My Job Stimulus Plan: How to Grow a New Army of Ethical Entrepreneurs

With unemployment and underemployment so high, there's a temptation to provide quick fixes for creating jobs. And those may indeed be necessary for political as well as practical reasons, but the most potent approach requires time.

If President Obama were to ask me for recommendations on how to create jobs, #1 on my list would be to grow a new army of ethical entrepreneurs. In this article, I present the blueprint for doing so.

First, the definition:What is an ethical entrepreneur?An ethical entrepreneur:

• has the antennae to smell out opportunities for ethical, valuable new products and services that could be provided by a company.
• the power to persuade the boss, investors, the government, or a nonprofit to invest in the creation and dissemination of the product or service.
• will only start a business that's profitable when considering the triple bottom line of profits, people, and planet. Additionally, it must be a business that will be profitable even though salespeople are ordered to be scrupulously honest: fully disclosing product weaknesses, delivery dates, and extent of post-sales support, and in which salespeople are required to discourage potential customers from buying if the product is inappropriate for that customer.
  

Why Creating More Entrepreneurs is Crucial
Only entrepreneurs can create permanent jobs because government can only create jobs to the extent of tax revenues, and those come from businesses. Without entrepreneurs, there are no start-ups. Without intrepreneurs (entrepreneurs who work within a company,) large businesses can, at best, grow slowly: selling more of their product as population increases or as the result of marketing efforts.

Increasing the number of ethical entrepreneurs would increase the chances of millions more Americans making a good living, especially those not academically oriented. Today, so many such people struggle to pay the rent, spend so much time looking for their next job and after landing one, living in fear of getting laid off because of a personality dispute, because it's a project job with a built-in end date, or that their job will be shipped to a low-cost country. Instead, a new army of entrepreneurs will be hiring themselves as their own business's CEO or as intrepreneurs within a company, nonprofit, or the government.

Of course, beyond creating jobs, entrepreneurs benefit us all by creating new services and products: from soap to the steam engine, glass to google, anesthetic to automobiles, the icebox to the iPhone, housekeepers to hospice.

Entrepreneurship can foster not only commercial products and services but help us achieve our larger societal goals. The Kauffman Foundation for Entrepreneurship's core goal is "to unleash young people's ideas around the issues that matter most to society, from poverty reduction to climate change, and to foster a global culture that recognizes entrepreneurs as drivers of economic and social prosperity. "

How do we encourage the development of a new army ethical entrepreneurs?

Primarily by suffusing the K-16 curriculum with ethical entrepreneurship education. From kindergarten through college, the curriculum would include hands-on opportunities to learn ethical entrepreneurship. They would apply principles of budget, finance, persuasion, ethics (See above,) etc., to create small enterprises, guided not only by the teacher, but by inspiring, ethical entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurs. (The latter are people who use sound business methods to create non-profit ventures aimed at improving

How could entrepreneurship education be fit into an already packed school day? Lengthen the school day and school year, which brings the additional advantage of ameliorating the nation's child care problem. Also, pare elements of the existing curriculum that are less important than entrepreneurship. Could anyone reasonably argue that it's more important that all students know geometric theorems than learn ethical entrepreneurship? Than deciphering Shakespeare's arcane allusions and vocabulary? The intricacies of the periodic table of chemical elements? All those wars from the Peloponnesian to the War of the Roses? The celebration of multiculturalism to which so much time is devoted in today's curriculum?

The K-16 inclusion of ethical entrepreneurship education should be supplemented by out-of-school activities. In that regard, the U.S. could learn some lessons from abroad. For example, a recent issue of The Economist , reports that "According to the British Enterprise Week’s website, Britain has nearly 3,000 events designed to inspire and educate young and aspiring entrepreneurs, from a workshop on “Growing Your Business” in Ipswich to a “Could You Be A Million Maker?” contest in Blackpool, in which school and college students create their own mini-enterprises."

What about adults? Certainly courses in entrepreneurship, already offered by the Small Business Administration, state employment departments, colleges, and by the private sector should be more publicized and expanded as needed. SCORE, an SBA-program that matches aspiring entrepreneurs with retired executives should be expanded. Ethics are too small a component within most such courses. Ethics, as defined earlier, must be made central.

I believe no initiative has greater potential to create jobs, innovation, and, in turn, improve the world than to grow an army of ethical entrepreneurs, and I believe the above model could make it happen.

One Resolution You Should Make...And Might Actually Keep

One of my clients, "Adam Michaels," has, for years, fought to be more responsible: set goals, not procrastinate, see tasks through to completion. He's had years of therapy, read a libraryful of self-help books, and had a few sessions with me, a career and life coach. Nothing has worked.

So today, I asked Adam, "Moving forward, do you think it's wiser to keep trying to become more responsible or to accept that this is who you are, just as I must accept that I will never be a professional artist." He cried...and voted for self-acceptance.

If he keeps to that decision, that may ensure he'll never accomplish what he'd hope to accomplish, professionally and personally. But continuing to try to morph himself into something he's not won't likely help him accomplish more. It will mainly just torture him, just as forcing me to continually take art classes would torture me without increasing my chances of becoming a professional artist.

Remember the story of the scorpion that asked a frog to carry him across the river. The frog is afraid of being stung but the scorpion reassures him that if it stung the frog, both of them would drown. The frog then agrees. Yet in mid-river, the scorpion stings him, dooming the two of them. When asked why, the scorpion explains, "I'm a scorpion; it's my nature."

So as we enter 2010, Adam's story may be a useful reminder that New Year's resolutions are generally a waste of time. We haul out the same old vows, the triumph of hope over experience, that this time will be different: We will stay on our diet. We will find a better job. We will be nicer to our spouse. We will stop using our treadmill as a clothes rack. And by January 10, nearly all of us will slink back from our resolutions, reminded yet again of our formidable resistance to change.

Sure, if you have a new, achievable goal, something that doesn't require a personality transplant, it may help to make it a New Year's resolution. Doing so can keep that goal top-of-mind. But if you have a musty old collection of never-kept resolutions, you might, this year, keep them in the closet and instead, make just one new one: "I will accept myself, flaws and all."

We Send Too MANY Students to College

Today, I was on NPR's Talk of the Nation again to talk about the fact that we send too many students to college.

The fact that the AVERAGE college graduate makes more money doesn't mean that the hundreds of thousands of students in the bottom half of their high school class that" four-year" colleges not only admit but woo, wouldn't be wiser to pursue an apprenticeship, on-the-job training, short-term community college training program, or learn entrepreneurship at the elbow of a successful, ethical businessperson.

Indeed , according to the U.S. Department of Education, of college freshmen who graduated in the bottom 40% of their high school class, 2/3 don't graduate even if given 8 1/2 years.

My co-guest Julianne Malveaux immediately pulled the race card saying that I, a white male, failed to take into account the legacy of slavery.

HERE is the link to the interview.

No new posts for a while

I'll be blogging little or not at all for the coming six weeks or so. I'm devoting as much as possible of my discretionary time to finish writing the aforementioned play, "The Sexiest Man Alive."

It's about a nominee for "Sexiest Man Alive," who in fact has low sex drive. Most of the play occurs on his wedding night.

The play will not only be a window into a couple's struggle to cope with mismatched sex drives but also reveals their attempt to address the question: How good does a marriage need to be to be worth saving? The play includes the couple's unvarnished exploration of their feelings about all aspects of their marriage, for example, children, money, career, and religion. I'll try to leaven the play's seriousness with humor.

I worry about my ability to create characters the audience will care about and dialogue that's believable, powerful and, yes, funny. But I'll give it a shot.

Let me take this opportunity to thank you for reading my blog and to encourage you to click on the words in the label cloud on the right side to read about topics of interest to you. And for longer articles, mostly about career, education, and men's issues, check my site: www.martynemko.com.

I'll be back when I can. Wish me luck.

Marty

Keys to a Great Screenplay or Stage Play

In preparing to write my stage play, "The Sexiest Man Alive," I read three fine books on the craft: The Art and Craft of Playwriting, Naked Playwriting (terrible title, fine book) and In Their Company (interviews with 50 iconic playwrights).

I took eight pages of single-spaced notes but here are the nuggets I most want to remember:

Most memorable characters are likeable, even the villains, who you admire for their brilliance, soft spot, etc.

Write for people smarter than you. Make your characters smart, if only street-smart.

Make your audience eager to know what will happen next.

Your protagonists must have arcs: the play's events must transform them.

Always keep your hero in trouble. We must see the characters under pressure, struggling, and see how they respond.

In addition to the big conflicts, a play needs dozens often hundreds of smaller ones, each resolved and replaced with another often bigger one.

Your audience must feel delight when the power shifts from protagonist to protagonist and back again.

Hitchcock described suspense as "the addition of information." Like a strip tease: a little more, a little more.

A full-length play needs more than one question to keep the audience interested. So, pose sub-questions, inner questions, side questions, thematic questions.

Write sparely. Better to show than tell. Only have your characters speak when they are compelled to.

Real characters interpret, misinterpret, and read unintended meanings into everything said to them.

Sometimes, the speaker is evading, pouting, defensive, talking to themselves as much as to their protagonist.

Constantly ask yourself not just what would your character do but what could they credibly do?

Subtext-laden dialogue (not saying what you mean) is high dialogue and fun for the audience. It's often accomplished by understatement, inarticulateness, or metaphor.

Look for opportunities to create honest spectacle. For example, I may have the husband dump a bucket of ice on his wife's crotch.

Perhaps most important, you must bring to your playwriting, all your heart, soul, humor, imagination, sensibility, history, and your life's experiences.

You May Need Not Baby Steps but Micro Steps

I suggested to one of my career counseling clients that she call 20 potential employers. She exclaimed, "I can't even say hello to a store clerk and you want me to cold contact 20 employers?"

That reminded me of how fear-filled many people are. So if even a baby step feels too big, ask yourself what is the microstep you could take: the step that is so easy, you wouldn't be tempted to procrastinate it.

For example, if you're too scared to cold contact even one employer, try writing a script for a 10-second pitch. Then read it aloud, perhaps into a recorder. Listen to the recording and keep trying it until you like it. Then give your 10-second pitch to a best friend. Next, call one prospective employer--one you don't mind at all screwing up with.

How to Outsource, Offshore to India

Silicon Valley insider and India specialist, Sramana Mitra says you can get your low-level work, such as data entry done in India for $2 an hour, basic programming for $5 an hour, and webmaster-level work for $10 an hour.

And it's easy to find such workers: elance.com, odesk.com, and guru.com.

She does recommend you interview them (Skype video and audio calls are free worldwide) and ask for references. Be sure they can communicate effectively verbally and in writing--You want to be sure they understand what you want done.

Also, try them out on a $50 or $100 project before hiring them for a biggie.

I'd imagine that reading this is scary to Americans who have invested a fortune in college and expect $30-100 an hour, plus benefits, 12 weeks a year of Family and Marriage Leave, rights to sue for wrongful termination, etc.