Russ: Good morning. This is The Business Makers show, heard here and online at thebusinessmakers.com. This is the beginning of the fifth year of our show that champions innovation by featuring entrepreneurs.

John: That's right, not only is this the beginning of the fifth year, okay, but it was shortly after this show that I met my wife.

Russ: Wow, it's like anniversary time.

John: It's like a anniversary time. That's what's great, yeah.

Russ: That's real cool. I think it's cool and noteworthy that we're beginning our fifth year. You know, like every other startup, we weren't even certain we were going to make it to the fifth episode, much less starting our fifth year.

John: Yeah, sometimes I wish we hadn't of made it.

Russ: Me too. It's getting hard.

John: It's getting tough.

Russ: All right, and here's our lineup for this morning. First up for the Aflac Business Makers Flashback, we are going to roll back just a few months when we had Phil Morabito on the show. Phil the founder and CEO of Pierpont Communications giving advice on marketing and advertising in this down economy. And then for our featured guest segement, our own Esther Steinfeld visits with the author of the recently released book, When Growth Stalls. We're talking about Steve McKee, also the co-founder and president of McKee Wallwork Cleveland, the marketing and communications firm based in Albuquerque. That's right, it's time for The Business Makers School of Business, and this is not your ordinary business as usual school.

John: That's right, Russ. It's a cut above. It's several cuts above your normal business school because we drill down into the real world, and it's real world education.

Russ: You bet, and probably more important than ever right now.

John: I would say so.

Russ: All right, and we kick off the School of Business each Saturday morning with the quote of the day.

John: Quote of the day.

Russ: And today we're going to quote Robert W. Sarnoff, the media executive of, for awhile president of RCA, cool, cool, guy, and I think-

John: Cool guy.

Russ: I think you're going to like it, John. Here it is.

John: All right.

Russ: "Finance is the art of passing money from hand to hand until it finally disappears."

John: That's right. It's like Woody Allen, how he defined financial advisors, someone who takes all your money and invests it until it's all gone.

Russ: That's exactly right. I knew you would like it. All right, and that brings us to this week in business history. What happened during this June week in business history?

John: We have a whole panoply of items here, but we're get started here real quick. This week in business history in the year 1215, King John signs the Magna Carta, at Runnymede, England.

Russ: Wow, that was pretty important, right?

John: That's right. It was a document that forced him to share power with the nobles.

Russ: Right.

John: And in other words, a king could just not decree anything he wanted. He would have to, according to this document, he would have to share his decision-making and consult with the nobles before doing anything.

Russ: It kind of seems like we're sort of reversing that trend now in the United States.

John: Yeah, yeah, I think, I think you could say we are. Right, right. This week in business history in 1775, the battle of Bunker Hill in Boston-actually, it was Breed's Hill that the battle was fought in. And I'm not really sure why they always changed it back to Bunker Hill. I think it probably sounded better to say.

Russ: It had better branding to it, I think.

John: And I tell you, the continental rebels would've probably won that battle, had they not run out of ammunition.

Russ: Wow.

John: And the British, even though they won the battle, it was such a puric victory. They lost so many men that it actually it haunted their decision-making for years to come.

Russ: Wow.

John: Okay.

Russ: The lesson there is have plenty of working capital, and keep your powder dry.

John: Keep your powder dry and, um, don't go marching headlong into fortified positions, which is what they did.

Russ: There you go.

John: This week in business history in 1783-this was probably one of those turning of history events-where the discoverer of Morphine was born. Without this guy, Morphine would not have been invented.

Russ: Well, and that's turned out to be a really important drug.

John: Oh, right, right. The Morphine comes from the Greek word morphias, which means god of dreams, so that can kind of tell you what happens when you take a lot of Morphine. I'll tell you, without it, it would've really held back medical developments.

Russ: Right, and, and there would've been a lot more pain in the world.

John: A lot more pain in the world, you bet. All right. Okay, this week in business history in 1815, is the battle of Waterloo, where Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated by the Duke of Wellington and General Bluker. If it had not been for Bluker, Napoleon probably would've won that battle, because Bluker commanded the Prussian forces who arrived just in the nick of time to carry the field.

Russ: Cool.

John: This week in business history in 1834-I'll tell you there's things that just get invented that are still with us today, and how many times have we run into that, a lot, right?

Russ: Oh, a lot, absolutely.

John: Well, sandpaper was patented by Isaac Fischer Junior in Springfield, Vermont.

Russ: In 1834?

John: Eighteen thirty-four. Okay, that's before the Alamo fell. The Alamo fell in 1836. Okay, this week in business history, 1862, two New Yorkers obtain a patent-you know, you talk about convergence of technology. I mean, just recently you heard about this guy who thinks he's got a way of making a car fly. You know, the flying car, and then you got your cell phone where the technology, mixed in with the computer-

Russ: -and the camera.

John: -and cameras and-but here you have the convergence of a gun and a plow.

Russ: That's something you need all the time.

John: That's something you need all the time, because this is not just a gun. This was like an almost a mini cannon. It's like the handle of the plow. It's called the ordinance plow, with patent number 35,600. It was a basically a long plow with a long gun built into the design, and it's if you're ever having feuds with your neighbors-

Russ: You've plowed a little bit too close.

John: You plow a little bit too close.

Russ: You give them something to use there.

John: It was 1862, you know, we were still fighting the Indians back in those days, so even though it was the Civil War.

Russ: Or maybe if you're out there fighting, and you just said, "I think well, I think I ought to plow this place up." You can just do it right there.

John: And do it right there. It's amazing. Okay, 1878, this week in business history, the first attempt at motion pictures. This is a Rube Goldberg attempt here. He used 12 cameras, each one taking one picture, to see if all four of a horse's hooves leave the ground. So they just, they took the pictures in succession. Because we all know moving pictures aren't really moving pictures, they're just individual photographs run together.

Russ: Interesting.

John: Persistence of vision.

Russ: What year was this?

John: Eighteen seventy-eight.

Russ: Okay, cool.

John: All right. This week in business history in 1928, is the birthday of James Brown of Pulaski, Tennessee, a famous soul singer.

[Music: "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag"]

Russ: All right.

John: All right. This week in business history in 1962, one of America's favorite funny men, Bob Newhart last airs his show on NBC TV.

Russ: Oh man, I was a fan of that. Now-

John: That was more of a variety show.

Russ: Yeah, okay.

John: This is not the one, this is not one where he had the country inn, and where he's a psychologist or anything like that.

Russ: Yeah, this is not that one. This is before it.

John: No, this was before that. He did more of a standup routine. Okay, this week in business history in 1968, one of the worse songs, I think, ever to hit the radio. I'm citing this because I hate this song. Yummy, Yummy, Yummy, I've Got Love In My Tummy by the Ohio Express, hits number four.

[Music: "Yummy Yummy Yummy"]

John: There must've been a dearth of music going on for that to hit number four.

Russ: What a, what a romantic song. I actually know a guy who went to Ohio State in that era and claims that he was a member of the Ohio Express-

John: Oh really?

Russ: -but in the recording studio that day, he didn't go and somebody sat in it. So actually he lucked out because he's a member of Ohio Express.

John: Well, later on they went national, and they became the Federal Express.

Russ: All right.

John: All right, this week in business history in 1977-this is one of those seminal moments in business history-the Oracle Corporation is incorporated in Redwood Shores, California-

Russ: Oh man, what a success.

John: -as Software Development Laboratories by Larry Ellison who's still around, Bob Miner, and Ed Oates.

Russ: Right, yeah, Larry Ellison is one of those founder CEOs that's stayed there and that keeps driving the bus the whole time.

John: Oh wow, yeah.

Russ: What a story.

John: What a story. Okay, now, we're going to move on here to 1992. This week in business history is when Dan Quayle misspelled the word potato.

Russ: Oh yeah.

John: And he got castigated for it. They ridiculed the guy for it.

Russ: Yeah, he did. He did.

John: Right.

Russ: Well, those Bush guys always got sort of castigated for their vice presidents, didn't they?

John: Yes, they did. Yes, they did.

Russ: But it's also interesting the two vice presidents, Dan Quayle and Dick Cheney, I don't think, are anything alike either, so.

John: No, they're not.

Russ: Yeah, okay.

John: This week in business history in 1994, O.J. Simpson doesn't turn himself in on murder charges, and L.A. cops chase his Ford Bronco for one and a half hours. He eventually gives up. He drives back to his home is what he did. He knew he wasn't going to get away.

Russ: Right, right.

John: Do you know where you were when all that was going on?

Russ: Absolutely, I do.

John: Well, what were you doing then?

Russ: I was watching the NBA basketball finals.

John: Wow.

Russ: The Houston Rockets against the New York Knickerbockers, and they kept taking their, the game kind of and, and squeezing it down to a small photo so we could watch his Bronco run up and down L.A. freeways, man.

John: I was taping a TV show during part of that, and they brought it in. Okay, this week in business history in 2005, a jury in Santa Maria, California acquits pop singer Michael Jackson of molesting a 13-year-old at his Neverland ranch. It began the downfall of-and this goes to show, no matter how big you get, no matter how rich or famous, sooner or later, you know, if you don't watch out, you can come tumbling down.

Russ: Well, particularly if you're kind of messing around with kids.

John: Even though they-well, they acquitted him of this, but that was just the beginning of a lot of things. I don't think he's still recovered, Michael Jackson.

Russ: I, I don't either. It reminds me of our guest last week, Brian Liu, a founder of LegalZoom. One of his little businesses when he was teenager, were publishing these "I hate Michael Jackson" buttons that he would sell at grunge rock concerts, and a thriving a business he had there.

John: Right, I'll bet. All right, this week in business history, finally, in 2008, is the first day of legal same-sex marriage in California.

Russ: It was open for business briefly there, right?

John: Briefly, right, and then what happened was they held a referendum, and the voters-

Russ: -said no.

John: -said no. Then it went to the supreme court, the-and everybody thought, oh, it's going to be one of these things that gets overturned again, but it did not get overturned. So they grandfathered in the same sex marriages, so anybody who got married during that time is okay, but after that, it's illegal.

Russ: I actually know a couple of guys that got married during that time, and they have been grandfathered in, and-

John: How do you figure out what to get them for wedding gifts? That's what I don't understand. I don't understand it about-

Russ: It was just a gift certificate.

John: I mean, to each his own, you know, more power to them.

Russ: That's right. Well, you know, it doesn't really, it doesn't really bother me now. Now, it would bother me if they made same-sex marriage mandatory. If we all had to do that, you know, I wouldn't like that, but this is okay with me.

John: Yeah, yeah, well, you're not my type, so I don't know whether that was a lead-in or not.

Russ: Good.

John: All right.

Russ: And does that wrap up the history lesson this morning?

John: I think so.

Russ: Okay, and that brings us to navigating business jargon. This is that part of The Business Makers School of Business that's our vocabulary lesson.

John: That's right, every course, every curriculum, you have, I would say from grammar school, you have to learn vocabulary, and why should we be any different?

Russ: That's right, and we actually go out there and, and get these new words, these new acronyms, these word combinations, and we get to present them to you.

John: Some of them are even made up on the way to the studio.

Russ: I think they are, actually.

John: So okay.

Russ: And we do this in a contest format, where I'm the one that gets to choose the word and, therefore, I know what it means.

John: You know what it means.

Russ: Yeah, and John doesn't.

John: I do not know what it means.

Russ: That's right.

John: Okay, we, this is a contest.

Russ: That's right, and I say the word.

Russ: And then John has to guess the meaning.

John: And I fumble around and do my best.

Russ: Please, no wagering.

John: Yeah, void where prohibited by law.

Russ: Yeah, now I think this one's really going to be easy.

John: You say that every time.

Russ: Well, but-

John: And it's easy for you to say that because you know it.

Russ: Well, it is easy for me to say.

John: I'm here on the other side of the table here, thinking okay.

Russ: The pressure's on because this is one I think most of audience will know too, so you better get it right. You ready? Cloud computing.

John: Cloud computing, hmm-m-m. That's when you look up in the clouds. You're trying to figure out if it's going to rain or not. Is that-am I right?

Russ: No, you're not.

John: Okay, what is it?

Russ: Cloud computing is the ability to sort of use the capacity of corporate computers or even, for that matter, a server farm of computers. And they always have this excess capability that's not being used by individual customers, so it kind of floats around, and you can use it. It's pretty cool.

[Music: "Get off of My Cloud"]

John: Get Off Of My Cloud, okay. All right, that's a pretty good word. I'll have to remember that.

Russ: All right, and that brings us to dumbest moments. Do you have a dumb moment topic for us today?

John: Well, I've got 24 of them, because there are 24 czars in the Obama administration overseeing all kinds of things. The most recent one that was appointed last week was a pay czar. This was a guy that's going to be looking at how people are being paid. He's going to start off, I think, with the automotive execs.

Russ: With just their investments.

John: I wouldn't hardly call what they're doing now an investment.

Russ: I wouldn't either.

John: But he's going with that, and then who knows. Mao said the longest journey starts with the first step, so.

Russ: You think they're going to start messing with our pay?

John: Hey, they just might, but the thing is, one of the larger issues is, the founding fathers set up what they call checks and balances. You have separation of powers, and you have oversight. One branch oversees the other, and even with some of the Democratic congress are thinking-

Russ: Well, sure.

John: -are thinking this czar is a, impugning on their authority.

Russ: Well, we're set up another branch of government. I guess there's four now.

John: Yeah, the czar, the czar branch. And, uh, it's just amazing, and, uh, the New York Times had an article on the guy they were going to put in charge of General Motors, and he's a 31-year-old Harvard guy that doesn't even have his law degree yet. You know, and they're-

Russ: Probably doesn't even have a car.

John: I, uh, he may not. He may be riding his bicycle around.

Russ: It's unusual times, that's for sure.

John: Yeah, I would say unusual and dangerous times when the government feels that they can get away with hiring someone who's going to be looking at how much people get paid.

Russ: You know, we need like a pay czar for congress and for all the money they're spending.

John: Yeah, and who will ever see that?

Russ: A responsibility. And we only get a chance to vote like every two, four, or six years.

John: Well, that's how we do it. You got two years on congress.

Russ: It's ridiculous.

John: Since half the electorate doesn't even vote.

Russ: That's right. All right. All right, but before we wrap up the School of Business, it's time for that very popular PK of Texas entrepreneur's playbook. So let's welcome Greg Price on the piano.

John: There he is. There he is. Come on in, Greg.

Russ and John: Okay, a one, and a two, and a...

[PKF Texas Entrepreneur's Playbook]

Russ: And that wraps up the School of Business. Be sure and stay tuned in for the Aflac Business Makers Flashback with Phil Morabito, the founder and CEO of Pierpont Communications talking about the way we should all think about marketing and advertising in this down market. And then for our featured guest, Mr. Steve McKee, the author of the very popular When Growth Stalls. Steve McKee, the president and founder of the Albuquerque-based McKee Wallwork Cleveland. You're listening to The Business Makers show heard here and online at thebusinessmakers.com.