Announcer: It's a fact, when it comes to those who most positively affect out lives, today's innovators and entrepreneurs top the list. During the next hour, we will turn the spotlight on people who make businesses happen with their creativity, determination and inspiration. This is The BusinessMakers Show, with your hosts Russ Capper and John Beddow, a publisher with American City Business Journals.

Russ: Good morning. This is the BusinessMakers Show heard here and online at theBusinessMakers.com. That's t-h-e BusinessMakers.com and for our audience and for my partner, John Beddow, I have to let you all know that this is show No. 260 which means we have - just now completing our fifth year of broadcasting the business -

John: Our fifth year.

Russ: Yeah, can you believe it?

John: Well, that's about the time I met my wife.

Russ: That's right, so it coincides.

John: That's right 'cause I met her the Friday, the day before the show and-

Russ: That's right and that's your anniversary. That's your anniversary of meeting her, right?

John: Of meeting, right. Yeah and I asked her to go to Montana with me that same night and a year later we went.

Russ: Well, a year later, that's great. [Laughter]

John: I got that trip in there in a cherry auction and I paid for it, you know, paid a pretty penny for it but I didn't wanna go by myself.

Russ: All right. And here's our lineup for today. First up for the Aflac BusinessMakers Flashback, we are going to share three more of our very popular "Advice for Entrepreneurs from Entrepreneurs." This week Guy Kawasaki author of "The Art of the Start", Shawn Achor, the leading advocate of positive psychology, and then Gay Gaddis, founder and CEO of T3. Then for our featured guests. First up, Caroline Cummings, the Director of Entrepreneur Advocacy for Palo Alto Software. And that will be followed by Julia Rhodes, the school teacher turned entrepreneur. Julia is the founder and CEO of Kleen Slate Concepts. Both featured guest segments are available in video at thebusinessmakers.com. But first... That's right. It's time for the BusinessMakers School of Business and the BusinessMakers School hasn't been going on for five years. It's been like about four years and nine months, right?

John: Well, we spent a lotta time preparing the School of Business.

Russ: That's right. We didn't wanna do it 'til it was done.

John: We didn't wanna rush into it and we thought that since we weren't gonna charge for it we could kinda start it whenever we felt like it.

Russ: That's right. And we kick off the School of Business each Saturday morning with a quote of the day.

John: Quote of the day.

Russ: And today's quote comes from Richard Feynman, U.S. educator and physicist, lived from 1918 to 1988. But a key point there that he passed away in 1988. You have to take that into consideration when you're listening to this 'cause it's interesting. You ready?

John: Yeah.

Russ: There are 10 to the 11th power stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number, but it's only 100 billion. It's less than the national deficit. We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers.

John: Economical numbers, galactical numbers.

Russ: That's right. This is 22 years ago. He was showing how outrageous the national debt was.

John: Oh, I know and it just keeps going and going and going.

Russ: And that was nothing compared to what it is now.

John: Yeah. The deficits are going the wrong direction.

Russ: No longer do you say astronomical; it's now economical numbers.

John: Got it; got it.

Russ: All right, and that brings us to This Week in Business History. What happened toward the end of May and beginning of June in business history?

John: This is really fascinating. You know, Columbus discovers America or discovers there's a land mass between Europe and Asia in 1492. Three years after that is the first written record of Scotch whiskey. It appears in the Exchequer rolls of Scotland and a friar, a religious man, John Cor, is the distiller.

Russ: Maybe that's how he got religion; who knows? So that - this week in 1495. Geez.

John: In 1495. That's right. I'd say it's a pretty significant invention.

Russ: You bet. Yeah, I would say so, too. [Laughter]

John: All right. This week in business history, in 1678, Lady Gaga rode naked - oh, no, it's Lady Godiva. Sorry. Lady Godiva rode naked through Coventry in protest of taxes, a kind of a tea party thing with her.

Russ: There you go. I think Lady Gaga rides naked all the time, but it's not -

John: Yeah, but she's not protesting taxes.

Russ: No.

John: I don't know what she's doing.

Russ: I don't either. Well, that's a memorable thing, 1678, so that's 332 years ago.

John: Yeah, but I would say 58 years after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, you know, in 1620.

Russ: Okay, Lady Godiva is riding naked.

John: This week in business history, in 1761, Henry Shrapnel invented shrapnel. [Laughter]

Russ: Cool.

John: I mean when you have bombs blow up, I mean things blow apart, so why shouldn't someone - I guess what he did is he designed the shards and the casings of the bombs so it would be easier for the shrapnel to go out.

Russ: Yeah, and probably put more in there, you know, kinda turbocharged. Before then, you know, bombs were just no big deal.

John: Right. Now he was 18 years old. He received a commission in the British Royal Artillery and remained active for more than four decades actually hitting the rank of lieutenant general. That is amazing.

Russ: Yeah.

John: Amazing and for the first use in warfare in 1804 shrapnel shells proved to be useful in destruction - no kidding.

Russ: Yeah, I guess that works okay. [Laughter]

John: Boy, this is written like wow, this is really something great.

Russ: Who would have known that we could be killing this many people with one bomb?

John: Okay, this week in business history, 1848 - that's 100 years before I was born - William G. Young patents the ice cream freezer.

Russ: The ice cream freezer.

John: Yeah, the home hand-cranked machine was invented by Nancy Johnson but patented by William G. Young, so he stole Nancy Johnson's invention. I bet they were - I bet they had something going on and he -

Russ: You think so? And she let him?

John: And she dumped him or he dumped her and took her patent.

Russ: And turned into a labor feud.

John: Yeah, a patent feud. Yeah.

Russ: Wow, that's tough, man.

John: Yeah. Okay, moving right along, 1869, the voting machine is patented by Thomas Edison.

Russ: My goodness.

John: Now who would have thought Thomas Edison had anything to do with politics?

Russ: Right. Right. [Laughter]

John: In 1880, the first pay telephone was installed this week in business history, and that's quite amazing.

Russ: That is, yeah.

John: 'Cause you would think something like that that would require something to be able to sense real coin from counterfeit coins and put them in the slot and then trip the dial tone and all that -

Russ: Well, maybe you're giving them the benefit of the doubt. In 1880, I don't think there was a dial tone. It might just be a - it might be an honor system.

John: I know what happened. They probably - the phone company probably had assigned a person next to each phone -

Russ: That's probably it.

John: And they had to pay the guy and he would -

Russ: So they could use the phone.

Russ: Yeah. There you go.

John: This week in business history, in 1880, the U.S. census records the population in the United States at 50 million people.

Russ: Okay and what -?

John: 50,155,783 to be exact.

Russ: And where are we now? We're over 300, right?

John: We're over 300 million, yeah, that we know about.

Russ: Yeah, but how much - do we know?

John: Yeah, 'cause all these illegals are here and no one's been able to give a good estimate how many those are.

Russ: I don't think anybody knows.

John: And I don't think anybody really wants to know.

Russ: Right. That's probably true.

John: This week in business history, in 1884, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg patents flaked cereal.

Russ: Flaked cereals.

John: Right. It had something to do with digestive tract treatments.

Russ: Did it?

John: I think he was involved in that, yeah.

Russ: But so before then what was there, just like oatmeal and that was like it or oats?

John: Well, I'm sure they had, you know, wheat and corn.

Russ: But not as flakes, right?

John: But not as flakes. Right, yeah. This week in business history, in 1928, one of my favorite cheeses, Velveeta cheese was created by Kraft.

Russ: Now do you think that's really cheese?

John: It's - well, I think it's probably some sort of synthetic plastic with -

Russ: [Laughter] It's kind of chewable.

John: Now the thing about Velveeta cheese, it's so versatile. I mean you can spread it on just about anything and make it taste better.

Russ: Well, you can. Yeah, you can.

John: This week in business history, in 1946, the first bikini bathing suit is displayed in Paris, gay Paris.

Russ: My goodness, what a history lesson today.

John: I know. This is year after the war was over, World War II.

Russ: Velveeta, bikinis.

John: Yeah, bikinis. All right, this week in business history, in 1967, the Beatles released "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and goes gold almost instantly.

[Music: "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"]

John: This week in business history, in 1967, Aretha Franklin's "Respect," R-E-S-P-E-C-T, reaches number one.

[Music: "Respect"]

John: This week in business history, in 1970, Ray Davies of The Kinks had to travel roundtrip to London. I think this was before the supersonic jetliner.

Russ: Yeah, so it wasn't a quick trip or anything.

John: Was not a quick trip, roundtrip New York to London to change one word in the song "Lola." He had to change the word "Coca-Cola" to "cherry cola" because the stodgy BBC doesn't like commercial references in their programming.

Russ: What a story.

John: This week in business history, in 1973, a patent for the ATM, that is the automatic teller machine, is granted to Don Wetzel, Tom Barnes and George Chastain.

Russ: Wow. I bet they did okay.

John: Well, you know, on these kinda things you just don't know.

Russ: Well, you don't know.

John: This week in business history, in 1977, Apple II, the first personal computer goes on sale, fairly significant leap forward.

Russ: Over the Apple I which was more just for hobbyists.

John: Okay, moving right along, in 1980, this week in business history, the first transmission of CNN, Cable News Network. Now that was back when it was a news network as opposed to an analysis network and they were having a lotta trouble. I think the Comedy Channel gets higher ratings than CNN.

Russ: Yes, it's gotten terrible ratings now doesn't it?

John: I know. And then finally, in 2008, this week in business history, Usain Bolt breaks the world record in the 100-meter sprint. He did it in an earth-shattering 9.72 seconds.

Russ: Yeah, and then beat that in the Olympics shortly after that.

John: That's right. He is - that guy is a - he flies.

Russ: That's the most incredible thing, you know. In fact at the Olympics, I was more impressed with that than I was our Michael Phelps swimmer winning all those gold medals. I mean this is - breaking the 100-meter record like that is unbelievable.

John: Well, I remember back in Mexico City, Bob Beamon broke the broad jump record like by a foot.

Russ: It was like - it was more than a foot. It was like a foot and a half.

John: I know. It's just - wow.

Russ: Yeah. I agree totally.

John: Must be all those tacos.

Russ: Must have been. Right. [Laughter] Does that wrap up this morning's history lesson?

John: Hey, I - this is - that's the best I can do.

Russ: Man, that was -

John: If you don't like it, write your congressman.

Russ: We should put a little star by this week 'cause this week is - of course, it's also the week of The BusinessMakers Show launching, but I just - maybe that had something to do with it, but -

John: I met little Miss Tina.

Russ: That's right and what a week and so once again, those of you that are hearing this on the radio should go to the Web and hear - there's all kinda good stuff that you don't get to hear here.

John: That's right. You get the full Monty, the full course load online versus what you - you get a really truncated version here on the radio.

Russ: Absolutely. All right, and that brings us to the jargon challenge round.

John: Ah, my favorite thing to do.

Russ: Our vocabulary lesson.

John: Next to what I've just done.

Russ: That's right. That's right. And this is where we go out there and look all over the horizon of new words, new technospeak, new acronyms, new jargon words. I get to choose one and I say the word and then John does his best at coming up with the meaning.

John: Yeah.

Russ: Are you ready?

John: Yeah.

Russ: This morning's word is down-ager.

John: Hmm. There's teenager. It's someone who's in their teens and there's no specific age. They're just in that - you know between 13 and 19 kind of. Okay, a down-ager is someone who is going down, I mean both emotionally and physically, and they're in that old period where, you know, like you're over 90 or something and you're just really going down pretty quickly and they say, "Well, how old is Fred?" Well, he's a down-ager. I mean he doesn't have long to live.

Russ: Wrong, wrong. You're a loser this morning. Sorry.

John: You're not sorry.

Russ: A down-ager is a person who acts younger than his or her real age. That's all, just plain and simple.

John: All right.

Russ: All right, and that brings us to dumb moments in business. Do we have one today?

John: Well, yeah. Remember, well, many times we've talked about the really dumb moment Coca-Cola forced on itself when they -

Russ: Oh, yeah, when they took the cocain out of it.

John: Not that time. That was a good thing. I'm talking about the time they changed the formula.

Russ: To New Coke.

John: To New Coke.

Russ: You bet.

John: They took something everybody was very happy with and they tried to improve it and made a big deal out of it. They probably could have done it if they had handled the making of it a different way.

Russ: I don't think they could 'cause they took the old one off. You don't have to undo the old one.

John: That's what I mean. They could say, "Hey, we've got -."

Russ: We've got a new one, yeah.

John: "Here's a new version of it. Tell us what you think." That's all they had to do and everybody would have been okay with that. Well, now you got Heinz ketchup. Now I'm - Heinz is near and dear to me 'cause I grew up in Pittsburgh and -

Russ: Yes, you did.

John: And Heinz is a stalwart Pittsburgh corporation and it's been there for a long time and so what they're doing is they wanna get with it. Okay, they wanna make - they're into this healthy -

Russ: They're gonna make green ketchup.

John: Green - well, yeah, not green. They have made green ketchup and that didn't work out very well, but they're gonna lower the salt content in an effort to appeal to more health-conscious consumers, but, you know, most fans and the fans think that they like what they - you know, they like what they already have, and they think they're gonna be messing with perfection, and this could wind up as a debacle similar to the rollout of the New Coke.

Russ: It gives me an idea, sea salt for ketchup, and we'll package little sea salt packages for - to mix with your ketchup when you're getting ready to eat it on your French fries.

John: Hey, if you don't like it, just put some salt in it.

Russ: You should - well, you should go ahead and try to get that patented real quickly.

John: Well, I'm sure someone's already thought of it.

Russ: All right, they probably have. All right. And before we wrap up this morning's School of Business, though, it's time for that guy. It's time for the very popular PKF Texas Entrepreneur's Playbook.

Greg: This is Greg Price with PKF Texas' Entrepreneur's Playbook.

There is a great book called, Houston, It's Worth It and the title says it all. Houston is a great place to live and do business. If you're considering relocating your business, consider Houston.

We were recently recognized by Forbes as one of the Best Places in the Country for Business and Careers. They also recently ranked the Houston Technology Center (www.houstontech.org) as one of the Top 10 technology incubators changing the world.

The Greater Houston Partnership has a section of their website (www.houston.org) dedicated to the business climate and provides resources for businesses looking to incorporate here. They have also launched the Houston Young Professionals Endeavor or HYPE, which is quickly becoming the go-to destination for all things business related for Houston's YPs.

The local tax structure makes Houston an attractive low cost center for doing business. Our diverse business community has the positioning to be your jumping off point into the global marketplace.

These days so much of the news is focused on the negatives in the economy and in business, it's good to hear about the bright spots. Houston is one of those bright spots. Choose to do business here and you're making a good choice for the future of your business.

To read and comment on the PKF Texas' Entrepreneur's Playbook, visit my blog, fromgregshead.com. And be sure to check out the new mobile ready website at PKF Texas.com - PKF Texas, The Fit That's Right!

Russ: That wraps up this morning's School of Business. Stay tuned in for the Aflac BusinessMakers Flashback where we are going to share three pieces of advice for entrepreneurs from entrepreneurs. And then our featured guests, first up Caroline Cummings, the Director of Entrepreneur Advocacy for Palo Alto Software. Followed by Julia Rhodes, the founder and CEO of Kleen Slate Concepts. You're listening to the BusinessMakers Show, heard here and online at thebusinessmakers.com.