Ditching the Easy Fix at Victor Valley College
February 27, 2023
If you’re always implementing an easy fix, you’re probably looking at all your problems as technical issues rather than complex, adaptive ones. But it can be hard to find the motivation. Not to mention the time to peel back the layers of those big, intractable issues and devise solutions. Here’s a pep talk in the form of an example from Victor Valley College in Victorville, California, where McKenzie Tarango is the Dean of Instruction,…
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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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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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How the Ice House Model Underlies a Mission to Engage, Educate, and Empower Entrepreneurs
May 16, 2022
Long before Dr. Cassandra Little ever heard of Uncle Cleve Mormon and the Ice House approach to entrepreneurship, she already knew its power. That’s because her grandfather was an entrepreneur who had only a third-grade education but built a career working on cars and houses. Watching him, she absorbed the same lessons the Ice House model now instills in course participants via the Fresno Metro Black Chamber of Commerce. Little herself is a lifelong…
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How the City of Albuquerque Grows Entrepreneurial Thinking From the Inside Out
January 25, 2022
Many cities have worked to attract entrepreneurs over the past decade. Albuquerque, New Mexico, is among them—but in an innovative twist, the fast-growing Southwestern city also worked to foster an entrepreneurial mindset from the inside out. City leaders aren’t looking for municipal employees to start their own businesses. Instead, they’re following the Entrepreneurial Learning Initiative’s definition of entrepreneurship as the self-director pursuit of opportunities to create value for others. Here’s the story of how…
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Tackling Social Injustice Through an Entrepreneurial Mindset
October 27, 2021
The opportunities and resources for Black entrepreneurs and minority-led startups often presuppose a skill set that people who grew up in poverty don’t have. “A lot of the circles of support are for middle-class Black people,” explained Pastor Myron Pierce. Pierce serves as the pastor of the Mission Church in North Omaha, Nebraska. “There’s a language you have to speak, systems and structures and culture you need to know about—and that makes it hard…
Read moreContagious Enthusiasm for Entrepreneurial Thinking in Bermuda
September 28, 2021
Having a second job—or even a third or fourth—is typical for the staff who work with small and medium-sized businesses at the Bermuda Economic Development Corporation (BEDC). These entrepreneurial thinkers are passionate about the self-directed pursuit of opportunities to create value for others. Donte Hunt, Ondreyah Rochester, and Dennis Carter all work within the Micro, Small and Medium-Sized Enterprise (MSME) unit. Hunt does graphic design and creates websites. Additionally, he is in the last…
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Lessons in Economic Recovery from Small-Town America
May 27, 2021
Around 100,000 businesses shut their doors in 2020. Two-thirds of small business owners say it was their most difficult year in business. Now that the worst of the COVID pandemic is behind us, organizations like the bipartisan Economic Innovation Group are watching closely for signs of how the recovery will play out. In their recent analysis of U.S. Census Small Business Pulse Survey data, EIG found that more than a third of businesses anticipate…
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