I wanted to blog about Sean Carlson but the New York Times did such a good job that I’m not really sure I have anything else to add. So read the article here and tell me what you think….

 Basically, he’s trying to break into the music industry. He’s succeeding with his tenacity. He’s failing. He’s getting in over his head. Ultimately, I think he’ll have the bravado to succeed and the charm to convince others to get him to the top. I think these are important lessons.

Lesson learned:

#1.)  Find good help when you are overstretched.

What lessons did you learn?

SuperGroup a company headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia is on to something novel. As a web design company, it had trouble in the early days finding enough work for all its employees. So rather than lay some people off, the company allowed its employees to use their free time to develop new ideas. This has lead to among other things a wealth of talent and in particular the development of new media- music in particular. Eventually, these talents developed during the employees free time have resulted in new clients won.

Chronicled in the WSJ, last Thursday, Mr Wallace, the young owner of SuperGroup, noted that “granting employees more freedom engenders loyalty and hard work. Employees tend to come in early and go home late”. His business model started out of a desire to keep good talent has resulted in profitable ventures. (more…)

There is a small fad happening on a lot of blogs lately where people create a list of the greatest albums to be released each year since they were born. Being a slight music nut I had to make a list of my own. To most this may seem completely unrelated to entrepreneurship but as I made the list it occurred to me that each album is an entrepreneurial venture in itself. Each album did something innovative to be considered on of the best albums that year. Additionally it reminded me of an article that came out of Davos in 2007 where they were asked to identify “The Top Ten Truths About the Digital Ecosphere”. The ninth truth was Songs are the spiritual property of the young and that music constructs young people’s identities and creates a sense of ownership amongst young people. So without further ado, the list:

1985 – The Cure “The Head on the Door”
1986 - The Smiths “The Queen is Dead”
1987 - Guns N’ Roses “Appetite For Destruction”
1988 - Pixies “Surfer Rosa”
1989 – Beastie Boys “Paul’s Boutique”
Honorable Mention: The Pixies “Doolittle”
1990 – Fugazi “Repeater”
1991 – Red Hot Chili Peppers “Blood Sugar Sex Magik”
Honorable Mention: Nirvana “Nevermind”
1992 - Massive Attack “Blue Lines”
1993 - Nirvana “in Utero”
1994 - Jeff Buckley “Grace”
Honorable Mention: Weezer “Weezer”
1995 - Oasis “What’s the Story Morning Glory”
Honorable Mention: Wilco “A.M”
1996 - At The Drive-In “Acrobatic Tenement”
Honorable Mention: Weezer “Pinkerton” or Wilco “Being There”
1997 - Radiohead “OK Computer”
1998 - Cursive “The Storms of Early Summer: semantics of a song”
Honorable Mention: Neutral Milk Hotel “In The Aeroplan Over the Sea”
1999 - Sigur Rios “Ágætis Byrjun”
Honorable Mention: The Flaming Lips “The Soft Bulletin”; Death Cab For Cutie “Something About Airplanes”; Wilco “Summerteeth”
2000 - Elliot Smith “Figure 8″
Honorable Mention: Radiohead “Kid A”; Ryan Adams “Heartbreaker”
2001 - Ted Leo and the Pharmacists “The Tyranny of Distance”
Honorable Mention: Rilo Kiley “Take Off And Landings”; Radiohead “Amnesiac”
2002 - Wilco “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot”
Honorable Mention: Glassjaw “Worship and Tribute”; Interpol “Turn on the Black Lights”; The Postal Service “Give Up”
2003 - Broken Social Scene “You Forgot It In People”
Honorable Mention: Aesop Rock “Labor Days” ; My Morning Jacket “It Still Moves”
2004 - Arcade Fire “Funeral”
Honorable Mention: Danger Mouse “The Grey Album”; Madvillain “Madvilliany” or The Streets “A Grand Don’t Come For Free” or TV on the Radio “Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes”
2005 - Sufjan Stevens “Illinois”
Honorable Mention: Bloc Party “Silent Alarm”; The Hold Steady “Seperation Sunday”; Kings of Leon “Aha Shake Heartbreak”; My Moring Jacket “Z”; The National “The Alligator”; The New Pornographers “Twin Cinema”;  Okkervil River “Black Sheep Boy”; Stars “Set Yourself On Fire”; Wolf Parade “Apologies to the Queen Mary”
2006 - Hold Steady “Boys and Girls in America”
Honorable Mention: Destroyer “Destroyer’s Rubies”; Joanna Newsom “Ys”; Grizzly Bear “Yellow House”; TV On the Radio “Return to Cookie Mountain”
2007 - The National “Boxer”
Honorable Mention: Battles “Mirrored”; Burial “Untrue”; Radiohead “In Rainbows”;  Spoon “Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga”;  Voxtrot “Voxtrot”

Note: I did break one rule in that you could only pick one album a year. But to follow another rule of only being able to have an artist appear once on the list I had to add an honorable mention.

So in the past few months, I’ve come across the following:

modelpreneur– models turned entrepreneurs

celebrepreneuer– celebritities turned entrepreneurs

puzzlepreneur– puzzle makers who are turning profits

webpreneurs– IT entrepreneurs (more…)

I recently stumbled across this paragraph, in an article about Russian entrepreneurship:

Andrei Sharov, Director of the Department of State Economic Regulation in the Economic Development and Trade Ministry (MERT), suggests that for Russian private business to develop, promotion at various levels is needed. “I recall the results of a sociological study: Whom do Russian women prefer to marry? And entrepreneurs were at the bottom of the list. This is very important. If we don’t change women’s preferences, then I think few people will want to be entrepreneurs,” Sharov joked. Support for entrepreneurship, in his opinion, must be displayed not only in state policy, but also in the family, at all levels of the educational system, and in public opinion.

The article goes on to discuss how cultural differences affect innovation. In particular, Sergey Borisov, President of OPORA Rossii, an all-Russian public organization of small and medium-sized entrepreneurs, added, “Russian and American entrepreneurs are alike in some (more…)

Australian entrepreneur Dorjee Sun thinks that he can change the world by saving one forest at a time. His logic “the more forests we save the more money we make”. The forests that he references in particular are those in Indonesia where huge tracts of rain forest (as much as 300 soccer fields per hour) are being burned down. Local farmers make money burning the land to produce cash crops like palm oil. However, the destruction of the natural eco-system could be putting the global climate in peril.

Sun’s plan is to convince financiers to back his program involving carbon credits. (more…)

Entrepreneurship is the last refuge of the trouble making individual.
Natalie Clifford Barney

Entrepreneurship is a a response to something new and unexpected – an idea, a technological innovation, a lucky accident, an emergent demand. It is by nature difficult to predict, sometimes responding to a niche customer group forgotten by others. Such is the case with FLDSDress.com, the new apparel website started by women of the YFZ (“Yearning for Zion Ranch”), the community of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus that made headlines this Spring for reasons completely unrelated to entrepreneurship.

To give some background: in April of these year, Texas Child Protective Services (CPS) in April removed all children from the compound, arguing that minors were at risk of sexual abuse. CPS dispersed many of the children in foster families throughout Texas, separating them from their parents. Mothers, worried that CPS would not be able to furnish modest, FLDS-style clothing for the children, made their own clothing and set up an online store for CPS to use. The children are now out of state custody, but many of the women who followed their children to their new temporary homes have not yet returned to the YFZ Ranch, and they need to pay for rent and food. The store, then, presently serves the more practical purpose of basic sustenance for these uprooted families. (more…)

So, I was provoked this morning by a new study- I know rare, eh? You think all I do is read quirky articles and tangentially relate them to entrepreneurship? Well occasionally I read reports, real ones, the kinds written by people who have more letters after their name then I. (Sometimes I wish I was Kristina Libby Sr. , III– really then I would have more than enough letters…….ahhh, occasionally I loose even myself).

So, the new study called the Future Face of Enterprise (which for the sake of full disclosure was written in part by our UK Host’s Make Your Mark) told me that a.) less and less often are entrepreneurs loners and that b.) their work environment and personal time are becoming more and more important. Culminating in the realization that we are no longer entrepreneurs only for the money but rather more for the lifestyle it can help them lead and the means it provides for giving back to society. (more…)

Let’s really break it down, here. I am a endless consumerist. I buy things all the time. I know that this is disgusting and senseless but I can’t help it. I’m also a sucker for buying things that will help people. So when GAP’s (PRODUCT) RED line came out, I used it to justify purchases. When things have the breast cancer ribbon on the label I buy. I fall into that category of purchasers that social marketing people love to target. In short, I’m a sucker.

So, I’d like to change that. I’d like to buy the same things while still doing good things. Therefore, I’d like to take part in a Carrotmob and protect my pocketbook. Oh, what’s a Carrotmob, you ask? (more…)