Russ: This is the BusinessMakers Show heard here and seen online at theBusinessMakers.com. This is that show that champions innovation and entrepreneurship.

John: That's right. You know, here we are. We've been doing this for, what, five years now and it gets better every time because these guys and gals that start these companies, they come up with these great ideas all the time and I think to myself, "Why didn't I think of that?" Well, the reason is, they're a little smarter than the average bear.

Russ: Absolutely and here's our lineup for this morning. First up, Dane Witbeck, the cofounder of Houselynx LLC. And then that's gonna be followed by Chris Clements, founder of Easy Mobile Inc., but first - That's right, it's time for the BusinessMakerss School of Business. This is our specially selected curriculum to help you out there if you're starting or growing your business.

John: That's right. Which by the way, if you want the full curriculum, you've got to go online 'cause we don't have enough time here to really give you all the information.

Russ: On the radio.

John: But I'll tell you, you know, where else are you gonna get information about the guy who patented the Eskimo Pie. That's part of our curriculum coming up or what the crazy chief of NASA just came up with. So anyway, just stay tuned.

Russ: You bet. We kick it off with the quote of the day.

John: Quote of the day.

Russ: And today's quote comes from Cullen Hightower and it goes like this. "We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex, but Congress can."

John: Yes, they take the simple and make it really difficult.

Russ: Hey, and I've got a personal experience just this past week. I'm trying to buy a new window for my home.

John: A window?

Russ: A window for my home. And I'm buying it from the same guy that I bought the windows from 18 years ago when I built the home and got to talking to him and he said, "You won't believe what it takes these days." You know, these are pretty cool windows. They're double paned and there's argon gas in there and the argon gas now means he's got to have - he's got to run by each window through the EPA to make sure that it's okay. That adds, you know, four or five more days and several hundred dollars, not to mention when the government goes out there and does this subsidy on increased efficiency for your home, they give some money back, that causes all kinds of paperwork. And those people up there are thinking, "You know, boy, look how good we're making life and how much we're helping people out."

John: Or you start trying to buy a light bulb.

Russ: I know. I know. I know.

John: Okay. Thanks for that rant.

Russ: I'm sorry. I couldn't help it.

John: All right, that's good.

Russ: All right, that brings us to this week in business history. So what happened during this week in business history, John?

John: Well, we're gonna start in 1850. The inventor of the box kite. His name is Lawrence Hargrave and he's born. He was an engineer. He was an astronomer and inventor, an aeronautical pioneer. This was back in 1850. This was before the Civil War. He emigrated to Australia and he had been interested in experiments of all kinds and particularly those with flying machines and he got the patent on some things, but not on all of them and didn't need the money, but the box kite came along and with the rigidity of the structure and it helped develop some aeronautical ideas that led to manned flight later on.

Russ: Did you ever have a box kite?

John: I never flew one.

Russ: John, I had only one and I must have been eight years old and it was like magic. I'd been, you know, these other kited, I'd always been running real hard to try to get them in the air, there had to be a lot of wind. The box kite, I put it together and it just kind of drifted up into the sky.

John: Yeah, it's amazing.

Russ: It was incredible.

John: It's incredible. Anyway, this week in business history in 1920, former Ford Motor Company executive Henry Leland creates the Lincoln Motor Company and he later sells it back to his former employer.

Russ: Ford, yeah. So Lincoln was a separate company?

John: Yeah, a separate company. Yeah, it becomes part of Ford.

Russ: Cool.

John: This week in business history in 1922, the Eskimo Pie is patented by Christian Nelson of Iowa. Now, he was not an Eskimo, but he was a Danish immigrant, schoolteacher, candy store owner and got the inspiration when a boy in a store was unable to decide whether to spend his money on ice cream or a chocolate bar, so he got the idea to combine the two.

Russ: And he was not an Eskimo?

John: No, he was not an Eskimo, but it was suggested to him by his wife. This week in business history in 1935, the first canned beer, Krueger Cream Ale was sold by the Krueger Brewing Company. Canned beer, what a concept.

Russ: Yeah, and back then you didn't have the pull tab. You had to have the - what we call the church key to pop it open.

John: To pop it open, right, and that's 1935, so these were steel cans.

Russ: I'm sure. I wonder if they had already - I guess they probably already had the church key for other canned goods, but it was interesting, you know -

John: Well, churches.

Russ: Yeah, they had churches.

John: They had churches back in those days.

Russ: Right, so they had to have a church key. And I don't know if you remember, but you had to pop it two times

John: Yeah, because you had to -

Russ: Right, get some air.

John: You had to vent it so when you drank it, you know, the air pressure would get the beer in there faster.

Russ: Now young beer drinkers don't even know that concept.

John: No, they don't know anything except they just drink their beer.

Russ: Right.

John: Okay. This week in business history in 1954, Oprah Winfrey is born.

Russ: My goodness, so she's 57 now.

John: Yeah, right. She's getting up there, very successful show business lady, although, you know, you see these supermarket tabloids, like she's - she has a lot of personal angst.

Russ: Yeah.

John: I guess money can't buy happiness.

Russ: Now you - I understand you crossed paths with her.

John: I have. Yeah, when I lived in Baltimore, she co hosted the Dialing for Dollars movie show in the mornings.

Russ: You're kidding. So she wasn't quite as big is she is now.

John: Well, that depends on what you mean by big, but she was a news person and then they demoted her and she did this dialing for dollars thing and she decided to go to Chicago and - but I saw her, I was in a line at a bank to deposit my paycheck and she was in the same line and she -

Russ: Carrying a big bag of money?

John: She was like, "Man, I wish I were somewhere else." You know, she did not enjoy standing in line getting her check -

Russ: She probably doesn't have to do that anymore.

John: I don't think so. Okay, this week in business history in 1958, the Lego company patents their design of Lego bricks back in 1958 and that design is still compatible, so if you have a brick, a Lego brick from the early '50s or mid '50s, mid to late '50s, it'll still work today.

Russ: Not like an earlier version of Windows operating system.

John: No, or anything else.

Russ: Or anything.

John: Like a church key.

Russ: Right. Right. You don't even need keys.

John: Most churches have those digital locks, you know, you press the buttons.

Russ: But Legos - 1950 - same, wow. This is a big history lesson today.

John: Well, you know, that's why we're here.

Russ: Okay.

John: This week in business history in 1962, the dance called the Twist is declared impure and is banned at all Catholic schools. That's quite a decision the Catholic schools make. And what they did is they made the Twist more popular.

Russ: Boy, they did.

John: Anytime you ban something, the demand for what you're banning goes up and the Twist was a harmless dance.

Russ: Yes. Yeah.

John: This week in business history in 1962, Les Paul of Mahwah, New Jersey patents the electric guitar.

Russ: Wow. Now, you're a musician.

John: Yeah.

Russ: What was such a huge step all of a sudden is that, you know, the guitar, the acoustic guitar was kind of this mellow background thing and all of a sudden when you made it electric, I mean it was like - it would soar.

John: Real -

Russ: It'd be so loud. Yeah. Yeah.

John: It was quite a step in the music business. This week in business history in 1964, the album introducing the Beatles released in the U.S.

Russ: Those guys did all right.

John: They sure did. This week in business history in 1965, Noah and Joseph McVicker received a patent for Play-Doh.

Russ: What a week.

John: I know, Play-Doh. Remember Play-Doh? That stuff smelled great.

Russ: Oh, it did, just didn't taste very good though.

John: Man, I'd put some in my mouth, it was like holy - how can something that smelled so good taste like crap?

Russ: I know.

John: What a dichotomy.

Russ: Right.

John: And play and you know, in toy land. This week in business history in 1984, Apple Computer unveiled it's Macintosh personal computer and they did it with a commercial that mimicked the book 1984, right, 'cause they had big brother and they had the woman running it and with the sledge hammer throwing it at the screen. Great theater.

Russ: Right. Boy, what a company and what an incredible set of innovations.

John: And Steven Jobs is stepping down again. That's not looking good.

Russ: Nope.

John: Okay, this week in business history in 1986, the 25th space shuttle Challenger explodes about 70 seconds or so after liftoff. They had - that was the one with a teacher on board, Krista McCullough died as well as the entire crew. Ronald Reagan was president, gave probably one of the most inspirational eulogies a president's ever given.

Russ: What a dose of reality that was about -

John: Oh man, well everybody got so used to - I mean people wouldn't even watch the liftoffs anymore on TV. They'd think, "OH, here's another going up."

Russ: Right.

John: This week in business history in 1992, presidential candidate Bill Clinton and cabaret singer, Gennifer Flowers, word of their alleged affair gets out and they accuse each other of lying over the affair and just it almost derailed Clinton's presidential run.

Russ: Another dose of reality.

John: Another dose of reality. Right. This week in business history in 1993, Sears announces it's closing its catalog business after 97 years. I mean, the Sears catalog, that was an icon in retailing.

Russ: I remember when I was a kid, I loved it.

John: And you'd read it.

Russ: And flip each page and -

John: Especially - I bet you went directly to the ladies' lingerie section.

Russ: You had to go through there to get to the ______, like the - to what I was looking for.

John: Right, the garage overhead doors and - yeah, right. Right. That's quite a statement about the way things are going in the business world.

Russ: No kidding.

John: This week in business history in 1996, the 23rd American Music Awards, Garth Brooks wins that award and you know, he's had quite a career.

Russ: He's done all right for himself.

John: He's done all right for himself.

Russ: Yeah, for an Oklahoma boy. All right, that wraps up this morning's history lesson?

John: Hey, that's enough.

Russ: My goodness.

John: Box kites, Eskimos.

Russ: Legos.

John: Legos.

Russ: Play-Doh.

John: And Play-Doh.

Russ: And Garth Brooks.

John: Garth Brooks - all wrapped up into one history lesson - fantastical history lesson.

Russ: Thank you very much.

John: All right.

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

John: Oh yes.

Russ: This is where we try to help our listeners with new vocabulary words that are just happening.

John: Hey, if we don't do it, who will?

Russ: Yeah, that's right.

John: Nobody's gonna do it.

Russ: And we do it right too because I mean you always give them a good lesson about not to abuse these words, right?

John: That's right. Yeah. That's right. What you want to do is practice these words.

Russ: In sentences, actually.

John: Oh yeah, right. You've got to practice the use of them, what the meaning is and try to apply it to situations that you're familiar with and then when you feel comfortable, then you can go out and use it around the home or - but the best place to really test it in the field is just go to party where there's a lot of drinking.

Russ: Is that what you do after you learn one, you just wait -

John: Well, I don't, no.

Russ: No, I don't mean you drink, I mean you go and use the word at a party where others are drinking.

John: Yeah, right. Yeah, and that way you know, no one's gonna -

Russ: They don't know what you're saying anyway.

John: They don't pay attention to you, although they pretend they do.

Russ: Right, all right. And the way we do this, John does not know the word.

John: No, I don't.

Russ: I select the word and he guesses the meaning here. Please no wagering. Are you ready?

John: Yeah, let's get going here.

Russ: Innovacide.

John: Innovacide? Innova. Innovate. Okay, Innova, innovate. Cide is like the death, so it's a person who you - let's say you pitch an idea to and they commit Innovacide. They just kill your idea 'cause they don't like it.

Russ: Hold your calls ladies and gentlemen. We've got a winner.

John: All right.

Russ: Innovacide. Good job.

John: Hey, that's all right. Okay, okay. I did pretty good.

Russ: Yeah, you did. That brings us to dumb moments in business. Do you have a good story for us today?

John: Yeah, this is your tax dollars at work here. There's this guy named James Hanson who is the head of the NASA laboratory and he goes on these kind of rants every now and then and he was in China one time recently and he has come up with the idea that the reason why we in the United States have not done anything about global warming is because we have this democracy.

Russ: Damn democracy.

John: And democracy gets in the way. It slows - you know and he thinks we should be more like red China who according to him and I'm quoting him, the Chinese leadership takes a long view, perhaps of their long history of their culture in contrast with the west, which has these pesky, I'm inserting the word pesky, short election cycles. He says the reason why he likes China is they have the capacity to implement policy decisions quite rapidly and you look at the cultural revolutions who killed those inconvenient people or the great leap forward, which determined that steel mills in every backyard was a good idea, but he's not too accurate in his predictions. He once told, back in 1988, an author who was writing a book about global warming that in the next 20 years, the west side highway in Manhattan will be underwater.

Russ: So that would have expired three years ago.

John: Right, right.

Russ: And it's not.

John: And there will be more police cars in New York, which there are because you know what happens to crime when the heat goes up. Well, the crime rate's down in New York compared to 1988. So if he - as a private citizen, if he wants to go out here and rant like this, that's okay, but under the tax payer auspices of the NASA group -

Russ: He shouldn't be doing that.

John: He should just be just sending guys into outer space. That's what he does. Just do that and get over with it. Just send these guys into outer space. That's all we ask.

Russ: Great message. All right. Before we wrap up this morning's school of business, it's time for the very popular PKF _____.

John: Oh yes, entrepreneur's playbook. All right and here he is. Man, he's always on time.

Russ: Greg Price.

John: Here we go. A one and a two and a -

[PKF Entrepreneur's Playbook]

Russ: All right, and that wraps up this morning's school of business. Stay tuned in for our interview with Dane Witbeck, cofounder of Houselynx LLX followed by our interview with Chris Clements, founder of Easy Mobile Inc. You're listening to the BusinessMakers show, heard here and seen online at theBusinessMakers.com.