Russ: Good morning. This is The Business Makers show, heard here and online at thebusinessmakers.com. And this is that show about the innovators, the people that most positively affect our lives.

John: That's right, Russ. And not only do they positively affect our lives, they're positively affecting our economy.

Russ: No question about it. And here's our lineup for this morning. First up for the Aflac Business Makers Flashback, our own Erica O'Grady was on the road again, this time in New York at the 140 conference, also known as the Twitter conference-

John: Oh boy.

Russ: -where she met up with Hank Wasiak, the author of Change The Way You See Everything Through Asset-Based Thinking. And then for our featured guest segment, we have Harry Fleming, founder and CEO of Acro Energy Technologies, the company that is bringing together the best and brightest, independent solar integrators in America, a very interesting approach to building a business around this movement. But first--that's right, it's time for the Business Makers School of Business. And this is not your business as usual school.

John: It's better. Sometimes I think I'm like on the I Love Lucy show, with her Ethel there by the conveyor belt, and all those candies are coming out and they can't put them-you know-we get so much information.

Russ: We do.

John: We can't handle it all.

Russ: I know.

John: And that's why, you know, we have an extended school of business, available on thebusinessmakers.com.

Russ: That's right.

John: So those of you are thirsty for knowledge that you can't get on the air here, just go to thebusinessmakers.com, and you can get the full curriculum.

Russ: There you go.

John: You can get the full syllabus of information.

Russ: You get it all. Absolutely. All right, and we kick off the School of Business each Saturday morning, first with the quote of the day.

John: The quote of the day.

Russ: Today's quote came from something I stumbled upon on Flicker.

John: You stumbled.

Russ: I stumbled upon a Flicker site that is owned by Tal Bright. And Tal has this real cool photo, but it's the title of the photo-

John: The title of the photo.

Russ: -that becomes the quote of the day.

John: The quote of the day

Russ: Okay, you ready?

John: You bet. I'm ready.

Russ: Sometimes the road less traveled is less traveled for a reason.

John: I know, right?

Russ: Absolutely, man. All right, and that brings us to this week in business history. What happened during this July week in business history?

John: Okay, this week in business history in 1040, and there's some significance in that date because-

Russ: Yeah, 1040, yeah.

John: That's the main tax form, right?

Russ: They named the form after that.

John: That's right in 1040, this week in business history, Lady Godiva, later to become famous in the chocolate business, but at this point in time, she was naked on horseback because she wanted to force her husband, the Earl of Mercia, to lower taxes.

Russ: My god, I wonder-if that would work.

John: Anyways, let's move on here, 1776, this week in business history, the Declaration of Independence is approved and sent to the printer. Okay, so this is when the soon-to-be United States declared their independence from Great Britain.

Russ: Right.

John: Okay, this week in business history, in 1796, the first Independence Day celebration is held. Now, you'd think that would've happened like in 1787, because we were fighting the British.

Russ: Yeah, right, but it didn't happen until the 20 year?

John: We had real fireworks going every day fighting those people.

Russ: That's true. That's true.

John: Okay, this week in business history in 1816, is the birth date of Hiram Walker. Now, this guy was a grocer and a distiller, uh and they didn't have laws back then, so you can't say he was a moonshiner. But he made his own booze. But he began selling his whiskey as Hiram Walker's club whiskey. It became very popular, but American distillers became angry because he was actually-I guess most of that, uh, whiskey was coming from Canada.

Russ: Yeah, he was making it in Canada.

John: Making it, making it in Canada, and the move backfired because it gave him a lot of publicity. People tried it out, and they loved it. It's still around.

Russ: Yea, and his whiskey is now called Canadian Club.

John: This week in business history in 1819, Elias Howes, the inventor of the sewing machine is born.

Russ: Wow, okay, all right.

John: A son of a farmer. A lot of these people are in the agrarian society. He worked in machine shops at an early age. He realized that machinery is used in every stage of textile industry, except the last which is done by hand, by sewers, seamstresses. So, uh, he got into the sewing machine business, made a working model by 1845, and 1846, found a few customers, and he died the year that his patent expired in 1867.

Russ: It was all over then.

John: Okay, this week in business history in 1845, Texas congress votes for annexation to the United States.

Russ: Wow, and so not too long, about 10 or 15 years later, they vote for de-annexation, right?

John: Yes, succession, right, and that's when Sam Houston was-

Russ: -right, governor, and resigned because he didn't believe in that.

John: Yeah, resigned and then died, and died shortly thereafter. This week in business history in 1851, Thomas Davenport-this is not the guy who invented the sofa. This is a forgotten pioneer of electricity-he died. He was born in Vermont in 1802, apprenticed to a blacksmith and opened his own blacksmith shop, but he heard an unusual story, uh, many years later of a giant electromagnet used to separate iron ore. And he got into that and got into all kinds of things, uh, electric motors. I mean, this guy was really ahead of his time.

Russ: Cool, yeah, okay.

John: Okay, this week in business history in 1863-this is one thing we would not want to leave out. I mean, this is one of the most important things that happened in this week in business history-Boise, Idaho was founded.

Russ: I know. That's very important.

John: I know, because that blue Astroturf. And if it weren't for Boise State, we never would've had that tremendous football game against Oklahoma.

Russ: I would also think if they hadn't founded Boise, that famous Lynyrd Skynyrd song would've have had much meaning.

[Music: "What's Your Name"]

John: That's right, and then in 1884, this week in business history, the Statue of Liberty is presented to the U.S. by the French in Paris.

Russ: In Paris, okay, so they said, "Here it is, and we're going to get it over there to you."

John: Yeah, okay, in 1888, is the first organized rodeo competition held in Prescott, Arizona. First organized, I guess they had disorganized.

Russ: Well, you, you know, they were all cowboys and probably trying out there to break broncos and ride bulls, but this is a-

[Music: "Rodeo"]

John: Okay, this week in business history in1889, the Wall Street Journal begins publishing, and, uh, still publishing to this very day.

Russ: Wow. They're doing pretty well, aren't they?

John: Oh, well, I think so. Yeah, they were bought up by the, uh, News Corp., and a lot of changes there. This week in business history in 1923, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic is formed.

[Music: "Back in the USSR"]

Russ: Wow, okay.

John: Yeah, we all know what happened there.

Russ: You bet.

John: Okay, this week in business history in 1925, USSR's official news agency task formed. This week in business history in 1937, Spam-now, we're not talking about unwanted email-but the luncheon meat.

Russ: Right, if you can call it meat.

John: Yeah, mystery meat at best. Okay, this week in business history in 1937 is the birth date of Eugene Chandler, Eugene Dixon, uh, a Chicago rocker, who was most famous with the Duke of Earl.

Russ: Yep.

[Music: "Duke of Earl"]

John: This week in business history in 1955, Bill Haley and the Comets' Rock Around The Clock hits the top of the billboard.

Russ: You bet. Big hit.

[Music: "Rock Around the Clock"]

John: Yeah.

John: This week in business history in 1962, Telstar One was launched at 4:30 a.m. July 10th, 1962. Now I remember that, because they had a live telecast. Of all the stuff Telstar could do, and I watched it on TV, and it was so inspiring because they were showing part of a baseball game in Los Angeles and they flipped to New York just like that.

Russ: Yeah, it was quite a step forward, that's for sure man, cool.

John: All right, this week in business history in 1964, Beach Boys, I Get Around reaches number one.

[Music: "I get Around"]

John: Nineteen sixty-five, the Rolling Stones, number one hit, I Can't Get No Satisfaction.

[Music: "Satidfaction"]

Russ: Wow.

John: Was it '67, only two years later, the Doors Light My Fire hits number one.

[Music: "Light My Fire"]

Russ: Wow.

John: And one of my favorites, Bobby Gentry in 1967, Bobby Gentry records Ode to Billy Joe, who threw something off the Tallahatchee bridge. We all know what that was, okay. All right.

[Music: "Ode to Billy Joe"]

John: This week in business history in 1976, the raid on Entebbe. This is by the Israelis because their plane was hijacked and flown to Uganda.

Russ: Right, or Idi Amin.

John: Idi Amin, it was holding him captive, and the Israelis rescued 229 Air France passengers.

Russ: Well, do you know who the leader of the Israeli raiding team was Netanyahu's brother.

John: Oh, really.

Russ: And he was killed. He was the only Israeli killed in that plane.

John: Oh wow. I didn't know anything about that.

Russ: Oh yeah, oh yeah.

John: This week in business history in 1985, Playboy publishes the first frontal nude pictures of Madonna.

Russ: That's a day to remember.

John: Well, the, the thing to really remember is the day the magazine broke. The emergency rooms nationwide were inundated with people who had nausea from that. It was actually a healthcare event. It really wasn't a publishing event. Okay. This week in business history in 1996, Dolly-and this is not Dolly Levi of the Hello, Dolly.

Russ: Right.

John: This is a sheep Dolly who was cloned. The cloned sheep was born.

Russ: Yeah, Dolly was famous, man.

John: Well, right, okay, first mammal to be cloned from cells of an adult. This week in business history in 1997, Mike Tyson is banned from boxing for biting Evander Holyfield's ear during a boxing match.

Russ: Now, I knew somebody that was actually attending that event, and they said, man, all chaos broke out after happened, and people were trying to scurry to the exits. I guess they thought he was going to come up in the audience and start biting all their ears off. I don't know, but man, it was wild.

John: Okay, this week in business history, 2003, Barry White, whose songs have probably contributed to baby booms for an American singer. And Ali McBeal, the big-a lot of his songs were on the Ally McBeal show. Anyway, he passed away.

[Music: "Can't get Enough of your Love, Babe"]

Russ: 2003.

John: This week.

Russ: It's been more than six years.

John: Yeah, born in 1944. And that, I think that's it, my friend.

Russ: Oh wow, great lesson.

John: See, the thing is, unfortunately, a lot of people aren't going to hear all this-

Russ: -if they just hear it on the traditional radio.

John: -if they just hear it on traditional radio, but if you are listening to traditional radio, you want to learn more, just go to thebusinessmakers.com, and the first segment is the School of Business.

Russ: Yeah, and we got a lot more history there.

John: And there you go.

Russ: And there you go. All right, and brings us to navigating business jargon. This is our vocabulary lesson, where we do our best at bringing you up-to-date on the new words, the new acronyms, the new techno speak. And we do it in a contest format. It was agreed upon at the very beginning.

John: I actually, I came up with the idea.

Russ: Yeah, and you agreed to it.

John: I agreed. I put myself in jeopardy.

Russ: In harm's way.

John: In harm's way, but there's a lot of agony and defeats out there, but, man, the thrill of victory when I get one right.

Russ: I don't know if you remember that, but you've gotten some right that were more right than the official definition.

John: I know, we have actually changed the definition, like we did last week with the eco embed thing.

Russ: Yeah, yeah, eco embed. You changed the definition. Okay, and the way this works, I choose the word, and I know what it means. And I say the word. And then John does his best to guess the meaning.

John: Because I don't even know what the word is up until the very minute I hear it.

Russ: Yeah, you ready?

John: Yeah, go ahead.

Russ: Telepresence.

John: Telepresence. Okay, telepresence. Well, presence means having a, uh, an aura, kind of a, um, a charismatic countenance, okay? So what I think telepresence is, is someone who has kind of a charismatic thing going on from a voice standpoint, which is why a lot of people make it in radio.

Russ: Wrong.

John: Because you can't see what they look like in radio.

Russ: Wrong.

John: But they have a good presence because their voice sounds good on radio. So it's like telephone, that's a telephone presence.

Russ: It's a great delivery, but it's wrong. You're going the wrong direction. Tele-presence is a fancy new word for video conferencing, and it's a few firms now have special rooms where life-size images of off-site participants allow a meeting that-

John: Life-size images?

Russ: Yeah.

John: Who the hell would want to see a life-size image?

Russ: Well, I don't know now-

John: Of someone who's dragging you into one of those things?

Russ: Now, it's not to be confused with teleporting, which happens in sci-fi movies only.

John: In Star-yeah, right.

Russ: Right, but telepresence is our word for the day.

John: Hey, and speaking of telepresence, did you see the 24 series this past. Cisco plays a big role in that. They have all these video conferences using all this whiz-bang Cisco technology. It's pretty cool.

Russ: Well, I think Cisco actually has a product now called telepresence.

John: That's what it, that's what it was, and it was really-you got to watch it. If you don't like Jack Bauer, just fast forward it to the bad-see, the bad guys have the video conferences with the whiz-bang technology.

Russ: All right, and that brings us to dumbest moments in business history. Do you have story for us?

John: Yeah, this is a heath care, uh, dumb moment.

Russ: Well, healthcare is in right now.

John: That's right. That's right, and this is probably why we don't need a lot of oversight because the more oversight, sometimes people ignore the oversight. And in this case, it was overlooked three times, which caused three brain surgeries to go awry because the surgeons were operating on the wrong side of the head.

Russ: Oh, my god.

John: And it was a Rhode Island hospital. It was one of most prestigious medical centers in New England. There's this organization called the Joint Commission was saying they had checklists and everything, and these doctors, you know, would not pay any attention to the protocol.

Russ: Remind me, if I need brain surgery, not to go to Rhode Island to do it. All right, and before we wrap up this morning's School of Business, it's time for the popular PKF Texas Entrepreneurs Playbook.

John: This is my favorite part of the School of Business.

Russ: It's a great part.

John: Okay, and here's Greg. The guy's on time.

Russ: Let's welcome Greg on the piano.

John: Okay, here he is.

Russ and John: A one, and a two, and a-

[PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook]

Russ: And that wraps up the School of Business. Stay tuned for Erica O'Grady's interview with Hank Wasiak, author of Change The Way You See Everything Through Asset-Based Thinking. And then that will be followed by our featured guest, Harry Fleming, founder and CEO of Acro Energy Technologies. You're listening to The Business Makers, heard here and online at thebusinessmakers.com