The Entrepreneurship Learning Model

I was reflecting on my recent decision to resign from the UW-W CEO Board of Directors and realized that I wasn’t getting enough value from the meetings at CEO, and further…the board of directors was counterintuitive of entrepreneurial spirit. So, I wrote this.

Farmers like to sit in class, meetings, and lectures and take the time to let the knowledge become ripe. They like to be sure of success before taking action. (There’s nothing wrong with this, just a preference.)
Hunters like action. They like to learn by application and to learn-on-the-go. They don’t want to spend time listening, when the could learn the same thing by doing. They are just as scared of failure most of the time, but have much shorter memories and can move on much faster than farmers.

The PURPOSE of an Entrepreneurship Club

The current model for student organizations is standardized across all organizations: guest speakers and pizza parties. There is a lot of learning and education and networking, but it is target towards farmers who are accumulating knowledge for later harvesting.

An individual with entrepreneurial tendencies is a HUNTER. He/she does not want to sit and listen (or either of those on their own). The very idea of a chair is daunting….and the only way to counterbalance a lack of physical dynamism is to go overboard on the mental dynamism. Note that a trained entrepreneur could probably find a business idea in the dead bug under his table. So the standard model works for him/her. The TRAINEE, on the other hand, needs further guidance.

Suggestions

Eliminate the Board of Directors
The first thing I would do to focus on creating entrepreneurs is get rid of the standard board of directors. You cannot create an entrepreneur in a structure of leaders and followers. A different model is required. I’m sure it is possible, but I can’t think of an effective way to COMPLETELY eliminate the board though, so I’m going to edit it to…MINIMIZE the amount of people in charge. 2-4 should be more than enough.

Guest Speakers
Please…..no slideshows.. (especially because most of the people who would agree to speak to a student organization are either terrible at making slide shows, or use the same ones they use for corporate presentations.) Fastest way to put us to sleep.

Bring in professional speakers who have good presentation skills, even if what they say is useless. Entrepreneurs need stimulation, NOT information, at meetings–they’ll find whatever information they need on the internet or on their own time.

Individual Mentorship
Get a list of entrepreneurs or business owners (NOT managers or executives) and do random matching. Even a speed-dating type thing. Entrepreneurs naturally think of questions to ask, but it’s too easy to get lost in the crowd and forgo opportunities that arise in group sessions.

Location
I ran a big campaign at UW-W about matching the systems in learning institutions with the systems in real life. By the same principle….Entrepreneurs have to be able to do business on the run–the mobile scene is quickly becoming huge. Brick and mortar is becoming obsolete in more and more industries. On the same note, club meetings shouldn’t take place in a classroom (remember the desk/chair phobia?). Everything can be done remotely, but there is still value in meeting up. I would just vary the setting every time, to get rid of every remnant of standardization.

That’s all I can think of now…now to format this thing to make it easily readable…Hardest part of blogging