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Pepsi Refresh

The Pepsi Refresh Project is designed to solicit creative ideas that will positively impact communities. Ideas are submitted in the categories of health, the arts/culture, food and shelter, environment, education, and neighborhoods. Ideas and votes are submitted online, with funding for top-rated projects generated from a fund of $1,300,00. With voting closing at the end of the month, ideas in the arts/culture category are widely varied- ranging from requests for instruments and music for low income schools, to “painting from memory” art projects for Alzheimers’ patients, and starting a company to provide free promotion to musical artists. This seems like an excellent manner in which to tap unlimited creative ideas for future projects. Even some of the projects for this course would be good candidates for submission…

review week

As we reviewed the notes from all the visitors this week, I found it very helpful to put them together. I have to say that all the visitors who came to our class were those who are quite successful in their field and they did not success because of luck. They all have passion of what they are doing and they know what they are doing. They are all very good at planning their career, it is not just about networking and being good at getting money, it is a lifestyle they chose, and they are all responsible of their decisions.

David Cutler's blog

I know it's been a week or two since David Cutler came to class, but this past week I took the time to check out his blog. It's a great blog because it's not only posts by him on subjects he wishes to explore, but there are blog posts from people and institutions all over. One that I found helpful for our groups project was Guerilla Chamber Music that was posted by Ohio State University. This specific post detailed how Ohio State wanted to have their School of Music make a bigger impression on the student body. They took a challenge put forth from Mr. Cutler to create ensembles of 4 people or less and then they put on a concert. Instead of having a traditional concert venue, they performed in their student union while students walked in and out.

Unreasonable People

For the other entrepreneurship course we were required to do a book or article review, and so I picked up The Power of Unreasonable People by John Elkington and Pamela Hartigan. This book outlines the power that social enterprises can harness to create social change and in doing so the book gives many examples of enterprises that are doing just that. One point the book illustrates is that just like a commercial business, social enterprises must be able to find funding sources if they are to create the change they aim for, and make this change sustainable. Some enterprises that are creating sustainable change actually run more like a business and less like a typical non-profit. One example is of a dairy farm that employs mentally ill people. Very few customers who buy the dairy product know who is behind the production. So even though the public is not aware of the change the company is driving, the target population is still being helped and the organization's aim is aided by the fact that is is able to earn profits.

the poor musician is in the Conservatory!

Here are a few pictures of our event this week! We had so many people who LOVED our idea! Also our fishbowl of information is filling up quickly. To keep up the great work we are going to table again next Thursday.

Copyrighting Fashion

A post today on the New York Times' Economix Blog raised an interesting question that we have touched on to some extent in our class. Copyrights and patents serve as barriers to entry and protect the innovations of entrepreneurs at least for a little while. This protection is not extended to fashion designs however. Economix posts a video from TED, previously mentioned on our blog, about how the industry has still thrived despite the lack of copyrights.

Read the full post here.