Why A Little Mental Turbulence Can Be a Good Thing for Early-Stage Startups
July 26, 2022
After welcoming each new cohort of idea-driven participants to Entrepreneurial Mindset Training, facilitator Joel Barrett issues a warning: Turbulence Ahead. Barrett is a business development consultant with the Missouri Small Business Development Center (SBDC) at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He and his colleagues use the Ice House model to redefine entrepreneurship as the self-directed pursuit of opportunities to create value for others by discovering and solving problems—and he has firsthand experience with the…
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How the Ice House Program Fits into 30 Years of Entrepreneurship Education at a Kansas College
July 22, 2022
Johnson County Community College in Kansas City, Kansas, is a pioneer in entrepreneurship education. In fact, many of its students today weren’t even born yet when JCCC launched its entrepreneurship program in 1992. Adjunct Professor Joe Magnant has been in a prime position to observe the program’s ebbs and flows over the past three decades. For 15 of those years, he’s been riding the current along with the college as one of its go-to…
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Tips for Facilitating from the Hampshire County Sheriff’s Department
July 20, 2022
Many Ice House facilitators say their course participants don’t need facilitators to teach them entrepreneurial skills. The participants possess them already. So the issue is how they’re choosing to apply those skills. Take the participants in the Ice House classes offered by the Hampshire County Sheriff’s Department to the men in its correctional facility. “They do have an entrepreneurial mindset, but they’re using it in a different way because they’re driven by other things,”…
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Adding to the Startup ‘Knighthood’ in Florida
July 19, 2022
As each new cohort enters the Self-Employment Workshop Program in Tampa, Florida, facilitator Carol Minor sets the tone by knighting the participants as finishers. “You can’t do anything halfway,” she tells the group with her trademark spunk. “You can shift and pivot, but you can’t start something and not see it through.” Minor starts on an upbeat note, but she’s a realist. She knows not everyone will finish the first eight sessions, where she…
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Libraries and Entrepreneurship: A Natural Fit
July 12, 2022
Workforce and economic development are hot topics at libraries across the country—and many are tapping into ELI’s Entrepreneurial Mindset Training as a key resource. All public libraries in Georgia, Virginia, and Delaware offer free ELI training to staff and patrons. Many regional and local institutions do, too. For example, from the Mid-Continent Public Library in the metro Kansas City area to Spokane Public Library in Washington. Nashville Public Library joined these ranks in the…
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