This business will be owned by all involved. last update: May 2007 | referencing page
	Other Key Documents: First principles, Topics for Discussion, and a few of your letters. Everybody's a producer   »This History is still unfolding »Creating the best possible future »Finding good people »A working business model? »Starting with a Small Business 2000 Index go to 4K to 400K to 4M »Understanding BICEPS   This History is still unfolding SmallBusinessSchool began as a half-hour, weekly television series to study the best practices of small business owners who are respected within their industry and loved by their community. vision... We asked probing questions of highly-successful people who agreed to share their hard-earned insights, reflect on their failures, and look into the future. September 3, 1994 was the first broadcast. first episode... Creating the best possible future At that time, there were very few big businesses that had a small business strategy or marketing focus. Now most major corporations do because we all now know that it is within the dreams of individuals that small business begin. We know that these dreams spark insight and innovation and make our world a better place. on innovation... Finding good people We thought it would be difficult to find such special people, yet over ten years later, we know there is an abundance. It seems that most people really want to be good, dream large dreams, and make them come true. For each episode we select a part of the world to visit and then we ask every small business advocate in that area to nominate a small business or two. There are hundreds of advocates within every state! A list of very fine small businesses emerges. Often there are as many as 200! Through advice and consent, one is selected and in that selection process, everybody within the state knows that SmallBusinessSchool is coming in to do a production. And, by the time we leave, the people are planning for the next shoot. Everybody wants SmallBusinessSchool to do more episodes about the people in their community. We made the simple conclusion, "The show needs to go local." selection... A working business model? SmallBusinessSchool has often asked, "What business model would render the dollars so each station or the best independent producers in the area could go out and do an episode about one of those whom we didn't select?" There are 52 weeks in the year and if 13 of those weeks are local episodes of the show, those 13 would look like local superstars within a national line-up... "Wow, we sure do have a lot of businesses on this show!" If one out of four episodes is local, it will drive viewership; it will engage all the local small business advocates; it will give the local station something very edgy to do. They will be documenting some of the most creative people in their community and in the country. Each station will be transformed. In 2006-2007, SmallBusinessSchool began revamping its web site to provide a depth of support and services for local stations that is unprecedented within public television. $400M for the stations... If the local station is actively involved in documenting the insights and dreams of their very finest small business owners, and if each station were to help small business owners create video content (for web sites and more), that public television station will find its Producers' Clubs with hundreds of new members. We see a day when public television has two major thrusts, the children's programming and then community development programming. And, the largest slice about local development will always be those people who best demonstrate democratic capitalism at work and that is small business. More about democratic capitalism... Television historically has been the goal in itself. Most people watch television passively. A small but growing number of people are watching television with Internet access within the same box and are actively multiplexing. Few shows have activities alongside their broadcasts. Fewer have activities for viewers after a show concludes. In the future, both will become the standard, not the exception. Watching television will not be the goal unto itself, it will be the scheduling event through which diverse populations of people gather to interact during and after the episode airs on television, whether it comes via broadcast, satellite, cable, or Internet. No television production has effectively captured its market by offering such services. SmallBusinessSchool is in a unique position to do so because by the time a show is aired the basic support documents have been prepared -- the homepage, an executive summary, transcript, case study guide, and streaming video by segments. 2K to 4K to 400K to 4M Small Business 2000 Index: Work is underway to bring the selection process totally online so each of the top 25 markets have no less than 2000 businesses within its queue. The next 25 markets have 1000. The next 25 have 750 and the next 25 have 500. And, then all the other markets are on a progressive scale so the smallest DMA has at least 250 businesses listed. The goal is to establish a small business index of learning and growing companies in each DMA. We call it the Small Business 2000 index. Taken all together there would be as many as 400,000 of the finest small businesses in the USA. If we were to select one business for every 100 businesses listed, we would need a database of at least 4M small businesses. That is about the membership of our Chambers of Commerce and the NFIB. And then, another goal is to increase the production values of the show, get them more compelling than anything on HBO, so that all 4M owners and their friends-and-family are watching and participating each week. Why not? more...

The Small Business Index of Learning Companies
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