca Raton, home of the university, and happened to be friends with an entrepreneur with an interesting idea.
Sidebar: What many may not know is that this would not be the first new idea for our town or Lynn for that matter. Boca Raton was birth place of IBMs PC, in fact Lynn is across the street from where it was built and helped test the prototype keyboards. And Boca continues to be a fertile place for new ideas.
The idea our president heard about was a new venture called Voispot, and he was intrigued with the potential for a link to the university. Did he have an instant plan? No, but he saw possibilities…and he acted. There was no committee—just a quick email inviting the company’s founders, local business people, and campus leadership to a brainstorming session.
From that first meeting, we made the development and launch of Voispot a get-your-hands-dirty project for an MBA class, and our students worked with the founders to learn first-hand what it means to start a real-world business on the forefront of technology. Voispot is a brand new social talk platform that allows people to have group conversations about common interests. Voispot is a free, cloud-based, mobile app where users can speak, listen, ask questions, and engage in discussions using voice (no typing or texting needed) in real-time. The technology allows organized conversations with a virtually limitless number of people—think of the digital version of an audience participation panel event, except your audience is not limited by the number of seats.
Too often we’re accused of sitting in our ivory towers, out-of-touch and out-of-date. And, yeah, sometimes it’s true. But it doesn’t have to be. The “ivory tower” gives us access to the best and brightest, and can give us a vantage point that allows us scan the horizon, always searching for the newest and best educational experiences for our students. It’s about fostering a culture of innovation on our campuses, and it can begin in small ways but can make a big difference!
Monday, August 6, 2012
A Chef, Some Vodka and a Tweeting Teddy Bear
Some interesting articles from this weekend’s papers:
From the Sunday NY Times, an interesting article on developing a brand, especially when considering the incredible story of chef, Marcus Samuelsson. It’s a great story that tells of his incredible journey as a child in Ethiopia, to his adoption by Swedish parents, to Aquavit in NYC…to the development of his current restaurant Red Rooster. From the article:
The question for Mr. Samuelsson and other rising stars is how far and how fast they can push a personal brand. The more business ventures they start, the less they can personally control the quality. It is a quandary that any successful entrepreneur faces as a business grows.
“We constantly have to edit, curate, sift through our brand,” Mr. Samuelsson says. “Where is the stretch? Where is the perfect fit? Where does it make sense?”
An equally interesting piece about the evolution of a career by Tito Beveridge, the CEO of Tito’s Handmade Vodka. From the article:
I saw a motivational speaker on TV who suggested that people at a crossroads consider what they enjoy doing and what they’re good at doing — and to to find a job where the two intersect. I had been making infused vodka to give to friends at Christmas, and I really enjoyed that. I thought that was my answer.
First, I tried selling my infused vodka to liquor store owners. They said the market was too crowded, but that if I could make a smooth vodka that young women could drink straight, I’d have something. I asked how. They said they didn’t know, and told me to figure it out.
My friends and I built a shack, and I constructed a small still, boiler and copper condenser. I tried cooking potatoes, rye, sorghum, wheat and other bases for vodka and decided that I liked corn best. My science background was perfect for this field.
I found a distributor, invested all I had and took out 19 credit cards. I expanded the shack and the still as necessary and sold the first case in 1997. It took eight years to make a profit, so, to support myself, I also sold commercial mortgages. Last year, we sold more than 500,000 cases. We distribute in all 50 states and two Canadian provinces.
Fear of failure paralyzes some people when trying something new. As in sailing, you have to set your course — and it rarely follows a straight line.
And from Friday’s Wall Street Journal, the fascinating story, Twitter Goes to the Movies about the selling of the movie Ted along with success (and failure) of other movies thanks to social media. The marketing of Ted through twitter reminds me of the early days of Twitter when Sea World’s whale, Shamu, was an equally interestingly irreverant tweeter. From the article:
The teddy bear's first tweet, from an account called @WhatTedSaid set up by the Universal Pictures marketing department, was "Hello, Twitter. Kindly go f— yourself."
The author of the greeting was Alec Sulkin, co-screenwriter of the R-rated comedy "Ted," who together with his collaborator Wellesley Wild was paid extra by the studio to build buzz on social media ahead of the film's June 29 release. Who better to embody the random musings of a foul-mouthed stuffed animal than the writers of the script? The suits left them alone.
"The parameters were, 'Just go to town,' " says Doug Neil, Universal's senior vice president of digital marketing. The tweeting started March 30, two days before the "red band" (uncensored) trailer appeared online, depicting the namesake bear smoking weed, cuddling with co-star Mark Wahlberg and pantomiming suggestive acts for a supermarket checkout girl.
From the Sunday NY Times, an interesting article on developing a brand, especially when considering the incredible story of chef, Marcus Samuelsson. It’s a great story that tells of his incredible journey as a child in Ethiopia, to his adoption by Swedish parents, to Aquavit in NYC…to the development of his current restaurant Red Rooster. From the article:
The question for Mr. Samuelsson and other rising stars is how far and how fast they can push a personal brand. The more business ventures they start, the less they can personally control the quality. It is a quandary that any successful entrepreneur faces as a business grows.
“We constantly have to edit, curate, sift through our brand,” Mr. Samuelsson says. “Where is the stretch? Where is the perfect fit? Where does it make sense?”
An equally interesting piece about the evolution of a career by Tito Beveridge, the CEO of Tito’s Handmade Vodka. From the article:
I saw a motivational speaker on TV who suggested that people at a crossroads consider what they enjoy doing and what they’re good at doing — and to to find a job where the two intersect. I had been making infused vodka to give to friends at Christmas, and I really enjoyed that. I thought that was my answer.
First, I tried selling my infused vodka to liquor store owners. They said the market was too crowded, but that if I could make a smooth vodka that young women could drink straight, I’d have something. I asked how. They said they didn’t know, and told me to figure it out.
My friends and I built a shack, and I constructed a small still, boiler and copper condenser. I tried cooking potatoes, rye, sorghum, wheat and other bases for vodka and decided that I liked corn best. My science background was perfect for this field.
I found a distributor, invested all I had and took out 19 credit cards. I expanded the shack and the still as necessary and sold the first case in 1997. It took eight years to make a profit, so, to support myself, I also sold commercial mortgages. Last year, we sold more than 500,000 cases. We distribute in all 50 states and two Canadian provinces.
Fear of failure paralyzes some people when trying something new. As in sailing, you have to set your course — and it rarely follows a straight line.
And from Friday’s Wall Street Journal, the fascinating story, Twitter Goes to the Movies about the selling of the movie Ted along with success (and failure) of other movies thanks to social media. The marketing of Ted through twitter reminds me of the early days of Twitter when Sea World’s whale, Shamu, was an equally interestingly irreverant tweeter. From the article:
The teddy bear's first tweet, from an account called @WhatTedSaid set up by the Universal Pictures marketing department, was "Hello, Twitter. Kindly go f— yourself."
The author of the greeting was Alec Sulkin, co-screenwriter of the R-rated comedy "Ted," who together with his collaborator Wellesley Wild was paid extra by the studio to build buzz on social media ahead of the film's June 29 release. Who better to embody the random musings of a foul-mouthed stuffed animal than the writers of the script? The suits left them alone.
"The parameters were, 'Just go to town,' " says Doug Neil, Universal's senior vice president of digital marketing. The tweeting started March 30, two days before the "red band" (uncensored) trailer appeared online, depicting the namesake bear smoking weed, cuddling with co-star Mark Wahlberg and pantomiming suggestive acts for a supermarket checkout girl.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
That Devil Really is In the Details...
Over the last few years, I've been reading the NY Times blogs from entrepreneurs. While I've always enjoyed the articles, which are really dispatches from the front-lines of the entrepreneur's world, I particularly liked this post (from Jay Goltz, an entrepreneur who owns multiple businesses in Chicago)
as it really provides some interesting insights into what makes an entrepreneur a success. I'm not thrilled with the drill-instructor nature of his comments, but they still provide some insight into the focus on detail that needs to be a part of every start-up. Here is the post from Jay Goltz:
I recently had a conversation with a woman, Leah Rosch, who has been asking herself the kinds of questions that many business owners ask after a few years of struggling: Will this business ever make money? Do I have what it takes to succeed? Is it time to quit?
About six years ago, Ms. Rosch started a company called “What a Cookie!” It is an artisanal, decorated-cookie business, specializing in party favors — holidays, birthdays, corporate events — and gift arrangements. She told me that she had never owned a business before and has been “spiraling slowly downward” of late, ever since her accountant told her that her cookies were too labor-intensive to build a business around — one that will pay a living wage, in any case. As a last-ditch effort, she e-mailed me her “assessment for the future” along with some questions.
I have found that most people who start businesses are talented, passionate, and experienced at doing something, whether it’s writing software, cleaning houses, selling clothes or making cookies. If their businesses fail, the reasons generally have little to do with that talent, passion, or ability to make their product or provide their service. More often, the problems have more to do with marketing, management and finance, but they come disguised as a lack of cash, a lack of customers and a lack of good employees.
Because Ms. Rosch is struggling with the kinds of issues that many owners encounter, I wanted to share our exchange, and she graciously agreed. I hope the conversation, which has been condensed and edited, will be helpful to other owners facing similar problems.
Me: Your accountant is telling you what your financials say, and have been saying — that you can’t make money doing business the way you are doing business. That is just an accounting conclusion. Now you need an accounting solution, changing the business so that the numbers work.
Ms. Rosch: I understand about my accountant, but I think he’s looking at my bottom line the past several years and sees no significant income, and he figured he needed to warn me! Fact is, it’s hard not making any money, but easy — especially when the business is young — to get caught up in the mindset that money will come in eventually.
Me: I understand. My point is, you need to look at whether the business can be fixed. There is no question that continuing what you are doing is not going to all of a sudden start producing a profit. Let’s talk about your prices. Do you know your cost per cookie?
Ms. Rosch: I did a painstaking cost analysis several years ago and keep extrapolating upwards to keep up with costs. So now, with everything — ingredients, printed labels, cellophane bag, ribbon and labor per average one cookie — the real cost per cookie is about $2.25 per, for which we charge between $3.85 and $5.
Me: How did you figure how long it takes to decorate one cookie?
Ms. Rosch: We ballpark it at 10 cookies an hour, which is on the high side for the typical styles.
Me: Better to start high. What are you paying?
Ms. Rosch: Highest is $15 an hour to the top cookie decorator.
Me: Which means, with FICA, etc., it’s at least $16.50 an hour. So $16.50 divided by 10 per hour is $1.65, just for labor. Add in everything else, and it is probably costing you more than $3 per cookie. Which doesn’t leave you enough to cover your fixed costs.
Ms. Rosch: No wonder I am going broke!
Me: Exactly. That’s a rookie mistake. You’re underpricing to attract business — or at least not to discourage business — and you are not making any money. You need to stop this cold. There are three things you need to figure out: What does it really cost to make a cookie? What margin do you need? And how much do you need to live on, or what kind of profit do you need? For example — and let’s keep numbers easy for the sake of figuring this out — if you determine that you need to have a gross profit of $120,000 to cover your all of your fixed costs, including advertising and your salary, and your gross profit margin is 60 percent, you need to have sales of $200,000 per year.
Can you do that? Can you command a 60 percent margin, or more, selling specialty cookies to a corporate market? Can you make $200,000 worth of product out of your existing facility? That is $800 per day. That is a lot of cookies. My guess is that you can’t do this making a commodity product. You need to find a business model that works. These numbers are just examples, but is there a market for high-end specialty cookies?
Ms. Rosch: I don’t know. That’s what I’m trying to figure out! Maybe I need to change the direction of the company, streamline our offerings and better target the corporate crowd. For instance, I love the concept of creating highly custom corporate cookie gifts …
Me: I don’t want to know you’re in love with a concept — you need to be objective, but I like how that sounds. You need to sit down with a blank piece of paper and figure out how to build a business that would net you the money you need.
Ms. Rosch: I’ll try to figure out costs and stuff for this. But I’m not sure I can do the business as we’ve been doing it, producing this line. I think it would need volume …
Me: I think you keep this very high end. It’s corporate gifts — law firms, Realtors, all kinds of businesses need some novel thank-you gift to send clients. Who wouldn’t want a knockout really good tasting cookie with a clever saying? I’m talking, make one killer cookie that’s in a great box. It’s all about presentation.
Ms. Rosch: O.K., well, maybe. But I still have the whole thing about being out of my element running a business. For example, in the past year, I’ve gone through four cookie decorators. It’s exhausting to keep training people only to have them leave for a better-paying job.
Me: You’re not hiring the right people.
Ms. Rosch: So how do I hire the right people?
Me: How are you finding people?
Ms. Rosch: Ads on Craigslist, mostly. Because newspapers charge a minimum of $100 to run an ad for two weeks, which can add up to a small fortune, after a while.
Me: I don’t know … I think hiring the wrong person is what can really add up to a small fortune. My business has actually had some success with community newspapers. Are you requesting culinary degrees or experience?
Ms. Rosch: No, in fact we often do better with non-culinary types because we’re not “culinary” enough. Decorating cookies is more like a craft, so it’s often easier to train people with artistic ability. But it does help if someone has had some bakery work experience in that they get the production end of things — how to work efficiently. The decorator I just lost went to a private bakery where she’s getting $25 an hour, which of course I couldn’t begin to compete with. But she has worked in big production settings and so was helpful with setting up efficiency and prioritizing and speeding people along.
Me: Well, no reason you need to be paying $25 per hour. You need to look at who you are hiring. No offense, but this isn’t brain surgery. You don’t need someone with a college degree. You need to hire people who are good with their hands, and expect to get paid a production wage that will work for the business.
Ms. Rosch: I’m not looking for college degrees, but because it’s a small artisanal concept, I do think I need people I can communicate with. And if I’m paying less than a competitive rate, it’s like a quote-unquote sweat shop …
Me: Stop! Stop with these preconceived notions. Why is it a sweat shop? Will you have 60-hour work weeks? Bad working conditions? You certainly are not paying minimum wage. You need a paradigm shift. You need to hire people who need and want the job; they are less likely to leave if you treat them well. You told me that the other bakeries you have talked to have the same problem, finding and keeping employees. But I can tell you that talking to other people in your industry is like a self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s not where you get solutions; maybe commiseration, which can be useful in a different way. And if you want people to “communicate with,” make some friends! Look, every business has challenges and problems and puzzles, and you need to address each one. And just because you’ve tried something one or two ways with no success doesn’t mean the third way won’t work. Running a small business is puzzle-solving. I think you have the raw ingredients — if you can make the math work.
The bigger question: Are you willing to do what it takes? Or to put it another way, how bad do you want this?
Ms. Rosch: Well, I’m certainly willing to try to figure this out.
Me: There is no try! There is either do or not do. That’s from Yoda in Star Wars. Success is about your resolve and persistence — and, of course, whether there’s enough of a market for what you want to do. And again, some of the problems that you have been having, like not understanding your true costs, are common mistakes among rookies.
Ms. Rosch: How long is one a rookie? I’ve been at this for more than six years!
Me: In some ways, we’re all rookies if it’s a new venture or we’re targeting a new market. But you’ll stop being a rookie when you start learning from your mistakes and stop repeating them. In learning-business years, six years is not that long. Do everything you can to fix your problems before you decide to quit: cost accounting, a budget that works, a doable marketing plan, a better hiring and management strategy. You can do it. I think.
Here is a link to the story and the rest of the posts: http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/18/will-this-business-ever-make-money/?ref=business
.
as it really provides some interesting insights into what makes an entrepreneur a success. I'm not thrilled with the drill-instructor nature of his comments, but they still provide some insight into the focus on detail that needs to be a part of every start-up. Here is the post from Jay Goltz:
I recently had a conversation with a woman, Leah Rosch, who has been asking herself the kinds of questions that many business owners ask after a few years of struggling: Will this business ever make money? Do I have what it takes to succeed? Is it time to quit?
About six years ago, Ms. Rosch started a company called “What a Cookie!” It is an artisanal, decorated-cookie business, specializing in party favors — holidays, birthdays, corporate events — and gift arrangements. She told me that she had never owned a business before and has been “spiraling slowly downward” of late, ever since her accountant told her that her cookies were too labor-intensive to build a business around — one that will pay a living wage, in any case. As a last-ditch effort, she e-mailed me her “assessment for the future” along with some questions.
I have found that most people who start businesses are talented, passionate, and experienced at doing something, whether it’s writing software, cleaning houses, selling clothes or making cookies. If their businesses fail, the reasons generally have little to do with that talent, passion, or ability to make their product or provide their service. More often, the problems have more to do with marketing, management and finance, but they come disguised as a lack of cash, a lack of customers and a lack of good employees.
Because Ms. Rosch is struggling with the kinds of issues that many owners encounter, I wanted to share our exchange, and she graciously agreed. I hope the conversation, which has been condensed and edited, will be helpful to other owners facing similar problems.
Me: Your accountant is telling you what your financials say, and have been saying — that you can’t make money doing business the way you are doing business. That is just an accounting conclusion. Now you need an accounting solution, changing the business so that the numbers work.
Ms. Rosch: I understand about my accountant, but I think he’s looking at my bottom line the past several years and sees no significant income, and he figured he needed to warn me! Fact is, it’s hard not making any money, but easy — especially when the business is young — to get caught up in the mindset that money will come in eventually.
Me: I understand. My point is, you need to look at whether the business can be fixed. There is no question that continuing what you are doing is not going to all of a sudden start producing a profit. Let’s talk about your prices. Do you know your cost per cookie?
Ms. Rosch: I did a painstaking cost analysis several years ago and keep extrapolating upwards to keep up with costs. So now, with everything — ingredients, printed labels, cellophane bag, ribbon and labor per average one cookie — the real cost per cookie is about $2.25 per, for which we charge between $3.85 and $5.
Me: How did you figure how long it takes to decorate one cookie?
Ms. Rosch: We ballpark it at 10 cookies an hour, which is on the high side for the typical styles.
Me: Better to start high. What are you paying?
Ms. Rosch: Highest is $15 an hour to the top cookie decorator.
Me: Which means, with FICA, etc., it’s at least $16.50 an hour. So $16.50 divided by 10 per hour is $1.65, just for labor. Add in everything else, and it is probably costing you more than $3 per cookie. Which doesn’t leave you enough to cover your fixed costs.
Ms. Rosch: No wonder I am going broke!
Me: Exactly. That’s a rookie mistake. You’re underpricing to attract business — or at least not to discourage business — and you are not making any money. You need to stop this cold. There are three things you need to figure out: What does it really cost to make a cookie? What margin do you need? And how much do you need to live on, or what kind of profit do you need? For example — and let’s keep numbers easy for the sake of figuring this out — if you determine that you need to have a gross profit of $120,000 to cover your all of your fixed costs, including advertising and your salary, and your gross profit margin is 60 percent, you need to have sales of $200,000 per year.
Can you do that? Can you command a 60 percent margin, or more, selling specialty cookies to a corporate market? Can you make $200,000 worth of product out of your existing facility? That is $800 per day. That is a lot of cookies. My guess is that you can’t do this making a commodity product. You need to find a business model that works. These numbers are just examples, but is there a market for high-end specialty cookies?
Ms. Rosch: I don’t know. That’s what I’m trying to figure out! Maybe I need to change the direction of the company, streamline our offerings and better target the corporate crowd. For instance, I love the concept of creating highly custom corporate cookie gifts …
Me: I don’t want to know you’re in love with a concept — you need to be objective, but I like how that sounds. You need to sit down with a blank piece of paper and figure out how to build a business that would net you the money you need.
Ms. Rosch: I’ll try to figure out costs and stuff for this. But I’m not sure I can do the business as we’ve been doing it, producing this line. I think it would need volume …
Me: I think you keep this very high end. It’s corporate gifts — law firms, Realtors, all kinds of businesses need some novel thank-you gift to send clients. Who wouldn’t want a knockout really good tasting cookie with a clever saying? I’m talking, make one killer cookie that’s in a great box. It’s all about presentation.
Ms. Rosch: O.K., well, maybe. But I still have the whole thing about being out of my element running a business. For example, in the past year, I’ve gone through four cookie decorators. It’s exhausting to keep training people only to have them leave for a better-paying job.
Me: You’re not hiring the right people.
Ms. Rosch: So how do I hire the right people?
Me: How are you finding people?
Ms. Rosch: Ads on Craigslist, mostly. Because newspapers charge a minimum of $100 to run an ad for two weeks, which can add up to a small fortune, after a while.
Me: I don’t know … I think hiring the wrong person is what can really add up to a small fortune. My business has actually had some success with community newspapers. Are you requesting culinary degrees or experience?
Ms. Rosch: No, in fact we often do better with non-culinary types because we’re not “culinary” enough. Decorating cookies is more like a craft, so it’s often easier to train people with artistic ability. But it does help if someone has had some bakery work experience in that they get the production end of things — how to work efficiently. The decorator I just lost went to a private bakery where she’s getting $25 an hour, which of course I couldn’t begin to compete with. But she has worked in big production settings and so was helpful with setting up efficiency and prioritizing and speeding people along.
Me: Well, no reason you need to be paying $25 per hour. You need to look at who you are hiring. No offense, but this isn’t brain surgery. You don’t need someone with a college degree. You need to hire people who are good with their hands, and expect to get paid a production wage that will work for the business.
Ms. Rosch: I’m not looking for college degrees, but because it’s a small artisanal concept, I do think I need people I can communicate with. And if I’m paying less than a competitive rate, it’s like a quote-unquote sweat shop …
Me: Stop! Stop with these preconceived notions. Why is it a sweat shop? Will you have 60-hour work weeks? Bad working conditions? You certainly are not paying minimum wage. You need a paradigm shift. You need to hire people who need and want the job; they are less likely to leave if you treat them well. You told me that the other bakeries you have talked to have the same problem, finding and keeping employees. But I can tell you that talking to other people in your industry is like a self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s not where you get solutions; maybe commiseration, which can be useful in a different way. And if you want people to “communicate with,” make some friends! Look, every business has challenges and problems and puzzles, and you need to address each one. And just because you’ve tried something one or two ways with no success doesn’t mean the third way won’t work. Running a small business is puzzle-solving. I think you have the raw ingredients — if you can make the math work.
The bigger question: Are you willing to do what it takes? Or to put it another way, how bad do you want this?
Ms. Rosch: Well, I’m certainly willing to try to figure this out.
Me: There is no try! There is either do or not do. That’s from Yoda in Star Wars. Success is about your resolve and persistence — and, of course, whether there’s enough of a market for what you want to do. And again, some of the problems that you have been having, like not understanding your true costs, are common mistakes among rookies.
Ms. Rosch: How long is one a rookie? I’ve been at this for more than six years!
Me: In some ways, we’re all rookies if it’s a new venture or we’re targeting a new market. But you’ll stop being a rookie when you start learning from your mistakes and stop repeating them. In learning-business years, six years is not that long. Do everything you can to fix your problems before you decide to quit: cost accounting, a budget that works, a doable marketing plan, a better hiring and management strategy. You can do it. I think.
Here is a link to the story and the rest of the posts: http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/18/will-this-business-ever-make-money/?ref=business
.
Monday, July 16, 2012
The Value of Internships for Students
As a follow-up to a recent post of mine regarding the value of interships, here is an aricle from the Palm Beach Post, by Emily Roach on that subject.
FSU finance major Melysa Gross has spent the summer at Office Depot headquarters, helping choose products for sales ads, learning about changes in office supply retailing and meeting people in all departments.
And getting a job. Next week Gross, who graduated Florida State University in May, starts as a category assistant in merchandising.
Executive Vice President of Human Resources Michael Allison said he’s excited about the interns Office Depot hired this summer and that the program worked just the way it should for Gross.
“Retailers all over the world are hiring top-notch merchandisers,” he said. “In five or six years, our challenge will be to keep her.”
More 16- to 24-year-olds were working in June than in the prior three years, showing a small improvement for this age group who has been squeezed out of jobs by the recession and lingering labor market malaise. The unemployment rate was lower for 16- to 19-year-olds and 20- to 24-year-olds as summer jobs and internships started up in June compared to the past three years.
Lynn University Business Dean Tom Kruczek said an internship gives a graduate a competitive edge in this job market.
“It’s more important than ever right now,” Kruczek said.”It can be the door to a permanent job, it can enhance your education.”
The school takes an active role in matching students with internships and coaches them on interviewing skills, proper conduct and networking.
Gross said not all internships are the same. The difference at Office Depot was “night and day” compared to her two previous internships as far as giving her responsibility and developing new skills.
Florida Atlantic University senior Katie Gootenberg said her Office Depot internship “empowered” her. She worked on the company’s new partnership with Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Foundation, which will be featured in back-to-school promotions.
As a recent graduate, Gootenberg is also hoping for a job. So is Sumit Bajracharya, an FAU MBA candidate who is one class away from his degree.
“You’re here to make networks,” he said. And Office Depot’s approach encourages that by promoting communication among its 40 interns and holding information sessions that introduce interns to all departments of the company.
The company hires for “capability and capacity,” bringing in bright students who will become even better performers once they are cross-trained, said Robyn Tyler, vice president for Global Talent Management. Many get an opportunity to lead projects.
And managers who will guide those interns are also trained for the job.
Gwyn Bonasoro, director of Talent Acquisition, said managers go through an orientation and HR managers like herself keep close tabs on how things are going.
“You can see, they’re going to grow into leaders in this company — or some company,” Allison said.
Yasmine Clarke, whose technology company Agile Bees is located in Palm Beach Gardens, trains interns as young as middle-school aged in website development, software engineering and digital communication.
Her young workers can get college credit, but they also put themselves in line for a job with the company if the bid they work on becomes a new project. Interns who are a part of the Bee2Bee Network may also work directly with businesses who are Clarke’s clients and are expected to share their newly learned skills.
“Having the appropriate skills and knowledge in the technology industry will only further assist a student’s chances for success,” she said.
Here is a link to the article: http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/business/office-depot-internship-program-grooms-future-merc/nPshF/
FSU finance major Melysa Gross has spent the summer at Office Depot headquarters, helping choose products for sales ads, learning about changes in office supply retailing and meeting people in all departments.
And getting a job. Next week Gross, who graduated Florida State University in May, starts as a category assistant in merchandising.
Executive Vice President of Human Resources Michael Allison said he’s excited about the interns Office Depot hired this summer and that the program worked just the way it should for Gross.
“Retailers all over the world are hiring top-notch merchandisers,” he said. “In five or six years, our challenge will be to keep her.”
More 16- to 24-year-olds were working in June than in the prior three years, showing a small improvement for this age group who has been squeezed out of jobs by the recession and lingering labor market malaise. The unemployment rate was lower for 16- to 19-year-olds and 20- to 24-year-olds as summer jobs and internships started up in June compared to the past three years.
Lynn University Business Dean Tom Kruczek said an internship gives a graduate a competitive edge in this job market.
“It’s more important than ever right now,” Kruczek said.”It can be the door to a permanent job, it can enhance your education.”
The school takes an active role in matching students with internships and coaches them on interviewing skills, proper conduct and networking.
Gross said not all internships are the same. The difference at Office Depot was “night and day” compared to her two previous internships as far as giving her responsibility and developing new skills.
Florida Atlantic University senior Katie Gootenberg said her Office Depot internship “empowered” her. She worked on the company’s new partnership with Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Foundation, which will be featured in back-to-school promotions.
As a recent graduate, Gootenberg is also hoping for a job. So is Sumit Bajracharya, an FAU MBA candidate who is one class away from his degree.
“You’re here to make networks,” he said. And Office Depot’s approach encourages that by promoting communication among its 40 interns and holding information sessions that introduce interns to all departments of the company.
The company hires for “capability and capacity,” bringing in bright students who will become even better performers once they are cross-trained, said Robyn Tyler, vice president for Global Talent Management. Many get an opportunity to lead projects.
And managers who will guide those interns are also trained for the job.
Gwyn Bonasoro, director of Talent Acquisition, said managers go through an orientation and HR managers like herself keep close tabs on how things are going.
“You can see, they’re going to grow into leaders in this company — or some company,” Allison said.
Yasmine Clarke, whose technology company Agile Bees is located in Palm Beach Gardens, trains interns as young as middle-school aged in website development, software engineering and digital communication.
Her young workers can get college credit, but they also put themselves in line for a job with the company if the bid they work on becomes a new project. Interns who are a part of the Bee2Bee Network may also work directly with businesses who are Clarke’s clients and are expected to share their newly learned skills.
“Having the appropriate skills and knowledge in the technology industry will only further assist a student’s chances for success,” she said.
Here is a link to the article: http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/business/office-depot-internship-program-grooms-future-merc/nPshF/
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Helping Students Get Internships and Jobs
Lynn University has created an innovative new program to support and help prepare students in the College of Business and Management for a career in the business world. Rick Sayers, who has served as the executive in residence of the college for the past three years, has been named executive director of new Internships and Cooperative Education Program.
The program’s goal is to help students discover their intellectual and personal strengths through formal preparation to include: mock interviews (face-to-face, phone and Skype), resume and cover letter writing, business etiquette skills and personality profile (Myers-Briggs).
“Getting Lynn students ready for a successful professional life after college is a primary responsibility,” says Sayers. “This program will give them an advantage in obtaining internships and cooperative education experience and make them better prepared to meet, interview and work with individuals in the business community.”
An important component of the program will be the business relationships that will be developed with the corporate and business community.
“We will reach out to organizations that match up with the skills, interests and global diversity of our students for mutually beneficial partnerships,” he says.
Contacts have already been made with Office Depot, PwC, Sherwin Williams, Parker Hannifin, Jarden, Via Mizner, 02 media Inc., AXA Equitable and C3 Interactive and others.
In hiring students for internships Sayers says corporations are looking for intelligent, energetic talent with summer and/or school year projects. Students benefit by experiencing the company culture, management style and other organizational dynamics before having to make a decision for full time employment as well.
Internships are required in all COBM curriculums. Though this program will initially be rolled out in the COBM, it is expected to expand to the other colleges.
“We are very fortunate to have Rick as executive director to lead this new program,” said Thomas Kruczek, dean of the College of Business and Management. “With his extensive background in human resources in the corporate space, he knows exactly what corporations are looking for in new hires and he will do an outstanding job of getting our students ready.”
The program’s goal is to help students discover their intellectual and personal strengths through formal preparation to include: mock interviews (face-to-face, phone and Skype), resume and cover letter writing, business etiquette skills and personality profile (Myers-Briggs).
“Getting Lynn students ready for a successful professional life after college is a primary responsibility,” says Sayers. “This program will give them an advantage in obtaining internships and cooperative education experience and make them better prepared to meet, interview and work with individuals in the business community.”
An important component of the program will be the business relationships that will be developed with the corporate and business community.
“We will reach out to organizations that match up with the skills, interests and global diversity of our students for mutually beneficial partnerships,” he says.
Contacts have already been made with Office Depot, PwC, Sherwin Williams, Parker Hannifin, Jarden, Via Mizner, 02 media Inc., AXA Equitable and C3 Interactive and others.
In hiring students for internships Sayers says corporations are looking for intelligent, energetic talent with summer and/or school year projects. Students benefit by experiencing the company culture, management style and other organizational dynamics before having to make a decision for full time employment as well.
Internships are required in all COBM curriculums. Though this program will initially be rolled out in the COBM, it is expected to expand to the other colleges.
“We are very fortunate to have Rick as executive director to lead this new program,” said Thomas Kruczek, dean of the College of Business and Management. “With his extensive background in human resources in the corporate space, he knows exactly what corporations are looking for in new hires and he will do an outstanding job of getting our students ready.”
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