Dear viewers of the show and visitors of this web site -

Thank you for watching the show and/or for visiting this website!

This show selects businesses through local Chambers of Commerce, local small business advocates (like the Economic Development Commissions, Better Business Bureau, and US SBA-SBDC-SCORE¹, ), and the local public television stations. Nobody can pay, or has every paid, to be on this show. Our sponsors pay for everything.

Small BusinessSchool² (and Small Business 2000, 1995-2001, and Small Business Today, 1994-1995) focuses on the topic of work; and we are constantly in search of the best practices among those people who, in creating work and wealth, make our world a better place.

Please tell others about the show. Here is an alternative to mindless television. Also, with so many choices, we all need to support and encourage the good businesses within our community. We can lift the ethics-morality-goodness bar within our cities and towns and by doing so, we lift the bar for our entire culture.

Every episode of this show has an overview, transcript, and case study guide so we all can learn what makes a good business. Our mission, and the mission of our nation's public television stations, have much in common and it is very different from commercial television. Our television shows are uniquely dedicated to empowering people through continuing education.

We ask and find answers to the questions, "What is work? What is good work? And, what is value?" It is a close-up on how people discover their special gifts and how they convert these gifts into meaningful work. It is education by example and inspiration and that is the heart of empowerment.

Like many programs on public television, we go around the USA and around the world to capture the best of the human spirit – people who follow their dreams. Our unique focus is on those people who start and grow a business. These people are value creators. They are often the prime movers of social capital in their communities. In the opening of every show, we say they are "...today's pioneers and quiet heroes." They forge into unknown places. They "...create jobs, create wealth, and make our world a better place." These people bring out the best within their employees, suppliers, resellers and customers.

Our goal is to have at least 4 million viewers per week. To reach that group, we first focus on the small business owners in the USA (especially the 25-27 million who file business tax returns and then an estimated 15 million who report their business income, often from weekends and evenings, as personal income). We then focus on small business employees which represents half the workforce. Then we focus on the customers of small business -- the rest of the population! We are also increasingly focusing on the estimated 400 million small business owners around the world (based on a 1:15 ratio).

If you appreciate what we are trying to do with SmallBusinessSchool, please join us in thanking your local public television station. At least be sure your membership is current. If you are a small business owner and you're doing well, we encourage you to become part of a select group of 400,000 businesses.

The #1 export of the USA is our movies, games, and television shows.

We need to be exporting the genius of the USA and not the stuff that pulls us down to the lowest common denominator. We should be exporting entrepreneurial education and, at the very least, our Three Sopranos who create musical harmonies not HBO's Sopranos who thrash values and make a mockery of small business. By lifting up exploitive behavior as an art form, cleverly shaping every second, HBO – and so much of commercial television and our cinema – encourages the bad, confuses the weak and the marginal, and weakens the strong.

If you are not a member of your local PBS-member station, please join today! Public television needs small business owners like you! We are asking all our viewers to thank your station, become a member, and get involved with quality TV.

Our viewers and web visitors often respond – we are glad to hear from you. Some have told us they quit jobs and started a business because the success of others inspired them. We have received hundreds of comments like, "Keep it coming!"

All of us here at Small Business School thank you for your letters of support. Each week we lift up a special business owner as our Master Class teacher. Following their examples, we can all help improve the fabric and quality of our communities and the world! Thank you.

With our thanks for everything that you do
to make our world a better place,

Bruce Camber, Executive Producer

PS. You may have seen the series on other than a broadcast from your local PBS-member station. Most cable stations rebroadcast the local station's signal. Even Dish Network and DirecTV rebroadcast PBS-member station's signals. But, these broadcast times are not part of our database search, so you will have to check your local listings. This show airs on many public television stations throughout the USA and on the Voice of America around the world.

This letter is one of our basic statements. Also: Mission & Name

References:

1. The show is going local, state-by-state and country-by-country:
There are over 6 billion of us on this little planet. Why can't we dream of transforming a bad medium, television, into a powerful educational tool about creativity and best practices? Why can't we compete and win the viewers?

I think we can. Yet, I am an eternal optimist and perhaps still bit naive even at 59 years old.

With the web, we have the technology and tools today to collapse space and time. We are all learning each other's name. Whether we like it or not, we are now a global family. Granted, there are many among us who have chosen a life of hate, greed, victimization, and self-aggrandizement. There are also many television shows that glamorize it.

I still think we can compete. We've started by finding creative types and great role models. We've done a fair job over the years, but working together, we can do better. We can do episodes about goodness, integrity, and ethics and make it every bit as dramatic and seductive as the worst of the stuff that airs on television today. We can reawaken the creative spirit in people. And as we do, we can extend a hand and try to pull some of theose negative types out of their abyss; they need those role models to see that life can be good on paths that lead to higher perfections.

We are seeking to list as many good businesses as possible and from that list have no less than 4 million business owners who have joined their local public television station. We can change the face of television.

2. 4,000,000 Weekly Viewers who are Small Business Owners, just in the USA,
all listed and linked within a Small Business Index of Learning Companies:
All of us should be members of our public television stations. We will change the nature of television so it is about teaching the children during their hours and teaching us from best practices how to live, learn, work, and perhaps even sleep! These links open the door to begin getting listed on this site. You can then opt to answer questions and so much more.

3. United States Small Business Administration: Many, many episodes of the show originated the SBA's Small Business Week and the winners of each state's Small Business Person of the Year award.