Volumes have been written about the structure and function of community colleges. Most colleges are student-centered organizations that strive to address the workforce needs of local communities. Organizationally, community colleges have traditionally operated as bureaucracies relying on leadership hierarchy in their functioning (Birnbaum, 1988; Levin, 1998). The traditional community college model has resulted in the creation of hundreds of outstanding community colleges across the country.

For more than 40 years Indian River State College realized above average performance as measured by conventional indicators. Aligned with the traditional American community college model, the college experienced significant success forming partnerships, addressing existing workforce needs, and providing academic programs that transfer to upper-division institutions. This model functioned well for many years, but with the onslaught of rapid-fire changes in technology, globalization, external competition, enrollment growth pressures, budget cuts, student demand for access, and changing demographics, over time it became evident that a new way of doing business was warranted.

Community colleges are entrepreneurial by nature and perfectly positioned to be the "go to” centers for creative and innovative ideas. When a void is detected within the community that is not going to be filled by traditional forms of education, they respond. Light and nimble they embrace and welcome requests driven by a sense of opportunity rather than seeing the barriers in every situation. This enters into many things – opportunities in curriculum, high technology skills, employee enrichment and development, altering the mission if necessary, embracing opportunities to be more proactive not only to meet the current needs, but to build the community for the future. Our communities now see us not only as responders but as centers of creative thinking and innovation.

Indian River realized that although we were a "good” college we had to determine if we were good in a way that would stand the test of time. Was being "good” leading us down the path of complacency? How long can we expect "good” to last when we’re constantly bombarded by the Internet and all forms of technology? It became obvious that the traditional model, although it served us well, had to be adjusted or changed or we were going to miss opportunities in the future. In hindsight it became clear – that it is not possible for our college to remain relevant without periodic transformation.

Moment of Decision

Following a President’s Cabinet Retreat in December of 2000, the decision was made to invest the time and energy necessary to revitalize our college to become a creative, innovative, driving force within our community vs. a declining casualty of the status quo. The changing world brought the realization that the college could no longer resist change but needed to create a culture that would embrace change to remain competitive. Going to the next level would involve altering and re-inventing the institutional culture. Long term and difficult, this would require a college-wide commitment.

Realizing Results

Based on a Great Colleges to Work For (GCTWF) survey of 42,000 employees of 277 colleges nationwide by The Chronicle of Higher Education, IRSC placed on the "Honor Roll” as one of the best colleges to work for in July 2010. With scores in the top ten, among four-year colleges with over 10,000 students, IRSC received the highest score of all the colleges of its size in all 15 categories. The IRSC survey average was 86 percent, and the benchmark percent positive for same-sized colleges was 78 percent. The IRSC survey return rate was 74 percent. The other top ten institutions in the same category included University of Notre Dame, University of Michigan, University of Mississippi, University of Southern California, Georgia Institute of Technology and others.

Lessons Learned

The culture of a college is what matters most. If left alone the value of an organization’s culture is always depreciating. Change is inevitable but it’s much better to change from a position of strength when you’re able to choose to change vs. changing from a position of weakness when forced to change. Change that is not anchored in cultural change will prove to be just another "project” and will fail to provide sustainable, long-lasting change. Cultural change requires a long-term commitment to altering internal working relationships, attitudes, and approaches to leverage organizational potential. Many change processes are met with strong resistance because what’s viewed as changing is not only everyday actions associated with organizational climate, but also strongly entrenched anchors of security found in the culture (Sopow, 2007). Perhaps the best indicator of cultural change is the level of resistance – when the existing culture gets riled up and fights back that’s a good sign (Pritchett, 2002).

For cultural changes to be embraced college-wide the effort must begin at the top. Administrators and mid-managers will only become engaged in the process and drive the effort deep into the institution if the president is leading the charge. The role of the leader is to help the administrators and mid-managers understand that their actions are the template of the culture. When they understand this reality and how their actions expand to the masses, then a healthy culture can be realized. The president and upper administration are the change agents – they are the coaches and the communicators – to help employees understand that they are in charge of the culture rather than a victim of the culture. We’ve always had people in the college that could produce more but they didn’t because of the administration. Upper administration and mid-managers were the most difficult to "get on board.” They seemed to anticipate that the loss of authority would be greater than the gains received.

Instinct and intuition are powerful tools that cannot be ignored. Entrepreneurial presidents are always looking for creative ways of doing things – listening to that "still small voice” inside – always seeking and knowing that there is more individual and organizational potential when leaders understand that a major part of their job is to manage the culture. Colleges are surrounded with opportunities to do things differently – through facility creation and renovation, such as creating learning-style responsive facilities, using technology and so on.

After looking at several organizations that had "roadmaps” in the development of a culture, we arrived at the decision that if our people design it and build it they will own it – and the culture will truly be theirs. We developed our own activities by analyzing results and listening carefully to employee feedback along the way. "Leadership is critical to creating a climate on campus where faculty and staff feel sufficiently secure to have ‘courageous conversations’ that allow them to question their ingrained practices and experiment with new approaches” (Jenkins, 2008).

To change the culture of an institution takes a long time, and consistent actions - you don’t succeed until you reach the masses. When you reach the masses you essentially generate a momentum of innovation that unleashes the right to be innovative and creative. If you loosen the reins the people will perform in exceptional ways and institutional progress and performance gets better and better – this reality demonstrates that it truly is counterintuitive to free people up to give their best. Employees "get to be” innovative and creative. The culture will become institutionalized through processes. Changes must be institutionalized and change must be embraced as a regular daily activity and not something to fear. Acceptance of change is layered within the college. The acceptance was easier at the lower level than at the upper level.

A rigid organizational structure can be a major impediment for change. The past traditional form of leadership led to a rigid structure that always won out over creativity. Instead, we adopted a flat, open, integrated, administrative structure that expects and encourages trans-disciplinary approaches; this has led to advances in health science, public safety, energy and technologies through the flexible structure that includes administrators, faculty and staff working together to challenge the status quo. By shifting these conversations to include the integration and blending of various disciplines, we released creative and innovative ideas that allowed us to produce the workforce for rapidly expanding emerging technologies.

The act of accepting feedback is critical in driving change. A structured professional process where anonymous feedback is offered and received in a constructive manner has been the most provocative source of enlightenment for all involved. Creating an open, honest, candid culture takes time. Mechanisms have to be employed where the leadership learns the truth and that can be very painful. Leaders cannot be sheltered from bad news and negative feedback. They must receive feedback with the understanding that the employees who have a vested interest in the college are providing feedback because they just want to make the institution better.

In today’s fast paced world it’s not enough to be reactive – you have to be proactive and expect to play a major role in the emerging workforce. Entrepreneurial institutions have to be proactive and exercise intelligent entrepreneurship. Research based, futuristic planning, must be wrapped around the goals of your state and community. Colleges must be present at the table to effect community change and help make it happen instead of coming in after the fact. To attract new and emerging businesses will require taking risks in some situations, buildings, programs and facilities. Sensing this reality and living in an area that was experiencing aggressive economic development these outside forces propelled us to prepare and to anticipate what could impact our institution in the years ahead. As your community changes you never really know what you’re going to be called on to do. Examples:

In 2005 the digital media industry did not exist within the community when Indian River State College built a 106,000 sq. ft., $30 million, state-of-the-art Kight Center for Emerging Technologies. Today, five years later, a film studio is under construction for Digital Domain Production Co. with additional film companies expected to follow. In 1996 the high technology, high simulation Health Science Center was created and 11 years later attracted a branch of the Florida State University Medical School, which was constructed adjacent to the Center. In 2006 the design was drafted to create a Leeds Certified Energy Institute years before energy industries moved into the area. Today the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship is coming out of the ground, attracting new partners such as Oak Ridge National Laboratory and General Electric Co. with other new industries moving into the area.

You must invest in your people. At the same time we embarked on this cultural change we also created a new program called the Employee Development Program (EDP). Without EDP our cultural change efforts could not have moved forward. Offerings are based on employee requests and respond to the needs of each and every employee group.

The potential was always within the college – but had been masked. By evaluating our approaches, structure, planning, thinking and how we communicate, we were able to bring out what was already there…and that was a tremendous amount of hidden potential. The culture and the workplace must be designed to release all the institutional talents and hidden potential to free people to be creative in their thinking, acting and doing. Releasing the potential of the people is about leadership.

To exceed the expectations of the audience results in remarkable outcomes. To exceed student, community, and state expectations – expectations in grant procurement, curriculum development, college maintenance, administrative functioning, etc, – is all driven by embedding high expectations in all things. The culture creates a climate in which people want to do better and have higher expectations of themselves, holding others accountable to the same standard.

Changes in the workforce require more of an interdisciplinary approach with the curriculum, family and work schedules demanding more access to distance learning opportunities. The need exists to not only address existing workforce skill needs but to challenge students to explore emerging needs, due to the increasing proficiency requirements of existing and emerging workers. Previously we did not challenge students to explore emerging skills. The old model was functioning in a predictable environment, but with a new generation of students who exhibit a whole array of learning styles we had to become more proactive in driving our community, introducing our students to new topics that will be critical to learn for the future.

With cultural change an "abundance” mentality replaces the once held "scarcity” mentality, adding to the prevailing spirit of collaboration on campus. When you focus on success and the possible outcomes that result, abundance becomes a lifestyle. Abundance is about high expectations and pride and tends to be very apparent and pervasive throughout the college.

Third-party validation, awards, winning facilities and programs, student successes and unsolicited positive results such as being selected for the Great Colleges to Work for Honor Roll all provide evidence that cultural change is worth the pain and steadfast effort. The return on investment and tremendous outcomes following the long journey and hard work make it all worthwhile.

References
Bender, P. U., Hancocks, G. (2002). Gutfeeling. Achievement Group, Toronto.
Birnbaum, R. (1988). The cybernetics of academic organization and leadership.
San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass Publishers
Jenkins, D. (2008). Lessons: Lumina Foundation Report, winter edition. Lumina
Foundation for Education, p. 31.
Levin, J. S. (1998). Making sense of organizational change. In J. S. Levin (Ed.), Organizational change in the community college: A ripple or a sea change? (Summer 1998 ed., pp. 43-54). San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass Publishers.
Pritchett, P. (2002). The Employee Handbook for Shaping Corporate Culture. Pritchett LLC.
Sopow, E. (2007). The impact of culture and climate on change. Strategic HR
Review; Volume 6 Issue 2, pp. 20-23.
Mary Field’s Health Science Center (Main campus - Ft. Pierce, Fl)

There isn’t an entrepreneur who doesn’t think about money, just about all the time. How do I make money in this business? Will this new product make any money? Is this product, service, marketing campaign (fill in the blank) worth the money? Should I use my money for this or that?

Entrepreneurs recognize these familiar thoughts, yet when entrepreneurship is taught in college classrooms, the fear, phobias, and uncertainty an entrepreneur typically feels about money are rarely explored. In textbooks and lectures it all seems quite simple. Money is borrowed, raised, invested, paid, counted, and collected. It isn’t worried about. When a new entrepreneur feels the typical entrepreneur money anxiety, has problems sleeping at night, and despite best intentions can’t seem to pay Paul even after robbing Peter, the entrepreneur often thinks, "This can’t be right,” or worse, "I’m a failure.”

But there’s a secret to this money business…

Until goodwill is developed, market acceptance gained, systems are in place, and owner and staff have the right mindset, money will be an issue. I’ve found what entrepreneurs think about money and its link to the business early on will positively or negatively define the business for years to come. With that in mind, I have a few suggestions for educators wanting to help entrepreneurs win the money game.

Lesson One: Money and the Business

Every Entrepreneur Bootstraps – There is only one thing that makes a business. It’s called a customer. No customer, no business. But many entrepreneurs are under some notion that the business begins with tons of investment capital from cheering throngs of investors. Even when there’s an angel investor, venture capitalist, or other funder, there must be ample evidence the business is going to succeed – hence the need to not waste time contemplating the ultimate investor and get busy, going out and getting that customer. Tell your students that selling something is what matters at the end of the day. The first money lesson for a business is that customers matter. Many happy customers mean more money. Learn this lesson and you’ll avoid big problems down the road.

Lesson Two: Money and the Entrepreneur

Invest in Money Education – Few of us learned positive lessons about money growing up. When an entrepreneur begins pursuing the business of making money full time, they’re often dealing with conflicting thoughts about money. If you’re an entrepreneur and you believe money is "hard to come by,” "doesn’t grow on trees,” and that people who make lots of money are untrustworthy, or that money is "not what matters,” you’re in trouble.

You’re probably going to have difficulty asking for money, asking for your price, and going all out to get money into your company. You’re probably going to see money as an "uphill battle.”

Every entrepreneur needs to examine and work on their money philosophy. Tell your students they must learn money basics. Start with how to count – without a calculator. Familiarity and comfort with numbers is key. Then tell them to give time to understanding money psychologically. Successful entrepreneurs expect to make money and don’t feel guilty about it.

Lesson Three: Money and People

Money Does Buy You Love – A big problem for entrepreneurs is getting the right people on board. In the early days you generally don’t have money to hire superstars, so we roll the dice, try to inspire our workers with our plans, or simply pray for the best. As entrepreneurs we need to get every cent out of what we spend on people. But there’s a reality your students need to know.

Entrepreneurs are always going to spend money on people who don’t stick around. Your staff and vendors don’t care about "your vision,” or the opportunities coming. It’s purely a money thing. If the road is hard early on, and it looks like money is drying up, they’ll be shopping for another job on your dime. So your student entrepreneurs must consider what they spend on people to be investments to help them define their "system,” advance a specific project, or get over a hurdle. Teach them not to get mad when the kid they’re grooming chooses to work elsewhere. They simply must get somebody else. Entrepreneurs must learn that "they’ll” love you only as long as you’re paying them.

These lessons are not tough. They’re not cruel. It’s simply business. A healthy attitude about money is one of the most valuable assets for the entrepreneur.

André Taylor is an entrepreneur, consultant, and author of the book "You Can Still Win!” He’s chief executive of Taylor Insight, a New York-based leadership development firm, serving entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial companies.

By Geoff Pine
Principal (President)
Greenwich Community College, South East London, England

For over four years the U.K. government has been providing funding for international activity under a scheme sponsored by the Prime Minister – the Prime Minister’s Initiative for International Education – or PMI for short. The overall aims of PMI are to develop educational partnerships and encourage student (and staff) mobility in the context of an increasingly global economy.

In 2008 money was allocated to a project for partnership working in the United States. This initial project involving four US colleges, was led by Greenwich Community College in London and has made progress on developing articulation links between Associate degrees in the USA and the UK’s new vocationally focused Foundation degrees. Because of the success of this project, the PMI Board agreed to set aside additional funding specifically to move forward on partnerships between the U.K. and U.S. colleges with a focus on mutual learning associated with Enterprise.

In spring 2010 a contact seminar was held in Washington, D.C., organised by NACCE with the support of the British Council and the Association of Colleges in the U.K. The aim of this developmental seminar was to prepare the colleges to develop joint bids that would fulfill the PMI funding criteria for this enterprise related fund. A full report on the seminar can be found at www.NACCE.com, under Program & Events, Member Events.

Three bids were successful and these will involve 10 colleges in the U.K. and 17 colleges in the U.S.

The Greenwich bid will enable the creation of cross-Atlantic modules of study on Entrepreneurship that can be appended to vocational curriculum in the U.K. and the U.S. to enhance existing qualifications. The units will use online and virtual study methods and enable colleges to develop future articulation of U.S. Associate degrees and U.K. Foundation degrees. The project activity will be related to the development of a common international curriculum, using technology and thereby encouraging student mobility.

With the Westminster Kingsway bid teams from the colleges will participate in a competition to develop either a new food product or process, based on local farmed ingredients that may be either packaged or served on a plate. They will collaborate via the Internet and social networking sites and will be mentored by specialist tutors and industry professionals in both countries. The competition culminates in a visit to the host country, featuring a week of industry visits and trips, face-to-face collaboration between teams and a final presentation to a ‘Dragons Den’ panel of judges.

The partners in the Anniesland bid will develop an International Passport to Enterprise Skills (IPES). Project activities are focused on the scoping, designing, production and mutual certification of the IPES. The IPES will capture and collate indicative best practices, case-studies and methodologies; contextualize entrepreneurship in a variety of scenarios (incl. Web-based business opportunities), indicate the knowledge and understanding required in entrepreneurship; profile and demonstrate entrepreneurial skills and attributes in action; and indicate and exemplify possible performance criteria and assessment strategies.

For further information, please contact Geoff Pine on geoffp@gcc.ac.uk

In Part One (Summer/Fall 2010 issue) we explored two of four early-stage competencies our students need to appreciate and understand their entrepreneurial potential: self-understanding, and awareness of the careers and development of real entrepreneurs. In Part Two we explore the third and fourth competencies: a sense of what venture would really work for them, and business-relevant creativity. As in Part One, I will explain what I mean by these, why they are critical, and how I attempt to develop them in the classroom. Here I also consider the challenge you would face if you find in your class both students needing work on these very preliminary competencies and others who are further along the curve towards self-employment.

Competency Three: Knowing what would be real and fulfilling.

The popular business plan competition approach to teaching entrepreneurship can easily lead to fancy-seeming exercises that have no prospect of launch. Rather, each student should try to master a venture they really could launch before long. Modest, even part-time ventures that are real will teach more than "high potential” plans that are not.

Creating a plan that is real, that has the level of detail that shows plausible potential, takes a lot of motivation. This cannot come from class projects alone. Moreover, the bigger opportunities for our students will not be learned in our classrooms but rather in the markets. Our responsibility, I believe, is to help them launch a venture that has a prospect of survival for long enough that they can later discover their main chance once in the marketplace.

How can this be included in the same course? It can’t; that’s the role of a business plan course that comes later in a program. However, in this early course they should start to make the venture real with a simpler exercise. I have found that Jim Horan’s (2004) One Page Business Plan book works really well (and with practicing business owners as well as with students). However, it is as it says only one page and therefore misses many crucial questions. For this reason, I have written six sections (all starting with "C”) to add to the five from the book. As a result, students write a two and a half page plan with the following sections: Vision, Mission, Customers, Competitors, Capabilities, Commitments, Objectives, Strategies, Channels, Plans, and Capital. This additional material, with a note on how to integrate it with Horan’s material, may be downloaded from the NACCE Web site.*

Competency Four: Business-relevant creativity.

Two closely related myths about entrepreneurs are that (1) they succeed because of novel or highfalutin "ideas” and (2) they are especially "creative.” Perhaps there have been a few such figures, but as generalizations these are myths that discourage would-be entrepreneurs because they judge themselves wanting in both areas. These myths also obscure the kind of creativity that actually is involved in entrepreneurship. This creativity has the purpose of solving the many challenges, large and small but generally small and operational, that vex any venture. Therefore, exposing students to techniques for business creativity has two benefits. It assures them that they, too, can be sufficiently creative. It also helps with their individual venture plans and generates the kind of highly specific concepts that help to transform their plans from vague speculations to realistic prospects for action.

How can we teach students business-relevant creativity? There are many approaches that work, but all approaches, I believe, should be based on efforts to solve business challenges. At first these can be quite general, such as "what business is right for me?” They are best if they are definite, specific questions that arise in the entrepreneurial process and that the students truly care to resolve. Examples might be "which of these locations is best?” or "how can I cut labor costs for my lawn care crews?” Creativity techniques that are removed from this foundation in practical concerns will seem too abstract and air-fairy for business students. With this practical foundation, students discover that they too can be much more creative than they expected. For this reason, the focus on developing this fourth competency is best timed after some progress has been made on the first three competencies.

Currently I use a number of the exercises from Thinkertoys, a book by Michael Michalko (2006). You would need to choose which ones to use based on the tolerance of your class for "far out” techniques. Some are very conventional; for example, a simplified form of scenario planning. Others are based on developing intuition; some are very close to forms of meditation. (I point out that they’re also close to forms of prayer.)

How can this work be graded? It defeats the purpose to insist on immediate results from each exercise. I require each student to complete the required exercises (for which I give choices in which ones to choose), and for those that generated a business solution, to indicate which challenges were at issue, what resolution emerged and how. Some students generate many rather minor resolutions and some generate one or two very large ones. Both can be valuable.

A related assignment that I have recently tried is to have students make portraits of themselves and their ventures using any of two different media. I suggest many options including paint, poetry, photos, collages, songs, and so on. Was there pushback for such a not-business project? Some, yes. Did they end up enjoying it? Definitely. For many it was the highlight of the course. Was it worth doing? I think so but can’t say with much confidence as yet. I think this will take time for alumni to give me their feedback.

One unexpected benefit of these assignments is that the best of them will work well in a display of student projects that can be exhibited for other students and entrepreneurial guests. To date the only such displays we have mounted have been in our business plan competition. However, next April (lead times for schedules being lengthy!) we will hold our first entrepreneurship fair to highlight student works and to offer a chance for networking and mingling with both other students and entrepreneurs.

More advanced students in the same class.

Ideally this fundamentals class will have only early-stage students. Lately I have had to accommodate some more seasoned students in the same course. You might face the same challenge. My approach for my next iteration is to determine the level of preparation at the outset and offer a different set of assignments to the more experienced students. Instead of using Thinkertoys they will instead use Business Model Creation (Osterwalder & Pigneur, 2010). This is not because they cannot gain from Thinkertoys; to the contrary they can gain the most. However, their businesses stand to gain the most of all if they can innovate with their models for making money – the point of Osterwalder and Pigneur’s book.

Instead of writing a personal essay and career plan they will work on a very specific operational plan of use to their ventures. For example, they might work on an HR handbook or a plan for using social media for promoting their business. The materials they use will have to be tailored to the project but would be from the field of small business management (such as Strauss, 2008). Finally, their media project can be more specifically business-related, such as new logos, Web pages, or advertising jingles. Some of the less experienced students might campaign for this option as well. If you decide to include this assignment, you can use your judgment but my suggestion is to compromise and let them do one of two works in such a practical fashion. My experience has been that only the more experienced entrepreneurs are able to do meaningful work of this sort.

Three changes have been suggested for these more experienced students: work on a specific operational plan instead of the self-assessment, creativity exercises in the context of business models, and more applied artistry. As these new changes to my teaching demonstrate, and as you no doubt know, we have to be responsive and constantly innovate ourselves. I hope that other instructors will have found in my two articles some ideas that can be adopted and adapted for their particular student needs. I also hope that they will share their experiences. I’d be glad to hear from you at alex.stewart@marquette.edu.

*The supplemental material is found at http://www.nacce.com/resource/resmgr/supplement_to_the_one_page_b.pdf 

Resources

Horan, J. 2004. The One Page Business Plan for the Creative Entrepreneur. Berkeley, CA: The One Page Business Plan Company.

Michalko, M. 2006. Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques, 2nd Ed.. Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press.

Osterwalder, A., & Pigneur, Y. 2010. Business Model Creation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers. New York: Wiley.

Strauss, S. D. 2008. The Small Business Bible, 2nd Ed. New York: Wiley.

What inspired you to start a spa?
Following my passion. With my business management classes at WNCC I found an inspiration to start my own business. I was one of the "pioneers” in Western Nebraska to offer massage therapy and spa services.

How much capital did you have to raise to start your business?
I moved home from college with $70 to my name. It took three to four years of hard work and growing pains to build the business collateral. My initial loan of $10,000 was for my first building venture. The key was to build slowly and not spend money I did not have or could not pay back at a worse case scenario.

How did you raise it?

Personal home equity as well as equipment equity for my first building. For my second building I was able to sell shares of my business stock to an investor. This took 10 years of building a fiscally sound business and financial statements.

What do you think are the most important things community colleges can do to help encourage and support young entrepreneurs?

Although WNCC did not have an entrepreneurial program at the time I attended, they have since incorporated E-ship courses for prospective entrepreneurs to learn everything from business plans, marketing, management, capital investments, etc. I think it is imperative that every aspiring entrepreneur participate in a program like this before starting their business.

What do you know now that you wish you had known when you were starting your business?

As a spa owner, my roles have changed drastically throughout my 10 years of operation. I never thought I would be crediting my inexperience and blissful naïveté as factors leading to my success, but if I had known then what it was going to take to make it in this industry, the fearful apprehension of failure would most assuredly have deterred my journey. Looking back, I truly wouldn’t change a thing. In an industry with overwhelming failure rates, my encounters with devastation and set backs along the way could easily have led to my demise, but it was times like these that were blessings in disguise. My moments of weakness were when I found my true strength. In every adversity lies the seed of equal or greater benefit. Working through challenges and difficult situations provides us with the ability to recognize strengths, abilities and insights…and more importantly, by resolving these issues, we find the greatest opportunity for growth.

What advice would you give to a community college student who has no entrepreneurship experience and wants to start a business?

Find your passion FIRST and FOREMOST! Find an E-ship program through a community college before taking the next step.

What do you think the key factors are that have helped you succeed?

Passion, commitment, responsibility, and most importantly the ability to give back to the community.

How were you able to balance being a single mother with growing a successful business?

It literally takes a village. I preach to my employees that family MUST come first, and we all take care of each other. I am so blessed to have my parents and sister close by as a support system. My children are also an active part of my business during the evenings when I have to go back. They have learned to help with tedious tasks such as laundry, cleaning, organizing, etc. It is BECAUSE of my children that I have the passion to continue. I want to teach them that you can achieve anything no matter the obstacles. They are so proud of me and have never felt neglected or ignored. This work ethic is something that will be instilled in them when they are ready to follow their dreams some day. I am so blessed to have both a career and family. The balance is an everyday commitment.

About Columnist

Michael Simmons is co-founder and CEO of the Extreme Entrepreneurship Tour (EET), http://www.extremetour.org, and a past keynote speaker at NACCE. EET brings the country’s top young entrepreneurs to college campuses to spread the entrepreneurial mindset during a half-day conference. Started in 2006, the tour has visited over 150 schools nation-wide. Michael’s organization also recently launched the JourneyPage Virtual Business Incubator (http://www.journeypage.com/vbi ) and the Virtual Speaker Series (http://www.virtualspeakerseries.org ) to further help entrepreneurship programs.

Becky Zwickl started her business, The Spa by TLC, while she was a student and a pregnant traveling therapist in Gering, NE, population 7,500. Starting with $70 and growing the business as a single parent, Becky now runs a company with three locations and a full-time staff of 20. She graduated from Western Nebraska Community College in 1997.

This article traces the evolution of an entrepreneurship initiative that did not start well but has now achieved success after significant (and somewhat painful) analysis, and numerous "do-overs” and re-analysis. Since this program, we believe, is replicable on other campuses, we are happy to share with you the story of how our accelerated Business Plan Certificate program came into being.

As early as 1994, when JCCC’s Associate of Applied Science (AAS) Entrepreneurship degree program was in its early years, the advisory committee recommended that we also obtain approval from the Kansas Board of Regents for a mini-version comprised of our key courses. The title was approved as "The Business Plan Certificate.” In the early years, that mini-certificate was 5 credit hours and was comprised of two courses. In 2000, a certificate modification was approved, making The Business Plan Certificate a 7-credit-hour certificate comprised of three courses: Introduction to Entrepreneurship (2 credit hours), Opportunity Analysis (2 credit hours) and FastTrac™ Business Plan (3 credit hours). This is the composition of the Business Plan Certificate today.

A Slow Start

In the early years, marketing the Business Plan Certificate was a challenge faced by the entrepreneurship faculty team. Naively, we believed the answer was simply to plaster posters all over campus, casually visit a few colleagues across campus and, magically, students in many of our career programs would sign up for the Business Plan Certificate along with their other coursework. To say that no one chose to come to our party would be an understatement! I believe the records might show 10 students in about that many years. Our assessment was that we could certainly improve upon that!

It became abundantly apparent that we needed our entrepreneurship programming vision to work synergistically in a significantly more organized fashion with the larger collegiate community. Our plan was to bring forth a new vision of providing an innovative solution to meet the demands of JCCC’s diverse student population who had aspirations of "being their own boss” after graduation. Thus, JCCC’s 25 Program-Specific Entrepreneurship Certificates were born. Developed in partnership with colleagues around campus who lead career programs, each program-specific entrepreneurship certificate is an additional curriculum "option.” Each of these certificates contained (at a minimum) the three courses included in the Business Plan Certificate.

While we are proud of the 25 certificates that link to other programs, some programs do not yet have an established program-specific entrepreneurship certificate. Additionally, we did not have a strategy to attract students who were "undecided” regarding their degree intent. Of the greatest significance in our assessment analysis was that while we had the mechanism in place (the Business Plan Certificate), we were not using it to attract and serve the growing numbers of persons in our service area who need to "re-invent” their careers. Information we were receiving from the community was that they needed this training now; they were not going to take the required courses over several semesters.

Program Design

During this time period (fall 2009), the dean’s council on campus was researching and planning several "accelerated” format offerings to answer community demands. Using the Business Plan Certificate marketed as an answer to "So You Need to Reinvent Yourself” combined with the accelerated format seemed to be the answer to the needs of displaced workers, soon-to-be displaced workers, underemployed persons, retirees needing to un-retire, boomers and returning veterans. Additionally, we discovered this format was attractive to alumni of JCCC career programs.

We decided to use the "linked” learning community format and to accelerate the traditional time frames in which the individual courses had been offered. During the spring 2010 semester we offered our first section of the Business Plan Certificate taught in this format. We calculated the number of minutes required for each course and developed an 11-week offering held on consecutive Fridays from 8:00am – 5:00pm. The entire "package” of courses was also scheduled in the same classroom. It was offered (and promoted) to both credit and non-credit students; the cost was the same. The cost of the Business Plan Certificate was 7 credit hours times the credit hour rate (7 X $75/credit hour for in county students) or $525. Therefore, registrants had to commit 11 Fridays and $525. For their commitment, they could exit with the certificate and have enjoyed that learning experience with a single cohort of students who met on the same day, at the same time, and in the same classroom for the duration.

Introduction to Entrepreneurship was taught on the first three Fridays. Prior to the first Friday, the faculty member communicated with each student regarding preparation for the first class. Opportunity Analysis was taught in weeks four through six. During the afternoon of week three, the faculty member for Opportunity Analysis presented to the students the work that would need to be accomplished for the first class of the second course. FastTrac™ Business Plan took up the final five weeks of the program. During the afternoon of week six, the FastTrac™ Business Plan faculty member introduced the students to the work that would need to be accomplished prior to the first class period of the third course.

We chose to staff each course with the Entrepreneurship team expert most familiar with each course as they had taught the course numerous times as stand-alone sections. Each faculty member had the same number of "seat minutes” to deliver the material as they did in their stand-alone sections. Neither course objectives nor assignments were compromised. Each course was graded separately and posted to the students’ transcripts separately.

Success!

In the spring of 2010, we were thrilled when 12 credit students enrolled for our first offering of the Accelerated Business Plan Certificate. Unfortunately, I cannot report that all students completed the certificate, but most did. We conducted a student satisfaction survey designed specifically for this offering; included was a question asking how we might improve the program. Our faculty team studied their responses, their academic accomplishments and discussed at length our own observations. This assessment process led us to two significant improvements:

The course has been expanded to cover an overall time frame of 14 weeks, which now includes three "weeks off” during the FastTrac™ Business Plan course. These weeks are strategically placed so as to allow students more time to complete homework in some of the more difficult and time consuming sections of the Business Plan. We had "listened to our customer” and created an accelerated offering; apparently we "accelerated” it a bit too much!

We have designed much more "overt” methods of connecting information and assignments from the first two courses into the specific location in the Business Plan where the information is required. We have always "discussed” or "mentioned” these linkages; now we are making it more visual and more intentional.

While still offering stand-alone sections of the three courses in the Business Plan Certificate, we proceeded to schedule the Business Plan Certificate – Accelerated Format for the fall 2010 semester, offering it on 11 Fridays from 8am-5pm over a 14-week time period. We had a "sell out” on this section offering, with 17 credit students and one non-credit student enrolled. Following JCCC’s assess, analyze, and adapt policy for academic outcomes assessment, we will continue to learn how to improve as we move this initiative forward to future semesters.

Of the greatest significance in our assessment analysis was that while we had the mechanism in place (the Business Plan Certificate), we were not using it to attract and serve the growing numbers of persons in our service area who need to "re-invent” their careers.

The "what” has always included goal setting, creation of a business plan, simulated situational management, implementation and evaluation. Sadly, most have failed in the "how” category. Why? Because "how” is not easily measured. "How’ includes terms like belief, vision, coachability, persistence, and adaptability. Even though "how” is hard to measure, it is critical to the success of the entrepreneur…or even more so to the intrapreneurial business owner. Here is where your community college can capitalize to fill the void created by conventional educational offerings. It will require expanding your present level of entrepreneurship programming and creating a new intrapreneurial culture, a new standard of accomplishment that benefits both your community and your college.

What is intrapreneurship? REEsults Coaching defines "intrapreneurship” as adopting entrepreneurial mindsets and methods while taking ownership of your role and actions that benefit an organization.

The Benefits

Second…expand your community college’s value proposition to established businesses in your market. Your business community may already be familiar with your entrepreneurship programs. When you are willing to change your present entrepreneurial perspective, you can create new markets that attract local businesses that want their employees to adopt an intrapreneurial spirit by taking "ownership” of their day-to-day work activities. This intrapreneurial change in your perspectives can have a major positive impact on local businesses when you can demonstrate your ability to get all of their employees on the same page. Through your intrapreneurial coaching you can get every employee working together for the mutual benefit of both the company and the individual. It has the power to instantly create added value in your static entrepreneurship programming that taught them "WHAT” to do to set-up their business. Now, by adding a dynamic intrapreneurial course of study, you can coach them on exactly "HOW” to succeed.

Third…With the right set of matched entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial survival skills, your community college will position itself at the center of the economic development universe for all those that are attracted and influenced by your proactive educational benefits! Imagine a world where vision and experience are more valuable than goals and objectives. This is the world of the entrepreneur.

It’s time that entrepreneurial educational institutions practice what they teach. Students come to you with a dream…a dream to control their destiny. Imagine harnessing that entrepreneurial energy, and channeling that energy back into your local businesses in the form of highly motivated employees. It can increase productivity, profits, and the perception that your community college was the genesis of these increased benefits.

Remember, it is what we learn after we think we know it all that makes all the difference.

NACCE partner Mark Wehner can be reached at mark.wehner@reesultscoahing.com

By Melissa Crawford
Director of the Scheinfeld Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation
Santa Barbara City College, Santa Barbara, CA

The single most powerful marketing tool for the Scheinfeld Center has been our Enlightened Entrepreneurship Series. This program helps build awareness of our existence and captures the attention of students and faculty and local small business owners. Securing prominent speakers has helped us establish ourselves rather quickly in the community. After only our third speaker, one college benefactor expressed, "You now have a reputable speakers series!”

Follow these steps to help build awareness of your program or center through events:

1. Create an event to complement other entrepreneurial activities in your community.

Brainstorm with your staff and colleagues about what kind of event will serve your program and community best. We have so many organizations that host entrepreneurial events and speakers in our community that it was tough to find our own niche. We decided not to compete with other organizations, and to instead gain their support by offering complementary speakers. A speaker series that extracts the entrepreneur’s "in-depth story” and give students unprecedented Q&A access to highly successful entrepreneurs serves our college and community best. Also, I honestly do not have the time to be an event planner, so I only do one event in the fall and one in the spring. This seems very manageable.

2. Tap into your local entrepreneurial community.

I have yet to pay a speaker fee. I have been able to hook speakers by convincing them that it is the duty of local entrepreneurs to give back to the community by sharing an evening with community college students. This keeps our event costs to almost nothing. Our local speakers have included Wayne Rosing (former head of Engineering at Google), Pamela Lopker (founder of QAD), and Doug Otto (founder of Deckers Outdoor). Each of these speakers saw the benefit of sharing their experiences with our students, for free.

3. Build a simple event around one speaker.

Most speakers are honored to receive an invitation to speak, especially if we focus the entire event on them. This gives the college an opportunity to extract in-depth material and stories from the entrepreneur. We generally have a two-hour commitment from the entrepreneur, and spend 1.5 hours moderating a conversation with Q&A. At the end is a short networking reception, sometimes with free food!

4. Make your event student centered.

I have to credit the lasting and successful format of our series to our inaugural speaker, Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia, the well-known retailer. First, he was wholly uninterested in lecturing. He requested a small venue with 150 students or less in attendance, and wanted to do a Q&A format. He had just released his now famous book, Let My People Go Surfing, the Education of a Reluctant Businessman. He was willing to do a book signing. So I built the event around his requests. We had standing room only, and spent an incredible hour listening to his journey from a young and radical rock climber, completely uninterested in formal education, to building a company that blurs the line between work, play and family, and focuses on repairing the planet.

5. Record your event for future marketing.

Creating a library of your events gradually builds credibility and is a very useful marketing tool. Video recordings work best. Upload these to a "Video Library” page on your Web site, create a YouTube channel for your program, and hand out DVDs at tabling events. People can visit the Web site and view the event if they were unable to attend. In addition, we use our local SBCC channel to record the event and then it is broadcast for free on the local TV channel for several months. I am always surprised to hear from random people that they saw my event on TV. We definitely don’t get prime time – but this has proven to be valuable exposure.

6. Use free open source event registration tools.

We use EventBrite. It allows for very user-friendly and easy registration for students and the community, collects e-mail addresses for future marketing, and is free as long as your event is free.

7. Collaborate with other departments.

Our speaker series has received the attention of other departments. For example, when the former head of engineering at Google spoke, he captured the attention of our science and engineering departments. Mr. Rosing is currently building a telescope network with a team of astrophysicists. With my help, the other departments invited him back to speak about his amazing new project. We had an incredible second event, have created internship opportunities and one of our astronomy professors will be doing an externship at Mr. Rosing’s lab.

As you begin to create and offer events, you never know where it may lead. But one thing is certain, you will build awareness of your program.

April Robinson, Assistant to the Dean of Academic Affairs and Felix Haynes, President
Hillsborough Community College, Plant City Campus

In the autumn of 2010, we mark the second anniversary of some very high-profile events that sounded the alarm on what many have named the "Great Recession” and that have shaped our economy over the last few years. During the first week of September 2008 we witnessed the seizure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by the federal government as the subprime mortgage market began to crumble. By the middle of the month it was announced that Bank of America had acquired Merrill Lynch and that Lehman Brothers, like its rival Bear Stearns, was declaring bankruptcy. In the third week the U.S. government loaned $85 billion to AIG and announced its massive economic bailout plan. And on September 29, the Dow Jones Industrial Average suffered its largest one-day decline in history, 777 points. With apologies to T.S. Eliot, perhaps September is the cruelest month.

Two years removed from those stunning economic events we now know that the causes of this recession began much earlier, the impact has been worse than expected, and the effects have lasted longer than many anticipated. A July 30, 2010, revision by the Commerce Department showed household spending fell 1.2% in 2009, twice as much as previously projected and the sharpest decline since 1942. Furthermore, economic activity, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, appears to have declined by 4.1% from its peak in 2007 to the beginning of 2009 – a downturn in Gross Domestic Product not observed since the late 1950s. Couple such dreary statistics with foreclosure filings still spiraling and a high national unemployment rate that refuses to budge, and it’s no wonder that many believe the economic recovery has stalled.

If the stagnation of the recovery can be seen in these data, then its cause may be found in one simple word – jobs. An economy driven by consumer spending cannot recover with an unemployment rate of 9.5%, representing more than 14.6 million workers according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Foreclosures rates cannot subside when, again according to the BLS, 8.5 million Americans as of July 2010 can only find part-time jobs.

In Search of a Miracle Cure

Job creation has been the miracle cure eluding policy wonks and government bureaucrats as they attempt to cure this ailing economy. A recent study by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation presents data that shows healing the economy through job growth should focus on start-ups. The study, relying on data from the U.S. Census Bureau, found that between 1977 and 2005 new businesses (those in operation for less than 1 year) added an average of 3 million jobs annually to the economy, as established businesses during the same time period actually shed an average of a million jobs per year. Robert E. Litan, vice president of Research and Policy at the Kauffman Foundation, says, "These findings imply that America should be thinking differently about the standard employment policy paradigm,” and added, "Growth would be best boosted by supporting start-up firms.”

America’s community colleges are in a prime position to support fledgling businesses as they have been recognized for decades as a gateway to post-secondary education for many low income, minority, and first-generation postsecondary education students. Now, more than ever, community colleges can serve as a catalyst for job creation through entrepreneurship and business development programs.

According to the American Association of Community Colleges, the average age of a community college student is 29. Institutionally, community colleges possess the experience and resources necessary to train and educate adult students. Moreover, as the price of postsecondary degrees rises, many four-year business degrees have become cost-prohibitive as students can ill afford to invest the money or remove themselves from the job market for four years as a full-time student. Through associate degree and college certificate programs students have the ability to save both financial resources and time, as they prepare to start small businesses.

Education as an economic engine is not a new idea. For years academic and business leaders have advocated higher education as a primary avenue to a successful career for the individual and a stable economy for the nation. Recent emphasis has been placed on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) focused careers and for good reason. But just as training tomorrow’s scientists and engineers is crucial to America’s future economic prosperity, so is training its entrepreneurs. The Kauffman Foundation’s study indicates that job growth occurs in the U.S. economy primarily through entrepreneurial activity, with the most consistent source of new jobs coming from small businesses in their first year of operation.

We have long known that small business creates 60 to 80 percent of new jobs every year. Kauffman has further identified which small businesses should receive credit for that amazing feat. Those who are serious about solving this recession should go to school on Kauffman’s findings.