Think Like an Entrepreneur - Become a Sparkplug

We continue our celebration of National Entrepreneurship Week with John Dockrey. 

John is the founder and CEO of What's Up 24/7...  an information platform that promotes awareness of all the happenings, attractions and businesses all around us.  

We aren’t lacking people, or even things to do and places to go! What we are lacking is clear communication and cross-community awareness.   WhatsUp 24/7 makes up where our communities are falling short.  

Join in the conversation!

Desmund Adams is the Founder and CEO of Focus & Find. Providing employee  recruiting services for companies that wants to make hiring decisions to create a more profitable company.   

Desmund Adams, "I believe by being fair we can do a better job of recruitment. This is why I founded Focus & Find®, to do recruitment better. We’ve created a system designed to help companies assemble a workforce for the changing times. By expanding the pool of talent, and how clients interact with candidates, I am committed to making the process fair and rewarding for both clients and candidates. Believing in fair has led me to develop Socially Responsible Recruiting™."  

Building on research that proves a more diverse workforce is a more innovative and profitable workforce, Focus & Find® brings the talent that is overlooked in traditional recruitment processes, resulting in a more diverse workforce and executive team.  

Socially Responsible Recruiting™ is a conscious practice of making hiring decisions based on skills, turning Human Resources into a profit engine instead of an expense. Job searches become true opportunities for inclusive talent, as well as a fantastic advantage for the client.  

Through our fair recruitment process, we are focused on finding the best talent. Period. Companies who work with us find their inclusive talent levels increase.  And as the research shows, so does profitability.

The first step in creating an entrepreneurial system in your community is creating a entrepreneurial mindset in your community. It doesn't come from the outside, it only comes from the inside.   

It starts in your schools.  

A primary goal of education is to provide opportunities for economic stability for the rest of a person’s life. Education is a means to find a way that fulfills passions while reaching economic stability, crucial for community stability and growth potential. Connection between a school district and its business community is vital for growth.   

Working with students and adults, we’ll help identify gaps in businesses needed by the community and look to students to fill those gaps.  Startup activity is highly concentrated in large cities. Governments and other actors such as large corporations and universities are not collaborating with each other nor with entrepreneurs as well as they could.   

Too often, these actors try to control activity or impose their view from the top-down, rather than supporting an environment that is led from the bottom-up.   

Many communities are trying to get on the entrepreneurship bandwagon, but fall short of what could happen. Just having a Revolving Loan Fund or a Co-Working space does not make a entrepreneurship system. 

There is a disconnect between an entrepreneurial mindset and that of many actors who wish to engage with and support entrepreneurship.   If you want to support entrepreneurs, you need to think like an entrepreneur first.

Every community is responsible for its own development and prosperity. 

Your community has been formed by the collective thought of your population.   

Your workforce is only as secure and strong as the communities they live in. If you do not make the communities   

Collaborative Leadership has vision, collaborative planning, and collaborative partnerships, the essence of effective community leadership. It must be recognized that although it can be learned, collaborative community leadership is not a science. There is no one set of practices that ensures effective leadership.   

The Community Builders process reveals that even the tiniest towns have exceptional treasures! Lifelong residents discover companies with international scope and more “Main Street” and home-based businesses than you thought you had. Your residents will be filled with pride and amazed at the great town they call home!   

When residents speak highly of their hometown and area, you are utilizing  the very best and least expensive economic development tool: word of mouth!

When people truly live in healthy relationships, their personal environment will change, impacting family, neighborhood, and community perceptions one person at a time.  

This is crucial for successful community development, where people feel welcome, that they belong, and can contribute to their community and its economy. 

Face what you have swept under the rug for years to build civility into your community. 

We’ll teach the art of deliberative dialogue to talk through wicked issues, not just about them. Examples of “wicked” topics are economic development, school mergers, immigration, or using drums in the church service. Handle issues before they become disruptive. 

The more disruptive the issue, the higher the cost to resolve it.   

We’ve led hundreds of dialogues, written local and national issue books, including 108 dialogues in 2007 in the four caucus/primary states. The report informed then-presidential candidates of citizen voice on healthcare and financial security. 

Other issues include county economic development, vision for education, eminent domain, America’s Role in the World, which we held with high school students. Their insightful commentary and video was included in the 50th anniversary of The Dartmouth Conference on U.S./Russia relations, and more.

When people truly live in healthy relationships, their personal environment will change, impacting family, neighborhood, and community perceptions one person at a time.   

This is crucial for successful community development, where people feel welcome, that they belong, and can contribute to their community and its economy.  

This 24-hr. classroom experience is available for up to 25 community members per class. This is an in-depth walk through Rural Community Solutions’ book and its exercises, The Be WUCA! Way, The ART of getting along.   

The starting class needs to come, in part, from your service sectors in convenience stores and restaurants.   

These front-line managers and service industry professionals are often the front door to your community and the impression a visitor receives.

Creating an economic development plan around entrepreneurship is the theme of the day in economic development organizations. 

That is a good thing but are you doing it the correct way or are you setting yourself up for failure?  

Transitioning from how you create jobs to how you create entrepreneurial wealth is a long-term commitment. It is a learned process.   

Join us as we show you how rural communities have been successful creating new wealth around new development opportunities.

When people truly live in healthy relationships, their personal environment will change, impacting family, neighborhood, and community perceptions one person at a time. 

This is crucial for successful community development, where people feel welcome, that they belong, and can contribute to their community and its economy.  Youth need to be heard, taught, and encouraged to be productive, contributing citizens as we consider their new ideas and approaches. 

A wise community takes time to understand, instruct, and support children with local opportunities and makes room for them. 

Community members must actively reach out to youth to welcome, engage, enjoy, and recognize the talents they have to offer. Enthusiasm and patience are a must to teach young people skills to take their place in their community and society as productive citizens.   

At a time when many people feel overwhelmed by the problems and challenges facing children, adolescents, parents, and our workforce, communities across the country are discovering new energy by working together toward a positive vision for young people and their community’s future.

Community foundations are grantmaking public charities that are dedicated to improving the lives of people in a defined local geographic area. They bring together the financial resources of individuals, families, and businesses to support their communities. 

Community foundations play a key role in identifying and solving community problems.   

Thanks to Rural America’s aging population and the exodus of young people, millions of dollars leave your community as your seniors literally die. Foundations are a way to keep your community’s wealth at home for local growth and long-term vision.  

The role of your community foundation must be more than just a piggybank. Their historic role as only a funder must be allowed to transition to being a leader with a voice at the community table to address systemic issues that have been “swept under the rug” for years that inhibit community health and growth. 

Foundations should help identify and co-fund long-term, sustainable processes to benefit the future of your community. Your local lawyers and tax preparers need to make sure their clients are considering this option.   

Don’t have a local foundation? Look into starting one.

Across the United States, 98 percent of all jobs are created by existing businesses and new business start-ups; only two percent result from business recruitment. 

A wise community recognizes this fact and acts by focusing on businesses already present and encouraging new ones.   

Entrepreneurs need to be supported in their passion, purpose, vision, and goals, for they are the small-business lifeblood of rural communities. Entrepreneurship can be key in revitalizing families and addressing workforce issues.   

Community actions must be entrepreneurial to meet community needs and recognize the benefits a new business idea can bring to community vitality. When a person chooses to start a business, they need community support to have a chance at being successful.  

The loss of risk takers is a greater threat to rural communities than the brain drain.