Last Update: Saturday February 4, 2012

Today's Open House - These doors are almost always opened.

Webcasts, Collaboration, Chats...

First a little discussion board will open up..

Eventually the studio will be opened up and you'll be able to come in for a visit anytime. Live interactive webcams. Most of time it will be a bit boring, but when the lights are on for a live broadcast, the webcam will be on.

We've been talking about doing this for years at 8 PM EST on Sundays.

We will have one of the guests of a show and open the mike for discussions with everybody who is visiting on the web site.

Some of the collaboration events after a show airs in a local market will also be done from the studio.

You only get to keep what you give away.

In one episode of the show, the owner said, "I keep what I have by giving it away." His generosity in the community is legendary. He was essentially paraphrasing an oft-quoted piece of wisdom (the source is apparently unknown):

"It’s a universal law: You have to give before you get.
You must plant your seeds before you reap the harvest.
The more you sow, the more you’ll reap.
In giving to others, you’ll find yourself blessed.
The law works to give you back more than you have sown.
The giver’s harvest is always full.
Those that obtain have little.
Those who scatter have much.
Nature does not give to those who will not spend."

In that light, Small Business School shall go forward.

And, we are very glad you here.

You are invited to come at any time.

"So, just what is here?" ...a weekly television series about best practices in business since 1994 where every inch of footage has been, and is being evaluated, and much of the best of it has become available as an online video, all answers to key business questions. Plus there is a case study guide, executive summary and transcript. These answers are all from some of the finest business owners selected by their local community. These videos can be accessed by topic, industry, location and key words.

Every inch of footage has aired on PBS stations in the USA and the Voice of America around the world. The dream of moving this content into a database structure actually began in 1994, yet that early website remained just one big flat file. In 2000 we began working with DB2 but we were over our heads. We did start streaming entire episodes of the show but it was all quite chunky.

What you see now is driven by Adobe's Cold Fusion using MySQL.

In 2006 Graphtek Advertising & Design in Palm Desert had developed their own Content Management System so much of the legacy content could easily be moved into a database architecture. That ithe best of the evergreen video from the televisions shows, the transcripts and case study guides. All the videos were re-entered as relatively short answers, usually one-to-three minutes, to key questions.

There are lots of choices to find the information you want.

We hope, given that you are here, that you will get find some insights to help you start, run or grow your business. There are even insights on harvesting (selling the business or taking on investors.

The truth about starting, running and growing a business

There is no sugar-coating here. It is the hard truth from people who have done it. They've created jobs for at least ten years. They're loved by their community and respected within their industry. Nobody can pay or has paid to be on this show. The mission is to find the most ethical, honest and generous people and to them to tell their inside story.

Help guide the future! This enterprise will soon be in the hands of the following:
1. Those Small Business School members who actively participate in building the school
and those independent producers who help create the content,
2. Those long-standing airing stations that cooperate in content development,
3. Some of the national and local sponsors, and
4. Many of the Chambers of Commerce, national trade associations, and
local small business advocacy groups.