Entrepreneurship: A Collaboration Station

I've been reflecting a lot lately on the importance of collaboration. This past weekend I got to spit-ball business ideas, from salon supply stores to oilfield trucking to photography equipment consulting, with old friends and new acquaintances. 

As the recent Opportunity Quest competition came to an end, I realized just how much many of the competitors (myself included) benefited from sitting down together to discuss our various new ventures, despite the fact that we were in direct competition with each other.

There is just so much to be gained from openly discussing your ideas with others. Even if they're not part of your team and may have little to no experience in your chosen industry, different perspectives can be invaluable. A single tidbit of information, that may otherwise be trivial and useless, may make all the difference as you work towards launching and growing a new venture. Our management professors teaching courses for the new entrepreneurship minor would agree when I say that an entrepreneur is an information center, voraciously gathering new information from all sources and relaying it to any and all that may benefit from it. 

So, if you've been kicking around an idea for a while, it's high time you start collaborating. And if you're worried that you don't have a community of creative, ambitious, entrepreneurial individuals with whom to collaborate, come visit the USU E-Club. It's what we do.

— Reed J. Page

Executive Vice President

USU Entrepreneurship Club 

Examining the Options With Career Exploration

Center for Economic Development Conference Room

The Jon M. Huntsman School of Business has a program, called Career Exploration, that allows students to explore different career options. Earlier this year, I had the chance to participate in this awesome opportunity! We drove down to Salt Lake super early one morning and had appointments all day long. One of my favorite companies that we visited was a non-profit organization called the Center for Economic Development. This company was located on one of the top floors in a tall building. We met in their conference room where you could see the entire Salt Lake Valley out of some huge windows.

Some of our other visits included an investor, theGovernor’s office, some political campaign consultants and the Chamber of Commerce. It was such a rich experience. I learned so much! It was great to be able to take a day to think about my future. Because of that day, I have spent some time rethinking some of my goals. Being a student is the best part of my life so far! The options are endless and every day new opportunities present themselves! Utah State has opened so many doors for me. I can't wait to see what’s in store for me these next few days and months!

— Steven Mortenson
     Huntsman Student

Editor's note: This post was also featured on Utah State University's My Friends blog. You can view it here. 

Holding The World’s Largest Gripe Session

Eric Schulz

We all know that person who can gripe about anything.  A beautiful day with blue skies and 78 degrees (wouldn’t that be nice right about now), and they complain about pollens making them sneeze, bugs or anything else they can think of. 

While griping is hardly ever encouraged, this week in my marketing classes I took off the gloves for an hour and declared our time together as “The World’s Largest Gripe Session." "Complain to your delight!" I told them. "What bugs you? What do you hate?"

It was wonderful. Everything from “I hate scraping ice off the inside of my car windows," to “I hate not having a place to put my backpack under my seat," to “I hate when the dryer eats my socks.”  In just one hour the class generated over 1,500 complaints and gripes!  Why did I open up the class to nothing but negativism and criticism? Because within gripes and complaints are the seeds for innovation!

Now we will take those seeds of problems and use them as inspiration in DESIGN THINKING, designing and creating new products and services to solve these very problems.  For example, using the three gripes above, great new product ideas jump out — what about a hot can of air to melt the inside ice on your car window?  Or an ice scraper with the right bend to conform to scraping the INSIDE of your car window?  Or adding backpack holders under the seats in classrooms (similar to the holders on the California Adventure ride at Disneyland)?  Or what about “Snap Socks” where your sock all now have a snap at the top to snap them together before washing and drying so that one of them doesn’t fall prey to the dryer monster? 

If you are looking for new ideas, BEFORE you start brainstorming, do a giant gripe session to identify problem areas, and your time spent creating new ideas will be much more fruitful and useful!

How Do You Make Time For New Ideas When You Are Already Booked to the Max?

 By Steve Eaton

How innovative are you if the Beddelman report is due at 2 p.m. and it’s 1 p.m.? If the boss is expecting something of you right now, can you make time in your schedule to think up new ideas and game-changing strategies?

At the Huntsman School of Business we talk about the entrepreneurial spirit and emphasize the importance of innovative thinking. In today’s fast-paced workplace, however, tapping the creative powers of your employees and yourself can be more than a little challenging.

Years ago I attended a memorable and outstanding workshop on creativity given by the late Gordon MacKenzie, author of “Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A Corporate Fool’s Guide to Surviving with Grace.” He had worked for Hallmark and said that even though the company depended on creative ideas for its product, the culture didn’t always encourage things that weren’t part of the status quo.

“Trying to get an idea through Hallmark was like trying to drive a four-wheel drive truck through a mountain of cooked oatmeal,”he said. “You never have a sense of hitting a wall but eventually you come to a stop.”

At one point he was asked to take a new position that would be charged, in part, with encouraging innovation at the company. Gordon came up with the title “creative paradox.”

Once he got that title he decorated his new office with candles, a giant wood telephone wire spool for his desk, and signs that featured Chinese characters, even though he had no idea what they meant. He even hung from the ceiling an unsual chair he purchased from an artist. The chair had wings and a halo on the back of it and he dangled it just above his regular chair, tilted forward. He wanted it to look as if he had just fallen from the ceiling chair into his regular chair.

People would come in to this strange, mystical office and present their ideas to him and he would listen intently and say, “Good idea.”

Employees, emboldened by the approval of the creative paradox would go back to their supervisor and tell him or her their idea, adding that the creative paradox liked it. The middle-managers would try to find the creative paradox on the company organization chart but Gordon's title wasn’t there. Fearing he might be above them in the pecking order, the managers would often allow their employees to proceed with their creative idea just to be safe. Hallmark used a “creative paradox” to free up innovative ideas.

A story in the Jan. 19 Wall Street Journal, “The Trouble With Tinkering With Time,” talks about how different companies have tried to give their employees more time for innovation. Google is famous for its “20% initiative” where employees are encouraged to work on projects that are not related to their job description.

The writer, Alec Foege, says that companies can be terrified to let people “tinker” with new ideas on company time.

“They’ve got enough to do already thank you very much,” he writes. “Innovation at its heart, is a torturous anarchical act. True tinkerers are dilettantes, free-form creative types motivated more by their own curiosity than by the bottom line. In short, they aren’t the kinds of employees most big companies like adding to the payroll in the first place.”

He writes that just one drawback of a firm officially structuring innovation time is that “being ordered to tinker robs the activity of personal passion.” He suggests that one radical approach would be to allow people to directly profit from their successful ideas. He warns that companies who embark on these initiatives have to make room for “genuine creative chaos without clear goals,” and that they need to know that repeated failure is part of the deal with such a strategy.

I was once asked to come up with a presentation that my company’s executives could use to help employees understand the firm’s latest goals. I came up with quite the unorthodox presentation that proved more than a little memorable. If you come to my office in the basement you can see a sign that reads, “Rewarding Top Employees With Spam.” That’s a left-over prop from that presentation.

One of my favorite parts of the song and dance I created for my superiors was a lightly scripted moment that had me bursting into a room while the executive was making the presentation. I would get into an argument with him or her that would eventually lead to me being thrown out of the meeting, much to the delight of my coworkers. I proved quite good at being booted from meetings and they even sent me on the road to be ejected mid-presentation in other places where the company had offices.

That was fun creativity for me but it came because the executives were willing to take the risk and encourage such ideas.

I’m not sure what the secret is to institutionalizing innovation. Gordon MacKenzie said creativity is not the kind of thing you can mandate and measure. The most innovative people I know are the right-brained sorts who are great at generating new ideas but not so good on the follow up. What do you do to keep yourself from falling into a rut? How do you reinvent your work? Send us a blog post or just share a new idea or two. Maybe you’ll end up being someone celebrated for revolutionizing higher education as we know it now or … maybe you’ll just get thrown out of a meeting. That’s all part of the risk you take. Are you up to the challenge, or are you going to finish the Beddleman report first?

The Student-Mother That Studied Abroad

For many non-traditional students, study abroad doesn’t seem like an option.  There are factors that have to be considered that regular students do not understand. These considerations, such as child juggling and income are inconvenient at best, but not insurmountable. As a mother of two children, getting the best education possible is vital to me, and I haven’t found a better way of achieving that education than by broadening my horizons by studying abroad. Many people have asked me how I can be a mom and a student, and still manage to attend school full time, and even study abroad. The answer is something a wise person told me, “The best investment you can make and get the most return is in yourself”. That might sound selfish, but think of it this way, if I don't get a good education and take advantage of all the opportunities that I have, I won’t be able to give as good of a life to my children, and I won’t be setting the example that I would want them to follow. 

There are things you have to do to be able to study abroad as a non-traditional student. First and most importantly, you need to understand that study abroad is important, and that developing a global mentality will help you in your future, to get a job, and to broaden the horizons of your children.  Second, you need the support of those around you. Third, you have to have a good plan of how you are going to accomplish it.  Even when all of your ducks are in a row, you will miss your family greatly, but at worst I only had to go a few days before I could see them on Skype, which made the distance much more bearable.

Trying to raise children while going to school is also expensive. Studying abroad adds to the expense, but is very doable. The most important step is to decide to go, because as an old saying says, “where there is a will, there is a way.” If you make up your mind to go it will happen. There are always little things that you can cut out, like eating out or renting movies, and if you talk to the financial aid office, you will find there is money for just this sort of thing.  If you tell yourself you can’t, it won’t happen. Once you find the money, you will also have to justify taking time away from your family. No mom and student’s house is as clean as he/she wants it to be, and meals aren’t as healthy as they ought to be, but for me the choice was clear. If I spent just two weeks abroad, I would be a full semester closer to graduation, and closer to giving my children the life they deserve.

The last time I studied abroad was in Russia and Turkey with the Huntsman School of Business. I was three months pregnant. The schedule was rigorous and I was battling morning sickness and fatigue, but if I had not gone when I did, I might never have had the chance. The experiences I had will stay with me for the rest of my life. I was able to network not only with my peers, who will be a great resource in the future, but with both American and foreign companies, giving me a leg up when I graduate and start looking for a job. I also had two other great takeaways from the experience; a glimpse and a better understanding of the people and countries that I visited, and hands-on experience with the concepts and ideas we hear about in the classroom but rarely have the chance to see firsthand.

The most important thing for me to remember has been to make the most of my time at the University. It has always been tempting to simply graduate. I want to be home with my children much more than I am, but even though I could spend a little more time with them right now, I would not be able to provide them with the same quality of life that I can with a global perspective and great education. I had experiences that I can tell them about, and peoples and places that I can describe to them firsthand. I want my children to know what is out there so that they will be motivated to go experience it themselves when they have the chance.

— Cynthia Reeder
Huntsman student in Business Administration

Stepping Outside Our Comfort Zones Into the Unknown

A lot of us struggle when it comes to leaving our comfort zones. It is often times the unknown that we fear when we don’t know what to expect. As a result, our lives can become stagnant and we must remember that if there is something that we are unhappy with or we desire things to be different, we have to initiate that change from within ourselves.

Many business leaders, as we know, are willing to take risks and go the extra mile. I don’t think many of them would be where they are today if not for their willingness to step out of their comfort zones. I have to admit that it is not easy and I, myself, have a problem with leaving a comfortable position. I do realize, however, that a lot of successful people have to trade comfort with uneasiness at some point in their careers to seek improvement in their lives.

Some people complain about their unsatisfactory jobs or businesses. Instead of wasting time complaining, why not do something about it? Go back to school, relocate or do whatever it takes to get to where you want to be. The first step towards change is often times scary especially when dealing with the reality that stepping out of our comfort zones can involve lots of money, career change, loneliness, etc. Our efforts, however, will pay off when we are finally rewarded with the things that we originally left our comfort zones for. That is why we need to shift our focus to the big picture instead of the momentary obstacles.

This article from entrepreneur.com provides some tips to help us step out of our comfort zones.  

— Nadiah Johari

Club Involvement Can Boost Career Acceleration

Every student at the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business has an end goal in mind — to land a great job! How do students set out to do this? By attending classes and studying to pass tests and get good grades. However, it is a common misunderstanding that good grades are all you need to obtain that great career.

Students need opportunities to apply classroom learning in a very real and practical way. Employers want to see how students developed a skill, not only that you heard about it in a class or read it in a textbook. While group projects are assigned by professors seeking to help students apply learning, they are limited in what they can do.

Student organizations and clubs have been created as a means to grant practical opportunities to apply learning. Clubs have been implemented to support students in their career acceleration efforts. As stated in The Jon M. Huntsman School of Business’ purpose, clubs are there “to be a career accelerator for our students and an engine of growth for our communities, the state, the nation and the world.”

How is career acceleration measured? By counting the number of club members that have job offers upon graduation. Career acceleration is not achieved unless every club member has a job offer, which they are willing to accept, when they graduate. Currently we are able to place all members who are highly involved so, we need to get more members highly involved and pass on the benefits to the members with time constraints.

Student organizations present many opportunities for career acceleration so students, take advantage of all that you can. Join multiple organizations. Attend club meetings and find the club that has a purpose aligned with your desires and needs. Doing so will increase your chances of being hired. 

Find out more about your clubs and student organizations here:  http://myhuntsman.usu.edu/htm/student-experiences/clubs.

We are here to support career acceleration!

— George Johnson

Lean Leaders Club 

The Lean Leaders Club is an organization that is dedicated to providing opportunities for students to become future employees for operational excellence.  

How Social Media Can Steal or Seal Your Job

Klydi Heywood

What if a future employer “Googled” your name right now? Would you be unsure, excited or nervous for what he or she found? According to a survey done by thenextweb.com, 37 percent "of employers are checking out prospective employees on social media before they make a final decision.”

The article stated that employers are usually looking for one of four things when checking out someone’s social media reputation. Most of the employers wanted to see the level of professionalism that was demonstrated online. The next thing they looked for is to see if the potential employee would be a “good fit for the company atmosphere.” Others said they wanted to learn more about the candidate’s qualifications and some stated that wanted to see if the individual was “well-rounded.”

So what does this mean for us? The first thing to do is to make sure there is nothing online that you wouldn’t want everyone in the world to see. The tricky thing about the internet is that once something is out there, it is there permanently, so be careful what you choose to post. 

Another tip to take into consideration is to think about what reputation you want to have. If you want to be known as a “business person,” “comedian” or “qualified genius,” then work to make that reputation come across.

You can control what your future employers see. Be careful what you put online because it might steal or seal your future job.

Huntsman School Has Permission to Break Ground for New Building

Ken Snyder

I have a big announcement to make today. We have received permission to begin taking down Lund Hall and to break ground for our new building. I wouldn’t go stand out by Lund Hall waiting for the heavy equipment to arrive, however. In case you haven’t noticed, we’ve been experiencing sub-zero temperatures and our expectation is that winter will continue to happen in Logan for weeks to come.

So, our plan right now is that we will probably begin that work in March or April and we will probably hold some kind of ground-breaking ceremony to celebrate this important milestone for the school. I’ll keep you posted as our plans firm up and the ground thaws out.

It’s taken a lot of hard work and strong support from alumni and friends to get to this point. When the time is right, we’ll share more details about the many contributions that have made this possible.

For now, this means that our architectural firm can start drafting up the very detailed plans that will actually be used to construct the building. This is work that is done indoors and can move forward even if the weather outside is frightful.

Now we have one more reason to look forward to spring this year. Huntsman Hall will soon begin to rise on campus.

The Idiocy of Apple

Eric Schulz

Everyone thinks that Apple is brilliant. Phooey. What kind of genius company takes their best-selling products and discontinues them, introducing an upgrade virtually every year?  Apple! Did the world really need an iPhone 2, iPhone 3, iPhone 4, iPhone 5; iPad, iPad 2, The New iPad, mini iPad? Did they ask for an iPod, iPod mini, iPod Touch, or an iPod Shuffle? Not only did the world need these upgrades; they demanded them!

Apple IS brilliant. They understand the importance of innovation, of having a healthy dissatisfaction for the status quo. Apple has an inbred DNA that says, “we can do better," and then goes out and does it.

Look at the personal music player business segment. For decades, SONY dominated the market with its Walkman, first introduced in 1979. They did very little innovation to the product. Every five years, from 1979 to 1999, they celebrated their anniversary with a new cassette model introduced on July 1. Every FIVE years! 

In 2001, Apple introduced the first iPod, using digital storage instead of cassettes or CD’s. They introduced the iTunes store from which customers could acquire their music. And instantly, the Walkman was dead.

By all rights, SONY should be the dominant player in personal music. They had worldwide domination of the category with their players. But they didn’t do what Apple did—innovate, and vertically integrate. Instead of saying, “lets sell a new digital music player," Apple said “lets sell music AND a digital music player, and an online storage vault for our customers to store their music and download onto other Apple devices.” Game over. Apple won. And what is sometimes lost in this history is that at the time of Apple’s move into music, it was a struggling computer company that was popular only in the graphic-designers market. 

It’s been said that courage is the willingness to innovate when you don’t have to. It’s easy to change when your business is on the rocks, but when things are going well, it takes real courage to say, “let’s make it better." Studies have shown that companies that have innovation as part of their primary business model average more than15% profit margins, the highest in most industries. Why? Because they are in tune with their customer needs, constantly working to improve and make their products even better and more relevant to their customer's changing needs. The SONY example clearly shows that when you are self-satisfied and stand-still, that’s when you are most vulnerable, as somebody will surely come from behind and run you over, and you likely won’t even see it coming. Every business should learn from Apple, and start working on an innovation pipeline and begin hiring innovation managers to lead their new initiatives.

A Different Kind of New Year's Resolution

It’s the new year and many of us have probably created lists of things that we want to achieve this year. A great article was recently featured on this blog about setting goals that stick. My article, however, will focus on one particular goal that should be on everyone’s list for a happier year.

For some of you, the new year brings in many new projects and it can be easy for everyone to fall into the trap of work. As exciting as it is, you have to learn to take some time off or at least a moment to breathe. It will do wonders in helping you clear your head for a fresh start and view an idea from a whole new perspective when working on your projects. I would suggest that for at least five to ten minutes each day, stop doing whatever you’re doing at work and start appreciating the things around you, such as listening to the birds chirping, looking at the sun setting, spending some time with the family, etc.

This article from inc.com provides great tips toward becoming a stress-free workaholic. 

- Nadiah Johari

Pouring Concrete in Sub-zero Temperatures?

Ken Snyder

Here’s an ice cold thought for those of you who are out there thinking that you don’t really want to get back to work in January.

Do you know how hard it is to pour concrete when the temperatures are 8 degrees below zero? When it comes to pouring concrete, contractors consider it cold weather when average temperatures are below 40 degrees.

Pouring concrete correctly is a sophisticated and time-consuming process. It’s not impossible to pour concrete in weather like this, it’s just a lot more complicated. It could involve bringing in heating equipment and insulating the work area with about six inches of straw which has to be contained in plastic sheeting. And keep in mind concrete should not dry too quickly. Lots of things can go wrong if each step isn’t done properly. Temperatures have to be controlled.

When it’s this cold, concrete pouring takes more time. And right about now most people I know, with the exception of skiers and snowboarders, are not in favor of things that require more time outdoors. So next time you think your job is hard, put on three or four coats and take a walk out in front of our building and watch the people working below ground there. They are not skiing. They are working all day in these bone-chilling temperatures. Then let that image firm up in your mind and go back into the warmth with increased insight and a solid understanding of the benefits of indoor work in January. 

Setting Goals That Will Stick

It’s that time of year again. I find myself thinking about ambitious goals with a new resolve. I love the excitement in the air and the feeling of determination, but I often find that those feelings run dry within a few months. I found an article on entrepreneur.com that gave unique insights on how to set and reach goals if you’re a busy person.

The article gives the tip of finding the reasons why. Start by “focusing on the intention underneath the resolution,” the article states. This means that if I set a goal to run five 5K’s by the end of the summer I need to come up with 10 reasons why I should meet that goal. Things like “to stay in shape for the year,” or “prove to myself that I can do it,” are goals with specific meaning and can drive me when my New Year’s ambition dries up.

Another tip the article gives is to focus on “efficient resolution-setting”. Those who may be busy business people know what it means to prioritize and get things done. “Pick your areas of opportunity, state your intention, and use focus and iteration to get more done,” the article states.

To help clarify the article gave a few examples:

Don’t “Manage your time better.”
• Do get used to working in blocks of 15 minutes (1% of your day).

Don’t “Become a better person.”
• Do schedule the “next” volunteer event to spend a half-day helping.

Don’t “Learn more.”
• Do invite someone you respect to meet for a coffee or lunch five times over the year.

Goal setting is an important aspect in our lives that can make each year better than the last. Remember to focus on the why and to use focus and iteration to get more done this year.

Klydi Heywood