Scott Schaefer's blog post on Roadside MBA ran on the Harvard Business Review web site last week. A small excerpt: What happens when you put three business professors in a rental car and send them out to talk to owners and managers of small- and medium-sized businesses? Would they discover their MBA frameworks to be a bunch of academic mumbo-jumbo with no real applicability? What we found is that there’s no best path to business success. Managers successfully address seemingly similar problems in very different ways and, as our corollary suggests, the trick is to find which solution fits … [Read more...]
Roadside MBA Returns to Dothan
I had a wonderful time last week in Dothan, Alabama! Dothan is one of our ATF Roadside MBA towns, and we featured Key Fire Hose and Panhandle Converter Recycling in the book. The occasion was the Dothan Area Chamber's General Membership Luncheon, and I was honored to be invited to deliver the keynote address. I talked Roadside MBA, tried to tell a few funny stories from the road, and generally had a great time. Some highlights from the day: Breakfast at Cracker Barrel with Lyle Peluso Jr. Lyle gave me a great update on the remarkable growth at Panhandle Converter, and then we … [Read more...]
Mazzeo and Oyer on Cincinnati Edition
Mike Mazzeo and Paul Oyer were guests on Cincinnati Edition last Wednesday on 91.7 WXVU, and you can listen to their interview here. We buzzed through the greater Cincy area in April 0f 2012, and a couple local businesses --- Berns Garden Center and PMC Solutions --- are featured in the book. Ohio is also the scene of Paul's greatest lodging crime: To Scott's utter dismay, he booked us into a Bed & Breakfast rather than a sterile Holiday Inn Express. Mike and Paul had a great time, and we thank the folks in the Queen City for hosting us! … [Read more...]
Talking Scale with Clyde Lear of Learfield Communications
Our latest piece for Inc.com features Clyde Lear, the founder of Learfield Communications. We talked with Clyde way back in July of 2010 on the very first Roadside MBA trip. And as we've written before, calling Clyde a “character” is akin to calling Yellowstone a park. Our visit with Clyde was one of our all-time-favorites, and we're pleased to tell his story --- and illustrate a brilliant application of economies of scale --- on Inc.com. … [Read more...]
Roadside MBA in Fast Company
Roadside MBA was featured in Fast Company's "Future of Work" column this past week. A quick excerpt: One of the more interesting business books available this summer is Roadside MBA: Backroads Lessons for Executives, Entrepreneurs, and Small Business Owners. Written by three economists, it’s a rather corny look at various concepts you’d learn in business school, like barriers to entry, and economies of scale. What’s redeeming about it is that the authors went out and created case studies about dozens of small- and medium-sized businesses that you’ve never heard of. From Arnold Tool in … [Read more...]