Russ: Good morning. This is the BusinessMakers Show, heard here and seen online at TheBusinessMakers.com. This is episode number 282 of that show that features those that most positively affect our lives, the innovators, the entrepreneurs, the business makers.

John: That's right. They're the artists and the athletes and I've got to tell you what's going to possibly - most positively affect their lives, that is the entrepreneurs' lives is going to be the outcome of the election in a couple days.

Russ: Boy, no kidding. All right, here's our lineup for this morning. First up, Bill Arend, regional manager with Oracle invited me to attend their cool event in Austin, Texas last week entitled Smart Strategies to Keep Your Business Growing.

John: We're going to be doing that in Houston. We're going to be going to a similar event early December.

Russ: That's right.

John: So we'll probably be covering that here too as well.

Russ: You bet. It's a cool event that included a panel of veteran company leaders who have been through down economies before. I had the privilege of doing a group interview with the panel and with Bill Arend. Then additionally for those that are really tuned into this topic we captured the entire panel discussion and have it available on TheBusinessMakers.com. Then we thought it appropriate to flash back to our 2007 interview with Oracle's Chairman of the Board then and now Jeffrey Henley. But first ... that's right. It's time for the Businessmaker's School of Business. This is not your business as usual school.

John: No, of course not .

Russ: Because we are powered by Champion Energy Services.

John: That's right. Man, when you're powered by Champion you are a -

Russ: A champion.

John: You are a champion.

Russ: This is that company that lets you know right there on your bill how much you're paying for every little piece of electricity that you use.

John: And they do it in plain English.

Russ: In English.

John: Yes. Not some techno-speak, android type Klingon verbiage or something.

Russ: That's right. You don't have to know calculus. All right, and we kick off the School of Business each Saturday morning with a quote of the day.

John: Quote of the day.

Russ: This morning I'm going to take a little jab at your world.

John: Okay, go ahead.

Russ: You ready?

John: Yeah.

Russ: It's a quote by Gloria Borger.

John: Oh yeah.

Russ: Do you know her?

John: I've heard of her, yeah.

Russ: Here it is. "For most folks no news is good news. For the press good news is not news."

John: That's right. Yeah. See the world is basically - runs okay. When it doesn't, when something goes wrong that's news.

Russ: And that's good for them.

John: If we start looking at a world where the good things are news that means the rest of the world, by and large, day by day, hour by hour is a pretty rotten place. So it's good to have the bad news.

Russ: That's right. I'm glad because we've got a lot of it these days.

John: Because that tells you that everything primarily is going pretty good.

Russ: We've got plenty of it these days.

John: Plenty of bad news. Right. That's because things used to be good.

Russ: All right. That brings us to this week in business history. So what happened right here at the end of October, beginning of November in business history?

John: In 1893 this week in business history - a guy by the name of Raymond Loewy was born and he's the one that was a father of industrial design. Now before he came along - actually in 1929 that's kind of when he started really getting into this business the machines in America were rather efficient for their day but they didn't look like much. So he decided to incorporate some design into this and to make them more useful - user friendly, I guess and to make them somewhat attractive enough where they would look good.

Russ: Well industrial design is huge now.

John: I know.

Russ: You can go to college and major in it. You can get jobs in it.

John: When people are operating well designed equipment I think they feel better about their job and they're more motivated, too.

Russ: Well it's probably safer and more efficient and more attractive all in one. Neat deal. Okay.

John: This week in business history in 1952 the first thermonuclear explosion takes place November 1st, 1952 in one of the islands in the Marshall Islands. They call the Eniwetok Atoll, part of the Marshall Islands between Australia and Hawaii. Now the U.S. had already conducted several atomic tests on the atoll starting in 1948, the year I was born. Now don't confuse this with the first bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those were much smaller and they weren't thermonuclear. So these were huge bombs. This was like 15,000 tons, okay, of TNT which was the atomic bomb versus several thousand tons of TNT which was the thermonuclear explosion called Mike. Okay, this week in business history in 1952 the first use of a computer to predict winners on election night occurred. Tthe computer was a Univac and I remember the Univacs not only just for elections but -

Russ: Oh yeah.

John: Yeah, they started becoming somewhat affordable. So they were used for other purposes on television. But this was the world's all electronic computer and a prodigious memory as one newspaper article described the machine. Now the thing is that early - it predicted early that Dwight Eisenhower was going to beat Adlai Stevenson but the network people were nervous about that. They couldn't believe that Eisenhower was going to win.

Russ: And yet the computer was predicting it clearly.

John: Right, yeah.

Russ: That's interesting that they didn't trust it.

John: Okay, all right. This week in business history in 1956 the Wizard of Oz is broadcast on TV for the first time.

Russ: Wow.

John: 45 million people turned on CBS to see the movie and Liza Minnelli, Judy Garland's ten year old daughter, introduced the program. This week in business history in 1957 Soviet Union launches the first animal into space, a dog named Laika aboard Sputnik II Spacecraft. Part Siberian Husky. They picked him up as a stray - I wonder if the animal rights people picketing over there. They pick this little dog off the streets in Moscow -

Russ: And shot him into space.

John: - and shot him into space. They didn't know what was going to happen to him.

Russ: With no hopes to return.

John: That's right. Electrodes attached to her body. I mean she died after the batteries of her life support system ran down.

Russ: My goodness.

John: I mean a helpless little dog. I mean gee-whiz. This week in business history in 1961 Bob Dylan makes his concert hall debut at Carnegie Hall.

Russ: My goodness.

John: Yeah, big crowd. Fifty people showed up.

Russ: Fifty people, Carnegie Hall, Bob Dylan.

John: Yeah.

Russ: Cool.

John: This week in business history in 1966 truth in packaging gets the go ahead. Lyndon Johnson decided to reprogram the entire consumer products industry by making them put all the tiny little type that you now see on food packages and everything.

Russ: Well I tell you today it's a huge thing and important to a lot of people.

John: Okay, this week in business history John Fogerty was found not guilty of plagiarizing one of his own songs.

Russ: Now what year?

John: 1988.

Russ: All right.

John: Now think about this. This reminds me of the Coke Zero commercials remember? Because Coke trying to sue -

Russ: Sue Coke for cloning their -

John: - for cloning your Coke. So why would this guy have trouble with him? I guess someone else owned the rights to the song of whatever.

Russ: Well I think of that band, that Credence Clearwater had a lot of divorce and in fighting and so probably the rights of the song went in one direction. He went in the other.

John: He had to play live in the courtroom and pave -

Russ: But what were the two songs?

John: The songs were Old Man Down the Road and then Run Through the Jungle.

Russ: Okay. All right.

John: This week in business history one of the biggest protection rackets in the history of the world was founded with the European Union.

Russ: Oh wow. In what year now? 1993, right.

John: 1993.

Russ: The European Union.

John: Now when this was first developed everybody thought, "Well you know these countries have been going to war with each other for like a thousand years. Maybe this will keep them from happening." For awhile it seemed like that could be it but now with all the rioting going on and nobody - because they have a common currency. So you have one country, Greece, going down the toilet and all these other countries got to bail them out with their currency. Now the other problem is I think - the reason why I call it a protection racket is because if you're a U.S. company and want to do business over there and you're an industry leader they're going to put some roadblocks in your way to protect their industries they already have. So it's really kind of an unhealthy thing they've done. We started out with good intentions.

Russ: What do you think they think of it now?

John: I think there are some people who are having a lot of second thoughts especially since they're - one country or a group of countries are having to bail out another country. The year is - the United States of Europe which is what they're trying to do here sounds good in theory but why turn the whole European continent upside down and inside out just to keep people from going to war with each other? Why didn't they just agree not - anyway, that's my theory.

Russ: All right. That wraps up this morning's history lesson.

John: Hey, that's enough, isn't it?

Russ: Okay. That's enough. That's some big stuff in there this morning.

John: Hey, European Union, man. It doesn't get any bigger than that.

Russ: That's right. That brings us to the Jargon Challenge.

John: Oh, our vocabulary test. Yea.

Russ: You bet. Well your vocabulary test.

John: Yeah. Well our because you're - I can't have the test unless you supply me with the words.

Russ: Well that's true. I'm kind of like the teacher.

John: It's teamwork. You are not a teacher.

Russ: [Laughs] I am. But the way we do it too is that John just doesn't have any idea what the word is.

John: I do not know the word. I know that sounds specious and like, "Okay, we need a little truth in labeling here, truth in packaging." "Where's LBJ when you need him," is what you are probably saying out there but we all know that that's not true. Okay.

Russ: But so he just sort of lays it on the line here and -

John: Yeah, we do.

Russ: - tries to guess the meaning.

John: I know it's tough. I've been doing pretty good this year.

Russ: Yes, you have. This is going to be tough because it's a - maybe because it's a verb. Verbs are just harder.

John: I know because a word that denotes some sort of action.

Russ: Yeah. This one's an unusual one. No wagering, please. Yeah, all right. Here it is. Vape.

John: Vape. A new product. Well vape is like short for vapor.

Russ: You're headed down the correct path.

John: Okay, so vape is a semi-vaporous substance that emits from thinking too hard. I don't know.

Russ: No, you're not close and I knew you wouldn't get it. It's to inhale the vapor produced by a non-combustible cigarette, these new digital cigarettes. They're all over the place. People are just sucking on them and they're vaping, is what they're doing.

John: Oh so they think they're smoking but they're not.

Russ: Yeah. They see it. I guess they feel it. I don't know. They don't have nicotine. Maybe they could add a little nicotine.

John: Are these battery operated cigarettes?

Russ: I think they are. They're calling for power to make them work and - vape. You learned one. I knew you wouldn't get that.

John: Do you have to plug them in when you're done using them?

Russ: I think you have to recharge them or something.

John: Recharge them. Yeah, right. Okay. That's very - okay. Hey, I didn't know that.

Russ: Now you know it.

John: Hey good - I got to give it to you. That was a good word.

Russ: Well thank you.

John: You don't do that often, do you?

Russ: No, uh-uh.

John: All right.

Russ: Now that brings us to dumb moments in business history. Do you have one for us this morning?

John: You know Art Linkletter used to have this segment called - show and Kids Say the Darnedest Things. You know?

Russ: Oh yeah, I remember.

John: It goes to CEOs. The CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt. He was doing a CNN interview recently and he was asked about people who are complaining that they don't like their houses, the people - the homes that they live in pictures showing up on Google on the street view and that. His answer to this was if people don't like their pictures on Google then they should move.

Russ: Well where can you move? To the moon?

John: When people act like this and they're given - they earn - I'm not saying he didn't earn his power and earn - Google does have some attributes that are very important to society.

Russ: Yeah, I'd say so.

John: But when you misuse the power and when you mock people who are also your customers - I'm sure a lot of these people who don't like their homes pictured use Google from time to time then sooner or later you're going to be headed for a crash.

Russ: Now wait. Was this -

John: Now I'm not talking about financially. I'm talking about morally, intellectually as well as financially.

Russ: Now wait. Was this statement actually broadcast on CNN?

John: No. They edited it out later on. It was live and then when they - I guess when the archived it according to what this story said CNN edited it out. Now why CNN would do that I don't know.

Russ: That's another question.

John: That's another question, right. Then later they started backpedaling saying, "Well people who don't want their homes there is a process they can go through to get their pictures removed," but it's probably like trying to cut off your AOL service.

Russ: It's impossible. It's impossible

John: If you've ever tried to do that it's impossible, yes.

Russ: All right. Before we wrap up this morning's School of Business it's time for the very popular PKF Texas Entrepreneur's Playbook.

[PKF Entrepreneurs Playbook]

Russ: That wraps up this morning's School of Business powered by Champion Energy Services. Stay tuned in for our Cool, Smart Strategies to Keep your Business Growing, the event put together by Bill Arend and Oracle to be followed by our flashback, back to 2007 when we had Oracle's Chairman of the Board, Jeffrey Henley. You're listening to the BusinessMakers Show heard here and seen online at TheBusinessMakers.com.