One of the many ventures that I have started is a coffee-roasting business as part of Healthy River Ventures, run by my son Kurt. The Specialty Coffee Association of America puts on a massive conference annually and, this year, it happened to be in Atlanta, right up the road from where our roasting shop, The […]
Monthly Archives: May 2016
Instant Gratification or Delayed Satisfaction?
I was having a conversation with Dr. Kent Gustavson about marketing a service for grandparents to gift a “Grounded” online service to their grandchildren. It seems like an odd gift to give children, especially how most millennials today would respond to such a gift. The idea is that if there is a way to get […]
A Day at Tennessee Tech’s iCube!
After my recent lecture at Tennessee Tech., Dr. Payne and Michael Aikens, directors of Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship respectively, led me on a tour of their innovation lab, iCube (imagine, inspire, innovate – check it out here – http://ttuicube.com/). This is truly one of the coolest innovation labs I have ever seen. Located upstairs in […]
A Lesson on Perseverance
Following my recent lecture at Tennessee Tech University, there were precious few minutes before the next class was to begin in the same lecture amphitheater. So I didn’t really get time to speak to many students following my talk. However, one student made a special effort to speak to me. She was a non-traditional student, […]
An Encounter with Joseph
I recently wrote about an incident that occurred at a Marriott and my arranging for a ride to the airport. The driver in that story is a nice young man named Joseph. He was in a tough spot, his manager and the meeting planner made a change in plans that directly conflicted with the specific […]
Embracing the Black Swan
One of the early peaks in my Grounded keynote is where I am describing my reaction in 1979 to not seeing the Bahamas Islands where they should have been. I go on to describe this as a “black swan” event, something that is totally unexpected. I have a worksheet that I use for the attendees […]
Prepare and Launch
Recently I spoke a keynote on Grounded, at the campus of Tennessee Tech University in Cookeville TN. This keynote a part of their executive presenter series for the Business School. Dr. Thomas Payne is the Dean of the Business School, and he knew about me from my speaking for the Tennessee Bankers Association. He was […]