The U.S. Small Business Administration is offering Web chats to help small businesses across the country weather the recession.

When Vestas, the world’s largest wind-turbine manufacturer, announced plans for a new U.S. research center, 42 states lined up to make sales pitches. The winning location would be rewarded with hundreds of jobs, millions in tax revenue, and green-business cachet. Finn Strøm Madsen, president of the Danish firm’s tech division, wanted a site near big-name universities, so Massachusetts (MIT) and California (Caltech, Berkeley) seemed obvious choices. Portland, Oregon, was already home to Vestas Americas’ headquarters. But in June, Vestas picked Houston.

The notorious urinal that served patrons of the famed New York rock club CBGB for 33 years now sits retired in a basement in Manhattan’s posh SoHo district.

Plucked from the graffiti-covered walls when the club closed in 2006, the urinal is among several CBGB artifacts — such as the gritty “CBGB & OMFUG” awning that hung over 315 Bowery and a phone booth covered with punk-rock band stickers — donated to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Annex NYC, which opened its doors last week.

The donation is just one step taken by entrepreneurial group CBGB Holdings LLC to revive the brand and transform it once more into a money-making business — without jeopardizing its counter-culture past.

Last month, the group struck a distribution deal with Bravado, a Universal Music Group company that markets rock-themed merchandise around the world, to help sell millions of CBGB T-shirts. Next summer, the Vans Warped Tour music festival will showcase an interactive CBGB exhibit.

These deals were crafted by two men who believe there’s life after death for the landmark venue: James Blueweiss, a marketer who began advising the club a year before it closed, and Robert Williams, a veteran of the retail music business who helped open HMV stores around the world. The two attracted capital from angel investors and paid $3.5 million for the rights to the CBGB brand in 2008. Their company, CBGB Holdings, owns all intellectual property, domestic and international trademarks, copyrights, video and audio libraries, ongoing apparel business, Web site and physical property of the original club.

Andy Warhol, second from right, and friends stand outside CBGB in 1976. (click for full image)

Hilly Kristal opened CBGB — Country, Bluegrass, Blues — in 1973 and intended it to be New York’s premier venue dedicated to the genre. But with too few acts to occupy its stage, CBGB soon attracted young musicians eager to showcase a new sound. Mr. Kristal added to his marquee “& OMFUG” — “Other Music For Uplifting Gormandizers.” In the years to follow, the Ramones, Television, Patti Smith, B-52′s, Talking Heads, Richard Hell, Debbie Harry of Blondie, Dave Matthews Band, Green Day, Pearl Jam and many others graced the CBGB stage.

“I took Hilly to lunch and said, ‘I’m a salesman. I’m a promoter. I really love your story and I want to help you,” Mr. Blueweiss said of his 2005 pitch to Mr. Kristal. “If you’ll allow me to represent you, I think I can cut some slick deals and give you your pay day after 33 years on the Bowery.’”

Mr. Kristal agreed to work with Mr. Blueweiss, but the club’s future was soon in jeopardy. A dispute arose between CBGB and the Bowery Residents’ Committee, which said the club owed more than $75,000 in back rent. Longtime patrons came to the aid of Mr. Kristal in a fight to save the club. Steven Van Zandt, an actor and E Street Band member organized a petition and a “Save CBGB” rally, but despite the efforts, the club was forced to shut its doors.

“I said, ‘Hilly, sell it to me,’” Mr. Blueweiss said. “I’m passionate about this.”

Mr. Kristal agreed to sell the CBGB to Mr. Blueweiss on the condition that he would remain chairman of the company for three years. The men did not know at the time that complications from lung cancer would keep Mr. Kristal from seeing his club reborn. When Mr. Kristal died in August 2007, just a few months after signing an agreement to sell CBGB, Mr. Blueweiss charged forward with the plan to keep the CBGB legacy alive.

But a new era of CBGB won’t be without challenges. Ownership of CBGB is being disputed by Mr. Kristal’s former wife, Karen. In a lawsuit filed last year in Surrogate’s Court in Manhattan, Mrs. Kristal, 83, claims that she is the rightful owner due to an agreement the Kristals made before they opened CBGB in 1973.

The suit, which names Mr. Kristal’s estate and CBGB Holdings, states that because of legal complications due to a bankruptcy of a previous business, Mr. Kristal listed his wife as the owner of record in order to obtain a liquor license, even though they were already divorced.

In a statement, lawyers for the estate called Mrs. Kristal’s claims on the trademark “specious….CBGB was, and is, synonymous with Hilly Kristal.” CBGB Holdings declined to comment about the suit.

While that dispute plays out in court, CBGB Holdings will be charged with the tough task of keeping the brand relevant to a new generation.

The CBGB exhibit at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Annex NYC (click for full image)

“Some amazing pieces of history went down there, and this place deserves to be part of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but how do you take a brand that magically formed and find a way for it to live?” said Julia Beardwood, founder of brand consulting firm Beardwood and Co. “And, is it even right to bring it back from the grave? They have a brand that’s trying to make some money using the CBGB name, but they don’t want to devalue what it stands for.”

The most immediate plans for the CBGB business is an overhaul of the Web site that will include streaming music and videos, social networking components and a forum for fans to add their stories from nights spent at the original club. The site will also promote promising new bands, much like Mr. Kristal did for the Ramones.

Blueweiss said revenue from T-shirt sales is about $6 million a year in Japan alone, but declined to provide total revenue. He said the deal with Bravado should boost overall figures.

Ultimately, CBGB Holding’s dream is to reopen a club. Mr. Williams said discussions are ongoing with properties in New York and Las Vegas, but a new venue won’t be opened for at least 18 months.

“Live music is what CBGB is all about, and ultimately it will be back there, but it has to be done the right way,” Mr. Williams said.

Last week, E Street Band’s Mr. Van Zandt, who lobbied to save the original venue, strolled through the New York Rock and Roll Hall of Fame CBGB exhibit.

“It’s good to keep the history of the club alive,” Van Zandt said. “Hopefully, what they’re doing to help the brand will help do that. We tried to get the mayor and the governor to help save the place and it didn’t work. Rock is a massive part of our identity and it’s good to see people who want to preserve it.”

[via WSJ Small Business] by Ty McMahan

What motivates a growing number of virtual-school students to forgo the traditional school structure and take their classes entirely online?

At the Virtual School Symposium hosted in mid-October in Phoenix by the North American Council for Online Learning, virtual-school students explained they like being able to progress at their own pace–and some said they appreciate being able to take classes not offered by their traditional, bricks-and-mortar school.

Roger Sanchez said he left his conventional California school because he wanted to study at his own pace while holding a job outside of school and focusing his attention on out-of-school topics that related to his college interests.

“I was looking for something different to fit my schedule, and the traditional system wasn’t making the cut,” said Sanchez, who is taking multiple Advanced Placement courses and plans to study computer science or graphic design in college.

“You can create your own schedule. … It’s not the same routine I’d have in the traditional system, and I can get more of what I want to do done,” he said.

Sanchez said an online school also lets him choose courses that a traditional school might not offer, such as courses that focus more on computer science and graphics.

“I’m really drawn by technology–that’s one of the main reasons I joined the school,” he said. “In the traditional system, [the] main problem is that classes [move] only as fast as the slowest student … so it doesn’t adapt to your own learning style and learning environment. It really slows you down if you want to get ahead.”

Sanchez is a senior at Insight School of California-Los Angeles, one of a national network of full-time, diploma-granting, public online high schools. The network is run by Insight Schools Inc., a subsidiary of Apollo Group Inc., which also operates the all-online University of Phoenix.

Insight Schools is part of a rapidly expanding market for online education that also includes companies such as Connections Academy, K12 Inc., EdisonLearning (formerly Edison Schools Inc.), and others. A study released during the Virtual School Symposium confirms that the total number of full-time virtual-school students in the United States is on the rise, “along with a continued increase in the number of new full-time programs.” (See “Report assesses K-12 online learning.”)

Education leaders would be wise to listen to what students such as Sanchez had to say, and consider ways they can build opportunities for self-paced learning and more freedom of choice into their own school offerings–or else risk losing a growing number of students to online schools that operate outside their domain.

Enrolling in a virtual school not only frees up time for students to pursue other interests, it also teaches them valuable time-management skills, said Geoffrey Wall, a Tempe, Ariz., senior who has been enrolled in Arizona Connections Academy for five years.

Five years ago, Wall was a competitive figure skater who found himself waking up at 4 a.m. each day to train for his sport and make it to school on time.

“It was becoming something of a problem,” he said. Wall’s mother looked into home-schooling her son but found few resources to help her. The family’s local school district offered no help or advice, either, he said, and finally Wall’s mother stumbled across a local newspaper article about Connections Academy.

Wall is no longer involved in competitive figure skating, but he found he enjoyed his classes with Connections Academy and reasoned that switching not only schools, but also learning styles, in the middle of his high school experience would not have been beneficial.

Now, Wall begins his mornings by logging onto Connections Academy and choosing a handful of lessons to complete.

“Depending on the day, I might have more or I might have less, and once I finish them, I’m free to do whatever I want,” he said. “If I have to take a day off, I might get on and do an extra day of work or fit in an extra lesson.”

Working so independently encourages the same type of time-management skills that college students need to be successful, he said. Managing classes, assignments, and social activities can be daunting, but Wall has a firm grasp on his routine.

“With a normal high school, everything is always scheduled for you,” he said. “With [online learning], you have to keep on top of things.”

Some people might wonder if Wall feels deprived of the typical social aspects of a bricks-and-mortar high school, but he says he does not.

“I’ve got friends from when I was attending traditional school, and friends through karate and [who] I meet from other activities, like camps,” he said.

Wall has even met his virtual classmates through organized field trips. He is able to collaborate with his classmates virtually through his computer, as well as chat with both teachers and peers on a regular basis.

Connections Academy students have access to guidance counselors to help them navigate the college application process. Adding a high school component to the company’s virtual offerings made it necessary to provide a robust guidance-counselor support staff, a company representative said.

Even virtual-school teachers at the symposium said they liked many of the freedoms that come with teaching in an online environment.

Not just students, but teachers, too, can become frustrated in a traditional school setting, because much of their time is devoted to tasks such as asking students for late passes or collecting various assignments, said Mishele Newkirk-Smith, a former classroom teacher in Washington state who is now a science teacher with Insight School of Washington.

“I’m not a disciplinarian now; I’m an educator,” she said, adding: “Online, there is more one-on-one education.”

“I have always looked for … alternative ways for students to learn. All students do not learn the same way–they are totally different,” said Deloris Brown, a former school principal who is currently principal of Insight School of South Carolina.

In a traditional classroom, educators can “try to think outside of the box, but you’re still faced with the one-size-fits-all model,” she said. “If we know that all students are different, then we have to do something different. This is going to be one of the major reform efforts that education will see.”

[via iCoast] by Laura Devaney

]]> http://www.themcompanies.com/blog/why-students-prefer-virtual-schooling/feed/ 0 http://www.themcompanies.com/blog/us-now-the-power-of-mass-collaboration-government-and-the-internet/ http://www.themcompanies.com/blog/us-now-the-power-of-mass-collaboration-government-and-the-internet/#comments Sat, 29 Nov 2008 09:02:50 +0000 Ivan http://www.themcompanies.com/?p=450

US NOW is a film project about the power of mass collaboration, government and the internet.

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It’s been a month since the academic year started, but for some college students, it’s not just about homework and studying for mid-terms — it’s also about running a successful business.

StartupNation.com recently completed its first [1] 20 best dorm-based business competition and found plenty of CEOs on campuses around the country.

These entrepreneurs showed inventiveness and practicality. They hail from the University of Tulsa in Oklahoma ([2] picking-up-pet-poo business) to Grand Valley State University in Michigan ([3] selling a 3D dorm-room modeling service to college Web sites so students can start decorating their space before stepping foot on campus).

Here are some tips on how to launch your own dorm-based business based on these entrepreneurs’ experiences:

1. Embrace technology. Many designed their own Web sites and conducted their marketing campaigns online. You can see Jared Sherlock’s YouTube act as a professional magician above.

According to the contest write-up: “This command of technology is part of what enables these students to be entrepreneurs. No longer does it take a big investment to get a business running or to market it. All you need are an Internet connection, a great idea, some tech savvy and a healthy dose of passion.”

2. Start early. Most of the students in the competition had business experience already – from high school. Andy Tabar, for example, started making money building Web sites as a teen.

3. Say ‘no’ to corporate work. Headlines of layoffs from big companies have turned off these youngsters to being a corporate employee. They’d rather make money their own way.

4. Be socially conscious. Contestants’ social responsibility is on the top of their business plans. Their mantra: You can’t succeed unless you help other people. Idealistic, maybe, but they’re building Web sites that help developing countries, creating a green electronics-recycling company and hosting ocean-conservation events at the Cape Cod National Seashore during the summer.

[via WSJ Small Business] by Raymund Flandez