There's a “new” entrepreneurial capitalism emerging in the United States.  Actually, it's been here a while except that many of us didn't recognize it at first; many don't recognize it now. 

Carl J. Schramm, then president of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City, Missouri wrote a book about this subject in 2006 called the "Entrepreneurial Imperative".  He recognized what was going on several years ago and in fewer than 200 pages does an excellent job of explaining the reasons that entrepreneurial capitalism has come about. 

The old bureaucratic economy that started after World War II ended a few years ago.  In that economy, we were led to believe-and we still imply to our young people-that big business will hire you when you get your college degree.  Back in the 1950’s and 1960’s, you could stay with a company your whole career and then retire to collect a nice pension.  For a while, it looked like between big business, big labor and big government, we were all set, but funny things began to happen on the way to the recessions of the last few decades.  Pensions and life-time employment have pretty much gone away and all three, business, labor and government have become bureaucratic and unresponsive to the marketplace.  

Businesses that have recognized what has occurred, promoting and embracing a new entrepreneurial organization, have done well, even through this last recession that started in 2008.  Businesses, both large and small that haven't figured it out, are well, not doing so well.  The future business environment will not be dominated by large corporations, but by smaller, agile, entrepreneurial firms that keep their ears to the marketplace, providing the customized individual products and services made possible by the digital age.  The marketplace will choose the winners and losers; the ones that survive and thrive and the ones that don't. 

In spite of the current (US) administration's preference to let the federal government (instead of the marketplace) choose winners and losers and the administration's re-distributive economic policies, we have to presume the new entrepreneurial economy will prevail.  There are too many of us with the entrepreneurial spirit innately within us waiting to come out. 

Just What We Need if We Embrace the Change 

An entrepreneurial economy, not only here in America, but around the world is the best hope of expanding the economic pie, allowing everyone that wants to work to be successful and build wealth for themselves and their families.  I've learned over the last couple of years that many, many businesses are started and grown successfully without going through the traditional "business plan + market research + financing" model.  They start small using personal savings, credit cards and help from friends and family and grow successfully as they tweak their business models to meet marketplace opportunities. 

We All Need an Entrepreneurial Mindset 

Whether self-employed or working for others, we all need an entrepreneurial mindset for the entrepreneurial economy.  Developing the entrepreneurial mindset can be thought of as developing a set of beliefs and assumptions that allow us to view problems and challenges in our world as opportunities waiting for solutions.  There have always been problems and inconveniences in peoples' lives that have been solved by entrepreneurs providing solutions for people willing to pay.  This will always be the case and the acceleration of change only presents more problems to view as opportunities to solve. 

We Need Change in our Businesses, Large and Small. 

Existing businesses, both large and small need to develop an entrepreneurial mindset throughout their organizations so everyone can help look for new opportunities in the marketplace.  People don't buy products and services the way they did in the past and to survive, businesses must keep up with the new products and services people want and the new ways they want them delivered. 

We Need Change in our Schools and Colleges. 

We need expose our youth to entrepreneurship as a profession many times throughout our K - 12 school systems.  We need to quit implying that going to work for someone else, after getting a degree, is the only career option.  We need to tell them that there are almost no career choices that will last throughout their adult lives.  We need to give all our youth the "entrepreneurial mindset" whether or not they go out on their own.  The only successful employers of the future will demand that employees be entrepreneurial and know how to analyze problems as opportunities and solve them. 

The entrepreneurial mindset must follow our youth into our colleges and universities.  Our university business schools must quit teaching graduates how to be bureaucrats in bureaucratic companies and instead teach them how to be entrepreneurial problem solvers. 

We offer the “Entrepreneurial Mindset” course through Fab Lab ICC at Independence Community College.  This class is based on the “Ice House Entrepreneurship Program” developed by the Entrepreneurial Learning Initiative, and is co-sponsored by the Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City.  The blended learning format provides for learning from real-world entrepreneurs interviewed and recorded all over the United States and Canada.  The course is built around the book "Who Owns the Ice House" by Clifton Talbert.  Talbert learned eight life lessons on entrepreneurship from an unlikely entrepreneur, his Uncle Cleve in the Mississippi Delta in the late 1950's.  Instead of becoming a cotton-field worker as his contemporaries, Uncle Cleve owned the only ice house in his community.  Uncle Cleve didn't have a lot of money or education and was certainly not privileged yet he had a successful business serving all races and classes in his area.  Clifton worked with his uncle while attending high school, learning the eight life's lessons and later helped bring the "Stairmaster" to market in Tulsa Oklahoma. 

The Entrepreneurial Mindset course at Independence Community College is built around the "Ice House Entrepreneurship Program".  Participants in the Independence area complete most work via the on-line content with weekly discussion sessions in at Fab Lab ICC.  Discussion groups can be set up in other communities.  For more information, call me at 620-252-5349 or email jcorrell@indycc.edu. 

Jim Correll is the director of Fab Lab ICC at the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship on the campus of Independence Community College. He can be reached at (620) 252-5349 or by email at jcorrell@indycc.edu. Archive columns and podcasts at www.fablabicc.org.