Russ: This is the BusinessMakers Show heard here and seen online at theBusinessMakers.com. This is Episode number 305 of that show that talks about those that make businesses and that make business happen.

John: That's right, Russ. These are the people that really take the ideas that are out there and turn them into profit and turn them into products and services that people need and want.

Russ: And jobs.

John: And jobs, yeah. Don't forget about those.

Russ: Oh yeah, right.

John: And we're gonna see a lot of them at the Celebrate Enterprise Week which starts May 17th and on the evening of May 17th will be one of the events that's Vintage Capitalism. That'll be event number two of Celebrate Enterprise.

Russ: Cool.

John: It's a great way to meet and introduce yourself to other folks that are swimming around in that entrepreneurial lake that we're all swimming around in and they'll be at the Tasting Room at Uptown Park. You get some wine and some fine cigars -

Russ: Alright.

John: -- if you so like to indulge and we look forward to seeing everybody there. I know we'll be there.

Russ: Absolutely. Vintage Capitalism on the evening of May 17th.

John: That's right. Cool.

Russ: Alright and here's our lineup for today. First up, we have the founders of I-Office and I'm talking about the trio of founders. This is a cool, cool ten-year old company that seems to continue to grow no matter what's happening in the economy and they help large companies manage their facilities. Then that's gonna be followed by a discussion with Julia Rhodes, former school teacher turned entrepreneur and now founder of Clean Slate Concepts, but first. That's right. It's time for the BusinessMakers School of Business and this is not your business as usual school.

John: No, there's no ivory tower. There's no ivy. There's no statue of the founder, although -

Russ: That's not a bad idea though.

John: Not a bad idea. I don't know where we would put the statue. There's no football team, student activity fees. All we have is our knowledge.

Russ: That's it.

John: Which is pretty good stuff.

Russ: Sometimes.

John: Yeah, it really is. It's real world knowledge.

Russ: You bet.

John: We seem to make it work.

Russ: And we kick it off with the quote of the day.

John: Quote of the day.

Russ: Today's quote is another one of those that is unknown, the source. It's a pretty cool quote though. All fingers are not alike. If you cut bigger ones down to make all equal it's communism. If you stretch smaller ones to make all equal it's socialism and if you do nothing to make all equal it's capitalism.

John: That's right. Those are fingers?

Russ: Yeah, fingers.

John: Like on our hands?

Russ: Yes, exactly. Just like those -

John: Okay. Well that's torture.

Russ: That's right.

John: That's what they did in the Middle - I saw Henry VIII, the Tudors, they went to the tower of London, ________ the rack there.

Russ: Right. See, both of those are torture, except for capitalism. Capitalism says just leave them alone -

John: Oh, right, right. Okay, yeah.

Russ: Communism you cut the long ones off and socialism you try to stretch the short ones. Capitalism you just let it go.

John: Let 'em go, yeah.

Russ: Alright. That brings us to this week in business history. What happened in business in this April week in business history?

John: This week in business history in 1865 President Abraham Lincoln and his wife were at Ford's Theater in a private box and Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth. Shot in the back of the head and later died. They took him across the street. There was a home over there, a town home and he was in there for like a day or so and then he died.

Russ: Yeah. They caught Mr. Booth, too, yeah.

John: Well they caught him a couple weeks later. They caught him in Maryland. He was in a tobacco barn and they burned the barn to get him out of there. They flushed him out. They shot him.

Russ: Right there.

John: ________. This week in business history 1878 Harley Proctor introduces Ivory soap.

Russ: Interesting. The soap that floats -

John: Soap that floats -

Russ: -- at least it did back - it's one era it floated. I don't know if it -

John: Well part of - there is a form of Ivory soap, the bar soap that floats -

Russ: That still floats?

John: Yeah. No, they have the body lotion, the body -

Russ: It doesn't float.

John: It doesn't float. It's in a big plastic container. It may float. I don't know. I take showers all the time so I don't have to worry about it.

Russ: But I'm sure back in 1878 they didn't even think in terms of that high technology that we gotta make it float, right. They just -

John: No. I think it just floated on its own I think -

Russ: Ah.

John: -- by the way they construct it -

Russ: And then they started taking credit for that.

John: Hey, whatdya' know. It floats. Hey, we can make _______ campaign.

Russ: Right.

John: Alright. This week in business history in 1892 George C. Blickensderfer patents the portable typewriter.

Russ: 1892, wow.

John: I know. Before that they had typewriters, but they were big and heavy. Now he made the portable one.

Russ: Right. For those of you born after 1990 you can look up typewriter on Wikipedia and figure out what we're talking about.

John: Yeah, right. But the QWERTY keyboard, the keyboard you have on your computer is because of the typewriter.

Russ: Right; absolutely.

John: They put the QWERTY keyboard, they constructed it to slow the typing down.

Russ: Is that true?

John: It's true, yeah, because the keys were getting jammed by professional secretaries -

Russ: Going too fast.

John: Going too fast. Okay. This week in business history in 1902 JC Penney's opens its first store in Kemmerer, Wyoming.

Russ: Wow. Wonder if J.C. had any idea that it would be this big in 2011.

John: Well I'm sure it kinda' grew because he probably died in the 20s, 30s and JC Penney was quickly becoming a household name, but you're right. He probably just wanted to make a living.

Russ: That's right and today he's providing all these jobs.

John: Wow. That's right. Well he isn't anymore. He's dead.

Russ: Well no - right.

John: But his idea.

Russ: And clothes. He's provided all these clothes and keeping all those factories over in the Far East running.

John: That's right. But again, even though those people don't make a lot of money, like a dollar a day or whatever, that's a heck of a lot more than they ever made before.

Russ: Right. If we shut it down then they won't have a dollar a day.

John: I know.

Russ: Nobody ever thinks of that.

John: I know. Okay. This week in business history in 1912 Titanic sinks at 2:27 A.M. off New Foundland as the band plays on. There was a little band that was playing. By the way, I made a mistake last week. The Titanic actually set sail for good from Ireland.

Russ: Okay. Yeah, we were talking about that.

John: Yeah, it left England and then went to Cherbourg and then up into Ireland, picked some folks up and then -

Russ: Oh, okay.

John: -- that was it.

Russ: So that was the last ________ --

John: So I was wrong. I got the -

Russ: The order mixed up.

John: Yeah, the order mixed up. So anyway. This week in business history in 1924 Rand McNally publishes its first road atlas.

Russ: I guess before then there weren't too many roads.

John: I know. Even with GPS I think they still sell a few. Every time you go into a gas station, there's maps for sale. Some of them are not Rand McNally maps, but I've got one. I keep it in the back seat of my car. 'Cause my wife and I go on road trips and we get lost eventually and it's nice to have a road map.

Russ: Yeah, they're great. Right.

John: Alright. This week in business history in 1937 the cartoon characters Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd and Petunia Pig debut.

Russ: Wow. It's a big week then.

John: Yeah, those were Warner Brother cartoon characters. Rumor has it there was some disgruntled animators at the Disney studios and they left and got into this business.

Russ: Oh really? Wow.

John: This week in business history in 1946 the birthday of Al Green.

Russ: Wow.

John: American singer and pastor.

Russ: Wow; 65 now.

John: Yeah, he's got quite a voice.

Russ: Yes, he does.

John: This week in business history in 1961 Yuri Gagarin becomes the first person to orbit the earth and really set the world on fire, especially the U.S. 'cause we didn't wanna be second to anybody.

Russ: It seems like we don't care about that -

John: It was back in the - yeah - that was back in the day when it was important to be number one, but now it's who cares.

Russ: No, or actually it seems like it's almost bad to be number one.

John: Well according to some people, yeah. You look what happens when we become number two or number three at least in perception. People take advantage of that.

Russ: That's right.

John: They detect weakness, man, you're - okay. This week in business history in 1968 President Johnson signs his 1968 Civil Rights Act. There was another one in 1964. This Civil Rights Act was more for fair housing rules and laws and everything. Well if he would have realized is without the Republican Party neither of these bills would have passed.

Russ: That's right.

John: Or wouldn't have passed as easily 'cause a much higher percentage of Republicans voted for this bill than Democrats and Johnson needed the Republican Party to get both of these through -

Russ: Cool.

John: This week in business history in 1970 Apollo 13 was launched to the moon and two days later said, "Houston, we got a problem." As the oxygen tank explodes en route to the moon. Now Tom Hanks wasn't really going to the moon. He was in a studio somewhere.

Russ: Right.

John: I'm just kidding.

Russ: Depicting -

John: Depicting -

Russ: -- what happened. But it was a pretty darn scary and accurate depiction -

John: I know.

Russ: -- I think. My goodness.

John: Oh, it was, it was and we were very fortunate because it wasn't too many years earlier than that that the Gus Grissom and a few other astronauts died -

Russ: On the ground even.

John: Yeah, right.

Russ: Now we have some guys that have a huge problem up in the space atmosphere and we bring 'em back. Gees.

John: Ooh, yeah. Course I'd say space travel is lot safer than Southwest Airlines. I'm just kidding.

Russ: Yeah, ________ _________ _________ --

John: The fuselage all -

Russ: Blowin' apart.

John: Blows apart.

Russ: That's because those planes take off about 100 times every day.

John: I know. Southwest actually has a very good safety record -

Russ: Yeah, that's true.

John: Okay. This week in business history in 1975 Linda Ronstadt releases When Will I Be Loved and Jerry Brown said, "Hey, I'm right here" -

Russ: ________ ________.

John: I'm standin' here.

Russ: You bet.

John: You pretend I don't exist. This week in business history in - it's 1976 the Apple I is created. We're talking about a computer. Apples were actually created long, long before -

Russ: Right, these computers.

John: But the computers came around in 1976. That's a significant technological achievement.

Russ: Absolutely, man.

John: Yeah. This week in business history in 2002 Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez returns to office 2 days after being ousted and arrested by the country's military. It's too bad they didn't keep him out of office and in jail.

Russ: They caved in way too easily with that.

John: I know. Then he's systematically destroying that economy.

Russ: Oh my God, totally.

John: We've talked about that many times.

Russ: Oh, absolutely.

John: This week in business history in 2003 the human genome project is completed with 99 percent of the human genome sequenced to an accuracy of 99.99 percent. Now I don't understand. Humans are humans, but gnomes are these little things that are out in the woods. So are they trying to create a hybrid genome.

Russ: You got it, man.

John: No, of course not. Actually I looked up the word genome 'cause I really wasn't sure what it meant. It's the entirety of an organisms hereditary information encoded in either DNA or RNA for vital histories.

Russ: Right.

John: That's what genome is.

Russ: Well there is so much promise ahead on what we're gonna be able to do with that so -

John: I know, but see, here's the problem with this. I'm not against scientific advancements of - but let's say you're gonna have a baby and they do the - what do they call it? Amniocentesis?

Russ: Yeah.

John: And they pull it out and say -

Russ: You got a loser here. What are you gonna do?

John: Now there's a potential he'll get cancer by the time he's 40 years old. So what do you do?

Russ: Well, I don't know. It is a tough question. I know it's a tough question, but one other way to look at it is until we can actually cure death what difference does it make?

John: Yeah, right. Boy, I tell ya', he would really make a lot of money. Talkin' about entrepreneurs was a good idea. If anybody has a cure for death out there, let us in on it, man.

Russ: If you think we got an overpopulation problem now, man, if we did that.

John: I don't think we have an overpopulation problem.

Russ: I think we're headed in that direction.

John: I don't know.

Russ: Dr. John Lienhard shared that on the BusinessMakers Show about three or four years ago.

John: What's he know?

Russ: He's pretty smart. Alright. That wraps up this morning's history lesson, right?

John: Sure.

Russ: Okay. It was a great one. That brings us to the jargon challenge round. Also known as our vocabulary lesson. This is that part of the show where I get to go out and find a new word -

John: Or make one up.

Russ: Or make one up and we challenge John to see if he can guess the meaning of it and he does pretty well on this.

John: Yeah, I think I do.

Russ: Alright. Please, no wagering. Today's word is wait hood.

John: Wait hood.

Russ: W-A-I-T hood.

John: Hm. Okay. Now there's parenthood.

Russ: You're headin' in the right direction.

John: There's Robin Hood, but I think it's closer to parenthood.

Russ: Yeah, it is.

John: And it's when you're waiting. Instead of having kids you decide to wait, you wait, you wait and you never have the kids so you're a wait hood.

Russ: No, I'm sorry.

John: Alright, okay.

Russ: What it is, there's another hood that's a little closer and that would be manhood. Wait hood is a stage in a young college graduate's life when activities such as marrying and finding a place to live are postponed until a job is found or enough money is saved.

John: Okay. I was fairly close.

Russ: Yeah, you were real close. You were real close.

John: But I didn't get it.

Russ: Yeah. Sorry. That brings us to dumb moments in business. Do you have a story for us?

John: Yeah. Well Nintendo's having some trouble with their new 3DS console because people are turning them in because they're getting sick using the console. Now it's not a viral infection they're getting, but it's a 3D console. You play these games in 3D and people are becoming ill and dizzy. I guess it's sort of realistic.

Russ: Some kind of neurological ________ --

John: Well first I thought it was because maybe it was so realistic, but what happens is the 3DS unit flashes separate images into each eye creating the illusion of depth. So you sit there and get these images flashed into your eye. Boink, boink, boink, boink, boink. It's gonna cause some problems. Now to add insult to injury, the retailer here, Game Store in London says they only offer partial refunds because the only time they offer fully reimbursable refunds is if the goods are faulty, which in this case they're not. They're designed I guess to make people sick -

Russ: To make people sick.

John: Right.

Russ: They're workin' well.

John: And these aren't old farts here tryin' to learn how to play these things. One guy was 27 years old and he returned the machine. There's thousands of people that have gotten dizzy and headaches. So now they've issued a warning on these units where you should play no more than 30 minutes at a time.

Russ: Imagine making and creating a real leading edge game only to discover it makes people sick, man. That's kinda' like being at a tobacco company where you know your product is killing people. That sort of thing. Before we wrap up this morning's School of Business, it's time for the very popular PKF Texas Entrepreneur's Playbook. Alright and that wraps up this morning's School of Business. Stay tuned in for our interview with the founders of I-Office, followed by an interview with Julia Rhodes, the former school teacher and now founder and CEO of Clean Slate Concepts. You're listening to the BusinessMakers Show heard here and seen online at theBusinessMakers.com.