Innovative Simplicity

Last week I was invited to speak about entrepreneurship as a career choice to a career exploration class at Andover Middle school. Looking back I would say it was successful. Their teacher, Mr. Foxx, said I had them eating out of the palm of my hand. The thing that made me know I had their attention was the way they kept asking questions about entrepreneurship and what it means to be an entrepreneur. If only we had a way to bottle the curiosity of 7^th graders and sell it to the teenagers of America….but I digress. 

One question in particular stuck in my mind all through the weekend and has prompted this post. “Jonny B,” said the young girl sitting in the fourth row, “can an entrepreneur innovate but not use technology?” I was kind of stunned by such an insightful question, coming from a 12 year old.

“Ummm, yes.” I said, kind of stalling, “You know, like if you were to somehow innovate the way that people interact or make decisions. I would think it would be possible and valuable” 

Did she feel like humanity was too dependent on technology? Was she afraid that she didn’t have the capabilities to innovate and be entrepreneurial using technology? Or was she just hinting at the modern myopic view of how innovation works? Whatever it was, it certainly got the gears turning.

Youth Entrepreneurs is absolutely interested in using technology to innovate the way we accomplish our mission. As you read this post, scarce resources are heavily invested in new websites, an online business plan builder, a crowd sourced online network for teachers to share their curriculum with each other, and a video contest on Facebook built around our Market Day experience that is going very well (hat tip to Lindsay!). The point of most of this innovation is to increase productivity and get more from less. Realize, though, that all of this technology is worthless without real human beings to use it. Econ Check: I think that’s called a network externality. 

For the last two and a half years I have been working with entrepreneurship students and teachers in my role of Program Manager for YE. Thinking back on the thousands of interactions that have taken place, I realized that very seldom does it directly involve technology. Normally my approach is to engage them in conversation with the goal of helping them understand their comparative advantage. It truly is an ongoing process of experimental discovery. This “in the moment” trial and error process has evolved in so many ways with varying degrees of success.

In my humble opinion, the most successful innovation in working with entrepreneurship students has to do with helping them define their vision of success before doing anything else. That’s right, “begin with the end in mind”, as Steven Covey so eloquently put it. The twist I put on this, however, is that I don’t tell them that is what I am doing. I just ask, “So, what does success look like?” Or, my favorite, “How much money do you want to make?” The last one works really well when planning for Market Day.

In economic terms, scarcity inherently means that we can’t have everything we want. Blending this with a bit of spirituality, I posit that we are all “suffering at the margin”. Ludwig Von Mises said that it is our dissatisfaction that drives every decision as we seek to reduce our own disequilibrium. Perhaps the point that this 7^th grader was making was that technology may not be the cure, the answer, or the path to satisfaction. She was hinting at her own view of the future and looking for clues that help her believe in it.

As we embrace the productivity of innovative technology, let’s not discard humanity. In embracing change, let’s reduce scarcity without increasing complications. Entrepreneurs create value for society by using innovation to solve problems and make life better. Einstein was right, “Everything should be as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler.” 

-Jon Bachura

Clarity

Entrepreneurship is at the forefront of the Youth Entrepreneurs' [YE] mission, but having a successful business is only a small part of the type of thinking that the YE family teaches.   

Founder Liz Koch puts it best in an interview for the Wichita Eagle in 2008, she says, "My goals and what I look at as success (by way of YE) is to change the way they (students) currently think about what is possible for them, their life, their family in the society, in the town, which they choose."

Our hope is that not only will the students be impacted by the program, but they will in turn be inspired to impact the community they live in.  In other words, the standard of success we hold ourselves to as YE employees is measured by the student’s ability to learn to hold themselves responsible, to shake off the entitlement that has been instilled in them and by their unique ability to learn the principles of entrepreneurship. 

YE is growing, but only because the market demands it.  If YE truly wants these things, and continues to carry out the necessary actions in order to accomplish them, we must continue to find the right people, places and education tools through which to teach them.  YE’s vision is becoming clearer and clearer with every new student that decides to take the class. 

When the article mentioned above was published YE had just hired our current Executive Director (Kylie Stupka), awarded close to $30,000 in scholarships, awarded nearly $18,000 in venture capital and were approaching 700 students in its program at 18 high schools in Kansas.  In the 2010-11 school year YE will reach 1,000 students as part of the curriculum of 29 high schools in the greater Wichita area, Kansas City Metro area, Dodge City, Garden City, Lawrence and Topeka.  YE will also award upwards of $75,000 in scholarships.

The growth in the last 2 years is no doubt exciting, but YE’s growth is a growth born of the demand for and belief in what we teach.  YE’s success is based on the future.  It is the students.

-Grant Mankin

A word from a YE Teacher

 This guest post brought to you by former YE teacher Loren Kelly of Haysville Kansas' Campus High School.

Teaching for the Youth Entrepreneurs program has uncontested been the highlight of my teaching career. When approached with the opportunity, I jumped in head first and took the challenge. My favorite part of the program is the ease at which it fit into the classroom. Hands-on activities, field trips, and real-life lessons in business get students excited and yearning for more! When students walk in the classroom saying, “This is my favorite class!” or “Why can’t we have YE every day?” you know it is a program that is really making a difference.

One of my favorite aspects of the class was seeing the change in students. It kept me coming back day after day with more excitement and enthusiasm for my job. One student, for example, was very capable but just had not found something in high school that really helped them excel. Over the course of the year, I watched this individual become more passionate, out spoken, and motivated. Other faculty at the school asked questions and took interest in the change they also had noticed. That student will now leave high school with a self-confidence and new-found passion to be successful in the paths he or she chooses to pursue. I believe in the mission of Youth Entrepreneurs because I have seen the results and the impact the program has on students’ lives.

-Loren Stark Kelly

Famous Failures

Failure IS an option

Every success story, every from rags to riches story seems to start in the same place, failure.  They all seem to begin with the “hero”, whoever that might be, starting from nothing and gaining everything.  One might even argue that the true impact of the story comes from the dirt floor, living in their car, dire straits beginning.  After all, how impactful or meaningful would these stories be if the success came from a slightly less successful career? 

When I was younger my mother always told me that life wasn’t about the hard falls I would frequently encounter, but it was how quickly I got up.  Granted, this analogy was used mostly because I was a fairly uncoordinated child who grew into a slightly more coordinated adult, and falling was usually the reality she had to work with.  Even so, this provided me with the perfect framework for how to view failure.

To be truly successful in life and business, failure is a major contributor to ultimate success.  What successful man or women comes to mind whose success was not framed by failure?  In our culture failure has been painted as anti-success. Without failure how can we expect to learn, or evolve in any way?  We shouldn’t view failure as the end but instead see it as a pathway to something new and exciting. 

The idea of failure is a simple one.  It is defined loosely as “un-success”.  There are times where our failures will warp our views of what success might have been.  In other words, if what I think should have happened (what we see as success) does not in fact happen, that is failure.  Instead why not see “what we think should happen” as the ideal outcome, and not the only outcome?  Preparing our vision of success for the possibility of failure is the very thing that could push us to great things.  Thomas Edison once said, “I didn’t fail the test, I just found 10,000 ways to do it wrong.”  In other words we should not expect failure, but be prepared for the idea of things not quite turning out as we think they should. 

In business and in life failure is not the opposite of success as defined above, but instead it is merely having limited vision for the future.  If we let failure be defined as society defines it, then we will be scared of it, therefore never failing “successfully”.  Life equals Risk.  Failure is not only an option, but sometimes in order to truly succeed, it is the only option.  After all, according to Henry Ford, “Failure is only the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.”

-Grant Mankin