AMC’s fascinating new reality show, The Pitch, premiered last month. Each episode focuses on two advertising firms that are competing for the opportunity to create a new campaign for a major corporation. The audience is treated to an inside perspective as each ad firm creates and produces its new campaign. The winner is decided on the strength of their pitch to the potential client. The show airs each Sunday at 10 pm central. Watch the trailer below.
The Schumpeter column at The Economist reviews Repeatability by Zook and Allen. “[The authors] argue that most successful companies share three virtues. They have a highly distinctive core business. They make great efforts to keep their business model as simple as possible. And they apply it relentlessly to new opportunities.”
This strategy has worked for such companies as Nike, Lego, and Apple. But, the columnist argues, simplicity alone does not address the disruptive innovation that can crush an otherwise healthy company, such as Kodak, that falls behind the times.
EIGERlab is now accepting pitches for its June 20 Stateline FastPitch Competition, which takes place at NIU Rockford. The deadline for entry is June 5, 2012.
The contest aims to give feedback, exposure, and cash prizes to passionate entrepreneurs in all phases of business. Contestants must pitch their business ideas verbally to judges in three minutes or less.
The first place winner will be awarded $5,000 and prizes will be given to 2nd and 3rd place, with a separate student category/prize. But all competitors will have access to feedback from business professionals and valuable exposure to investors, business leaders, potential mentors and media.
To learn more and enter the competition, go to EIGERlab’s Events page.
The First Annual Rockford College Sports Symposium will be held this Saturday, April 28 in Grace Roper Lounge in Burpee Center at Rockford College. This event is open to everyone.
Panel #1: 10-11:30 AM
Chairperson:
Shawn E. Klein (Rockford College)
Speakers:
Erin Flynn (Ohio Wesleyan University): “On the Suárez Handball”
Tatiana Patrone (Ithaca College): “On What Running Could Be”
Christopher Johnson (University of Alberta): “Virtuous Victory”
Panel #2: 12:30-2 PM
Chairperson:
Michael Perry (Rockford College)
Speakers:
Christine Neejer (Michigan State University): “Mary Sargent Hopkins, Bicycling, and the Rhetoric of Expertise”
Christopher Garland (University of Florida): “With God on the Sideline: Religious Rhetoric in Tebowmania and the Penn State Scandal”
Jo Ann Oravec (University of Wisconsin at Whitewater): “Blogging in the Backfield: Social Media in Sport Contexts”
Click here to view a PDF of the flier.
More details at Rockford College’s blog at the Rockford Register Star.
Contact sklein[at]rockford.edu or mperry[at]rockford.edu for more information.
In this extended interview, philosopher Douglas Den Uyl responds to a series of questions about his life and work. Den Uyl is the author of many works. His latest book, co-authored with Douglas Rasmussen, is Norms of Liberty: A Perfectionist Basis for Non-Perfectionist Politics.
Watch the video at Stephen Hicks’s site.
Previous Profiles in Liberty:
Philosopher Douglas Rasmussen.
Economist David R. Henderson.
Philosopher Tibor Machan.
R. Paul Drake is the Henry S. Carhart Collegiate Professor of Space Science at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He has worked as a research physicist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and had visiting professorships at universities around the United States. He was featured in the BBC’s documentary Hyperspace (2001) and the Discovery Channel’s How the Universe Works (2009). Currently, Dr. Drake is also Director of Center for Radiative Shock Hydrodynamics at the University of Michigan.
Kaizen: How did you become interested in science as a kid?
Drake: I am not sure. I have been interested in how things worked and in doing things connected with understanding and assembling things as long as I can remember. I remember avidly playing with an Erector set, the mechanical precursor of LEGOs. And I remember doing things with a chemistry set at ages when I don’t have a lot of other memories; so for me, it was those kinds of things were interesting to me from the start. Some people have an experience where they get turned on to something that becomes their future. I don’t have that in my background.
The Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship welcomes Professor Tara Smith to Rockford College on Tuesday, April 17. Dr. Smith will talk on themes related to her essay Money Can Buy Happiness.
Professor Smith received her Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University and is currently Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin.
She is the author of several books in moral and political philosophy, including Moral Rights and Political Freedom, Viable Values: A Study of Life as the Root and Reward of Morality, and Ayn Rand’s Normative Ethics: The Virtuous Egoist.
The talk will be at 11:00 am in the Starr Science Auditorium (STARR 102) on the Rockford College campus.
In our latest issue of Kaizen we feature an interview with R. Paul Drake, research scientist and Henry S. Carhart Collegiate Professor of Space Science at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Also featured in Kaizen are: student essay contest winners Melinda Schumacher, Darian George, Amanda Hofmaster, and John Polemikos; and guest speakers Michael Newberry, a Los Angeles based artist, and John Gillis, a New York City architect.
A PDF version of Kaizen is available here. We will soon post separately the full interview with Dr. Drake.
If you would like to receive a complimentary issue of the print version of Kaizen, please email your name and postal address to CEE [at] Rockford.edu.
Steve Jobs biographer Walter Isaacson explains the keys to what Jobs believed was his greatest achievement: turning Apple into an enduring company. The list includes: focus, simplicity, responsibility for the user experience, improving on competitors’ innovations, and perfectionism.
Read the article at Harvard Business Review.
Funding for Chicago based start-ups from venture capital firms and angel investors is up. The number of collaborative work spaces and social support programs for entrepreneurs are increasing. Chicago is becoming a great place for entrepreneurship.
Read the article at The Wall Street Journal.
