Podcast
“On the Mark” podcast transcript with David Brannon
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Narrator
You're listening to a Towson University podcast.
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Mark Ginsberg
Welcome to on the Mark, where we have candid conversations about meaningful and consequential work happening here at Towson University. I'm Mark Ginsberg, president of TU located in Towson, Maryland. And on this podcast, we're introducing you to members of our university community who are engaged in high impact teaching, research, and student success practices. Today, I'm pleased to kick off season two of On the Mark.
We've had some inspiring guests so far, and that trend continues today with Dr. David Brannon. Dr. Brannon is a professor of entrepreneurship and business strategy here in TU’s College of Business and Economics. Our college is one of the most respected business schools in our state and the nation.. I’m very pleased to have Doctor Brannon here with me today.
He has an entrepreneurship Ph.D. from Syracuse University and an MBA from a distant place, but a beautiful place, the University of Hawaii, Manoa. He also has a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from West Virginia University's Institute of Technology. David, thank you for joining me. And I should say also that I know that you also lead our live strategy case competition here in the College of Business and Economics, which is a signature experiential learning community with hands on capstone projects for our students.
So, David, thank you very much for joining us. Let's begin with some conversation. What is entrepreneurship and how it is that you think about it? And I guess I'd ask two questions without being too multifaceted at the beginning. But tell us a little bit about your thoughts on what is entrepreneurship and also what makes a good entrepreneur.
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David Brannon
So there's often confusion about this because people assume that it's just like your traditional person you see on TV, like, Elon Musk and you have, you know, people on Shark Tank are very famous, very wealthy individuals.
But the entrepreneurship itself is more of a discussion of a process. So it's identifying opportunities and then how you actually create value around that opportunity that people will find, you know, something that's interest and are actually willing to pay for. So going through that process doesn't just apply to a startup, but it applies in many different contexts. So it can be done within corporations, it can be applied in different aspects within your life.
And so it has the opportunity to actually grow your mindset and how you actually approach problems and, and different things that going on in the environment.
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Mark Ginsberg
Yes. I've been reading more about entrepreneurial thinking that word “mindset” seems to come up a lot. It's important concept in entrepreneurial thought, I imagine.
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David Brannon
It's one of the things that we focus upon in education. There's a couple other topics: developing passion within people because audiences are known for their passion. But, the mind tends to work differently for an entrepreneur once they become accustomed to the entrepreneurial process. They're attuned to identify opportunities that most people do not see.
00;03;03;10 - 00;03;11;21
Mark Ginsberg
So they're able to think beyond, if you will, think beyond the, how to describe it, what's there, to what could be. Yeah.
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David Brannon
So most people try to make sense of things and to come back to what's expected. An entrepreneur may see things a little bit differently, and look at ways to do things that are more creative and how do you do things differently.
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Mark Ginsberg
That kind of relates to the second part of my question about what makes a good entrepreneur. Sounds like it begins with this concept of mindset.
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David Brannon
Right, Right. And so, the mindset also focus upon more innovation and creativity. And there's other key pieces. You have a lot of people who are dreamers, but an entrepreneur is not just a dreamer. They actually implement and do things too. So there has to be an action component there or they're not actually an entrepreneur.
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Mark Ginsberg
So it's not just what you think, it's what you do. Talk a little bit about, you know, I'm thinking about this. The mindset could be kind of a conceptual notion, but it probably relates to knowledge, skills and abilities that people bring to the workplace or to their own their own work.
00;04;04;29 - 00;04;10;19
David Brannon
Right. And so that kind of links in with some of the research that I've been doing on the effectiveness of entrepreneurship education. And so what kind of skills are our students acquiring through their education? And are they actually applying it in in the real world?
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Mark Ginsberg
Yeah. What are some of those skills?
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David Brannon
Some of the skills like, behaviors associated with innovation, proactiveness, going out and looking for creative ways of doing things, opportunity evaluation, opportunity identification and creativity techniques also.
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Mark Ginsberg
Ah, creativity. So one of the things that makes a good entrepreneur is somebody who is creative, who can think beyond the boundaries.
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David Brannon
And most people question their own creativity. But there are ways to actually build creativity techniques and skills associated with that. Yeah.
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Mark Ginsberg
Interesting. So that's one of the things my guess is you do with your students is to help them to, to optimize their creativeness.
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David Brannon
So a focus in a couple of classes, we have a creativity class of course, but we also talk about, the willingness to pivot and adapt because it's important for an entrepreneur, especially as they start out, they have an idea of what where they're going. But if you do research with entrepreneurs, you'll find that if you talk to a lot of them, that they may have the original idea, but where they end up could be somewhere very different.
Right? And so the willingness to adapt and actually, paying attention to cues where when you need to adapt and how to adapt is important.
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Mark Ginsberg
So the starting place may not be anything related to the end spot, the ending place. Interesting. I'm curious about your teaching. You're one of the leaders in the country that have been writing about and certainly doing entrepreneurship education. I know you're actually working on a new textbook in the field also, which I found kind of interesting.
What are some of the, I guess a two part question, what are some of the things that you do with and for your students? Well, let's start there, because that would be kind of interesting to hear about.
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David Brannon
So, it's interesting in that, a couple of things to kind of unpack there. For entrepreneurship education, we talk about the entrepreneurial process. So it's not just necessarily creating a startup. A startup is the context we typically use because it gets to that process. But this process is, available for corporations and useful for traditionally employed to.
And if you look at the results of, where our students go once they graduate, it's a small fraction nationwide, I think about 6% of entrepreneurship program graduates in the undergraduate level actually start their own business. So most of them are traditionally employed. So we look at what skills are useful, not just in entrepreneurship, but also for traditionally employed.
And that's the research that we have been doing is to look at our recent graduates. Are they successful, are they being entrepreneurial, and are they also having useful skills that are, making them succeed as a traditionally employed person?
00;06;58;19 - 00;07;09;02
Mark Ginsberg
Yeah. So that's interesting too. So I wonder if some of our students who are in your classes and are taking their program of study, focusing on entrepreneurial activities. Some probably do want to begin their own thing. They want to do up their own startup. But it seems to me like entrepreneurial thinking is just as important in traditional organizations and large corporations, even at universities.
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David Brannon
Absolutely. So one of the interesting things that came out of research a few years ago was that leaders of big companies, their biggest fear was that someone was going to out innovate them.
Alright? And so having people in your organization that you employ who are focused upon innovation and actually how you take an idea and make it into reality is important. So that's part of what we do teach in the entrepreneurship education area.
00;07;43;24 - 00;07;49;03
Mark Ginsberg
One of the other universities I know that is deeply embedded in national education is Babson College in Massachusetts. Heidi Neck, from Babson, recently was quoted as saying, “Entrepreneurship education is not just about starting companies. It's about creating an entrepreneurial mindset that is opportunity, recognition, resourcefulness and resilience.” Interesting kind of summary of what you've just said, essentially
00;08;08;09 - 00;08;15;16
David Brannon
So in the research that we did, it was a joint program with a couple of other universities in our academic alliance. So it is a program with Elon and William and Mary. And the reason that we got this started is that the Provost and the Conference got together and said, how do we support entrepreneurship education? And we joined this this research project for that. And what we looked at was, are the graduates actually undertaking optimal behavior? So we focus on entrepreneurship, but we also brought in a number of metrics that are important to employers and looked at how our graduates are doing there.
So we compared entrepreneurship graduates with business school graduates and regular industry graduates.
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Mark Ginsberg
Yeah.
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David Brannon
The entrepreneurship graduates were very successful, not just in the entrepreneurial area, but they were statistically significantly higher in areas such as leadership, professionalism, work ethic and oral communications.
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Mark Ginsberg
Yeah, and that sounds like it comes back to the concept of mindset. Yeah.
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David Brannon
And as you talk about the mindset for an entrepreneur as they're thinking about a business of creating, we are continually talking about how the person is going to be an entrepreneur, they're going to be in charge of everything, they're going to be making the decisions. They may be the only employee. Right? And so that definitely fits with the leadership role and how that comes through. And, you know, the traditional metrics, also the work ethic and the professionalism. The oral communication piece is logical also because we do a lot of pitching in our classes.
We do elevator pitches, we do investor pitch decks. So they become very comfortable with the oral communication skills. And if you think about that, being able to succinctly, do persuasive description of your ideas is very important, not just as an entrepreneur, but to anyone in business or in any profession.
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Mark Ginsberg
Yeah, interesting. And that kind of relates to your work in the life strategy case, competition.
People have seen similar things on Shark Tank. We have our own startup here at the Armory. Tell me a little bit about the life strategy case competitions, because it sounds like that's a forum and almost a platform for our students to engage in exactly what you're talking about.
00;10;17;25 - 00;10;29;21
David Brannon
So, this is definitely an experiential-oriented program. So, we've looked for very specific types of projects that are experiential, that will allow our students to have a real-world experience.
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Mark Ginsberg
Yeah.
00;10;30;04 - 00;10;47;27
David Brannon
And this live case competition deftly fits within that mold. We partner with an organization in our community, develop a case with them that's targeting something that they find either a challenge or an opportunity. We give this to our students.
We have about 400 students every semester.
00;10;48;05 - 00;10;53;02
Mark Ginsberg
Four hundred students every semester. My goodness, that's a large group of students interested in this work.
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David Brannon
Everybody in the CBE has to take this class and has to do this.
00;10;56;10 - 00;11;00;26
Mark Ginsberg
So, it's a required experience for our students in the College of Business and Economics here at Towson.
00;11;01;01 - 00;11;07;04
David Brannon
Yes. So they take the case. They analyze it both internally and externally for the company.
00;11;07;04 - 00;11;07;09
Mark Ginsberg
Yeah.
00;11;07;10 - 00;11;38;01
David Brannon
Look at the competitors. They have an opportunity to interact with the executives at the company, asking them questions related to the case. And then we pick, basically semifinalists and finalists.
The finalist presents their ideas in front of the executives themselves. And we've had some great cases in the past.
Last year, we had our first nonprofit, which is the Y in central Maryland, that we've had partners with McCormick Under Armor, Stanley Black and Decker, JP Morgan Chase, some really great companies, over the years.
00;11;38;01 - 00;12;14;11
Mark Ginsberg
And our students have really contributed, I think, to their concept of mindset in these companies through this process. But it also reinforces what you said earlier, that it's not just people wanting to go into creating their own startup for working in a small business that’s an idea that they've had, but also going into larger entities or established organizations and bringing this mindset of creativity and going into the unboundless space. Allen Gib, one noted organizational theorist, once wrote that entrepreneurship education should not aim to create entrepreneurs, but to cultivate entrepreneurial people.
That sounds like what your program is doing.
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David Brannon
Absolutely. And, one thing that's kind of always been a sticking point with some of the entrepreneurship research is how you classify an entrepreneur.
And there's been a number of different metrics over the years, such as investing into the business, getting a business license, having the first sale. It’s a messy kind of metric, right? There's not one thing that is a proof that you're an entrepreneur. And part of what our research showed with our graduates is a couple of things. They're doing roles that are, leadership and boundary spanding, which is great.
But we asked them, have you actually launched a venture? And our rates were more than double the national rate. And then we also asked, are you planning to in the near future, the non-entrepreneurship students, less than 10% said yes. For the entrepreneurship graduates, 25%. But really I think it wasn't a part of our target. But one of the things that came out from the research is have you ever heard of something called a side hustle?
00;13;13;10 - 00;13;15;19
Mark Ginsberg
I've heard a little bit about that, but tell me what you mean by it.
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David Brannon
So basically, if you have, like, your main role.
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Mark Ginsberg
Yeah.
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David Brannon
We asked them, are you making money on something else outside of your main job? And for the entrepreneurship alums, almost half of them were doing that.
00;13;29;20 - 00;14;04;05
Mark Ginsberg
Yeah. Really interesting. It comes back to that concept of mindset that we started with, of creating something.
It's bigger than what exists, leading into the unknown that, that, that great kind of, sky above. Yeah. Really, interesting. You know, you know, it seems like in the business world also, there are a lot of trends that are taking place. One of the trends, that a lot of business people are talking about is how to implement some of the newer technologies in business, particularly the world of artificial intelligence.
How does that all relate to where the field of entrepreneurship is headed?
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David Brannon
Great question. So, you mentioned I'm looking at working on a textbook.
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Mark Ginsberg
Right.
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David Brannon
One of the things that spurred me to actually do this is I've never been happy with the textbooks that are out there. And in the past couple of years, AI has taken such a large role within our society. I want to be able to actually have a textbook that integrates the usefulness of AI to the student or whoever's interested in entrepreneurship to actually then use it, hopefully appropriately because there's some great things about it and there's some challenges.
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Mark Ginsberg
Dangers and opportunities both.
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David Brannon
Absolutely.
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Mark Ginsberg
Yeah. Yeah.
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David Brannon
So, one of the biggest helps for them is like if you're an entrepreneur and you're working on things by yourself, you have the AI there as an advisor, a research assistant, you know, a little buddy to help you go look for things and find information about it.
00;15;00;09 - 00;15;00;28
Mark Ginsberg
It's a resource.
00;15;00;28 - 00;15;19;21
David Brannon
It's a resource. It's a cheap resource for most people, and entrepreneurs are known for being resource-constrained because they don't have the big budgets of a multinational corporations to do market research and those types of things so they can use that to help fill in some of the gaps where they don't have the actual resources themselves.
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Mark Ginsberg
Yeah, I think many in the business community that I've been reading speak about exactly as you define it, that AI could help fill some of those resource gaps. But at the same time, I think people are talking, and I wonder about your perspective is too, on some of the kind of endemic or maybe even consider soft skills. We might call them 21st century skills, and how that relates to and their importance to entrepreneurial thinking.
Things like communication skills, critical thinking skills, kind of the skills that are in the domain of emotional intelligence about being adaptive, being creative, as you say, those seem to me to be perhaps even more important than the resource that AI would provide. Although adjunctive as it is.
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David Brannon
It’s interesting. Those are some of the skills that are associated with the traditionally employed.
00;16;05;02 - 00;16;05;10
Mark Ginsberg
Yeah.
00;16;05;13 - 00;16;16;19
David Brannon
And I mentioned that our students did very well in oral communications. Interesting enough, they had one area in which they were lower than the other two groups and that was written communications.
00;16;16;21 - 00;16;17;05
Mark Ginsberg
Interesting.
00;16;17;05 - 00;16;59;20
David Brannon
So, that kind of gives us some opportunities to work on that in our curriculum. But also, it maybe makes a little bit of sense because our focus is more upon action and oral communications than the written piece but there’s an opportunity.
But, tying in what you just mentioned, we asked our graduates what of these skills are the most important for you in your job? And critical thinking was on the list for all of them, And it's hard to teach critical thinking in some ways. But, one benefit for entrepreneurship education is that you're forced to think about things in a holistic fashion, which forces you to be in that critical thinking mode.
00;16;59;23 - 00;17;20;22
Mark Ginsberg
One of the things that I wonder about what your perspective is, many entrepreneurs don't hit a home run with their first at bat. In other words, it may take multiple incarnations and iterations of a concept to be successful, and learning from failure seems to me to be one of the critical skills for a successful entrepreneur.
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David Brannon
Absolutely. So. And some of that depends upon the personality of people. There's not one one personality for an entrepreneur. So, perseverance - the ability to to see that you need to make changes and take risks, all those things are kind of associated with entrepreneurship. So, actually having those kinds of skills and practicing them, being okay with some failure because it's going to happen.
Not every decision that you make was going to work out, probably. So, you know, having that kind of in your mind is important. One of the overlaps with the entrepreneurship area is also family business.
Someone who's leading a family business, who's also wanting to be entrepreneurial, they may persist just because they want to keep the family name, or they want be able to pass this along to another generation, and they may make decisions that are good or bad just because of that, extra aspect.
00;18;17;19 - 00;18;39;23
Mark Ginsberg
So, balancing legacy and tradition with context and growth. Somebody I don't know who, but I was reading something recently, and the quote I remember is that the role of entrepreneurs for education is to provide students with a safe space to fail, to learn, but also with the mindset of picking yourself back up and starting again.
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David Brannon
Right. So that's absolutely what we do in our classrooms. The class I'm teaching this semester, they're supposed to take the idea from beginning of the semester all the way through for every piece and part.
So, it's not just, you know, a practice. It's the opportunity to actually get out there and see what will work and what will not work, you know, in a safe space plus, with the resources we dedicate in the classroom and from the university for research and things that they won’t have access to once they leave.
00;19;12;05 - 00;19;32;13
Mark Ginsberg
Yeah, it kind of raises an interesting question for me too, in terms of your teaching in the organization, your thought is, is how it is that you balance? What is maybe the most appropriate and most important balance between teaching theory and concepts, which I know you certainly teach in your classes, with giving students real, hands-on, real-world experiences, they can apply the things that they’re learning
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David Brannon
As we move farther along through the curriculum, there's less theory and more hands-on work. I'm doing the capstone in entrepreneurship this semester. There's very little lecture. It's them applying it in a specific way for a specific idea all the way through.
00;19;49;01 - 00;19;50;21
Mark Ginsberg
And that must really excite students.
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David Brannon
Yes, I think so. And I think I find it exciting too because even though it's the same topics every semester, every class brings in new ideas. And so, I get to work with them on whatever new idea they're excited about and passionate about. And that keeps it exciting for me too.
00;20;06;05 - 00;20;18;22
Mark Ginsberg
Yeah, yeah, it does keep it exciting, and I suspect that what you're also hearing is the creativity of your students. And my guess is every semester you're probably learning something exciting or something that, candidly, would be quite inspiring.
00;20;18;24 - 00;20;25;14
David Brannon
Absolutely. Then it's interesting the changes over the years. So, you know, at one point where lots of apps were being pitched.
00;20;25;18 - 00;20;25;26
Mark Ginsberg
Yeah.
00;20;25;26 - 00;20;47;23
David Brannon
And then and at the time we were talking about, you know, prior to Covid, different aspects. After Covid, we had a lot of students coming in with business ideas related to supporting the community and psychological aspects, for, you know, how to help people and have more of a social entrepreneurship area. So it changes over time. So it's really an interesting an aspect.
00;20;48;00 - 00;21;05;14
Mark Ginsberg
And your work is embedded within our College of Business Economics here at Towson University. And it strikes me that the kinds of things you're teaching could be so valuable for students in any field. And so, spreading the word and spreading the concepts seemed to me to be very important.
00;21;05;20 - 00;21;47;06
David Brannon
Very important. So, we have a concentration in the CBE, but we also have a minor and certificate open to anyone in the university.
And so, we've added those in the past few years. That's probably been five or six years ago now. For the minor in the certificates in the past couple of years.
It's really important to get the word out, as you mentioned, because this is an opportunity for people who have a passion in an area outside of business, but are not quite sure how they're going to make a living doing it.
They can take an entrepreneurship minor and help some of those areas. So, we've had dance majors, theater majors, all kinds of different people coming through.
00;21;47;08 - 00;21;57;27
Mark Ginsberg
And so, helping our students across the domains, across the academic disciplines, across the university and across the community to benefit from what you call mindset. A very important piece.
00;21;57;27 - 00;22;06;17
David Brannon
In some of the research I've done in the past, I've spoken to thousands of entrepreneurs over the years. It's amazing how many of them are actually engineers, too.
00;22;06;20 - 00;22;15;12
Mark Ginsberg
Interesting. Well, when you think about an engineer, you come from that background yourself. Engineers are taught to solve problems and to be creative in how problems could be solved.
00;22;15;12 -00;22;39;19
David Brannon
And so, they're a nice fit there.
And a lot of times people, they actually actively pursue entrepreneurship or they're kind of dragged into entrepreneurship. So if you're, in a position where you see an idea and you think it's going to be an amazing thing to do, but you don't get support within your own organization, then you branch out yourself and do it. So that's what a lot of the entrepreneurs that I saw had that kind of way into entrepreneurship.
00;22;39;20 - 00;22;47;26
Mark Ginsberg
Yeah, it's interesting the relation between entrepreneurial thought and engineering practice seems like a pretty close connection.
00;22;47;26 - 00;22;50;18
David Brannon
For the design thinking and different things that are used.
00;22;50;18 - 00;22;52;28
Mark Ginsberg
Design thinking. Right. A core concept in engineering,
00;22;52;28 - 00;22;56;26
David Brannon
Right. And that ties directly in with entrepreneurship.
00;22;57;03 - 00;23;11;10
Mark Ginsberg
When you think about the work that you've done and the successes you've had, talk about some of the successful experiences you've had, but also how it is that you measure and assess and create a context for understanding the successes that you've created.
00;23;11;15 - 00;23;51;21
David Brannon
Yeah. So that's an interesting question. So, it is nice to see, alumni have come back and talked about what they're doing now and to see some of the successes that they've had. That's for me personally, I find that rewarding to see those kinds of things. And just knowing and seeing how students progress and the skills that they develop over time through the curriculum is pretty amazing.
And it's interesting to see even in a semester, you see a difference in the skill level between the person when they start and when they finish the class. Some of those things are really important to me, I think are you know are heartwarming to see in our student population.
00;23;51;27 - 00;24;06;15
Mark Ginsberg
I would guess, too, that when students come back years after graduation or you see them on Commencement day or the following year, they're probably coming in telling you stories about how they've adapted, how they've used, how they've incorporated what you've taught them in their everyday practice.
00;24;06;17 - 00;24;21;14
David Brannon
And we bring some of them back in as guest speakers to share their experiences once they leave. We have several people who have started businesses and their experiences in the community and what they've learned here, they've used in their life.
00;24;21;17 - 00;24;36;29
Mark Ginsberg
This is just fascinating. When you think about the students who have come through the program, I wonder if there are any specific cases or projects, without naming names of course.
But, ways that you've seen the art and science of architecture being applied in its practice.
00;24;37;02 - 00;25;47;14
David Brannon
So it's interesting. The students come with many different ideas. Sometimes you wonder if this got potential or not. And, you know, everything from incredible apps, which you would think have potential, to dog walking services. So yeah.
Can you really make a living doing dog walking services?
And it's amazing that you can. Right. And so actually figuring out a way and pushing the students to think about how they can make money not just from what's their own efforts, but then expanding and growing their business to hire other people. And if you think about the impact of entrepreneurship on our community and on the economy in general, it's huge.
And part of it is driven by the need for, you know, all the different services when you start a business.
And so, the average, new startup may not employ many people, but if it employs just one person, then they are hiring people to do, websites. They are getting their own cell phone service, they're getting an accountant. So, it drives not just what they're producing, but the entire community and a support for the community.
00;25;47;17 - 00;26;12;01
Mark Ginsberg
Yeah. And, supporting students, supporting practitioners in this space. I know from my own firsthand experience, members of my family (one who has just recently developed a startup) said it can be pretty lonely. And a little frustrating when you create both business plans and then you create forecasts.
You may not make your forecast, but being able to stick to it, to manage to a strategy not just a moment.
00;26;12;03 - 00;26;27;13
David Brannon
And have that plan and to have a kind of thought process for how you're going to evaluate how things are moving in the forward, whether or not you need to change, whether or not you're going past your goals, and if you should make more aggressive goals.
Those types of things are important to do.
00;26;27;13 - 00;26;39;12
Mark Ginsberg
I read a little bit about a work that you called Beyond the Tip of the Iceberg – human-centered, if you have entrepreneurial experience.
Some research you've done sounded to me like that really relates to the very topic we're now talking about.
00;26;39;12 - 00;27;03;15
David Brannon
Yeah. So, how you actually then get to measuring outcomes rather than just the inputs of what you're looking at.
So, that's where that was headed. So we focus specifically on entrepreneurship education there and ranking systems. But it definitely gets towards having goals, making sure you're working towards those goals and how you actually measure whether or not you're meeting those goals or not.
00;27;03;17 - 00;27;04;13
Mark Ginsberg
Iteratively.
00;27;04;17 - 00;27;05;03
David Brannon
Iteratively. Yes.
00;27;05;13 - 00;27;26;04
Mark Ginsberg
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And one of my favorite books is a book about how you do archery. If you can do archery well, its not so much looking only at the target. It's about understanding how to pull the bow back. It's understanding how to aim. It's understanding how to do all the things that lead you to become successful. But at the same time, ultimately, you're judged by whether or not you succeed.
00;27;26;07 - 00;28;11;00
David Brannon
Yes, absolutely. One thing that was part of that paper is that we looked at ranking systems at universities. Part of the history of ranking systems or as an issue in that they use metrics that were not quite great at looking at outputs and outcomes. For example, they would ask a business school dean, what do you think other universities do? Or are they doing a good job? Who would you recommend to be at the top of the list?
Right. And it's moved from that to be more of output measures. How many students graduate, how much money you award, if there's VC funding, those types of things. So, you know, one of the things about the that's happened recently with TU in the past several years, we've gotten a lot more recognition in our rankings.
00;28;11;00 - 00;28;12;27
Mark Ginsberg
Yes. And we're very proud of that.
00;28;12;27 - 00;28;15;05
David Brannon
I'm very proud of that. And it's well deserved.
00;28;15;05 - 00;28;16;03
Mark Ginsberg
Yes.
00;28;16;08 - 00;28;25;16
David Brannon
I think part of that is we yes, we've continually to improved, but I think the ranking systems are doing a better job now of actually assessing are the universities doing a good job or not.
00;28;25;16 - 00;29;27;22
Mark Ginsberg
And looking at some of the things that that relate to exactly what you're talking about, both not just the throughputs but the outputs linking them both.
Let me just conclude our conversation. We have a couple of minutes left, but by saying I understand they're there, some people are suggesting there are four Ms, if you will, in measuring entrepreneurship education. One is the M of mindset that you talked about. Two is mastery that you're talking about now of how well, you acquire the knowledge, skills and the abilities to be successful in entrepreneurial action.
Third is mobilization. That is, what are the actions that you've taken? What have you launched? How you succeed? What have you started? What have been the impact and consequence of your work?
And then fourth is what I've come to understand as the multiplier effect, what are the long-term implications, the long-term outcomes that you've done. Those four Ms, how contextualized are they in the work that you're thinking about? And, in looking at and understanding the impact of your work and the impact and consequences of the work on our students.
00;29;27;24 - 00;29;39;02
David Brannon
I think it fits very well. And it's interesting because I hadn't really thought of it in that different way. I think the one thing that I didn't mention that's associated with one of those is, long-term impacts.
00;29;39;02 - 00;29;39;18
Mark Ginsberg
Yes.
00;29;39;21 - 00;30;08;07
David Brannon
And so, a part of our research with our graduates. Yes. they're doing well in leadership and all these different things. But has it does it make a difference in their careers and in their lives? So they reported greater success and increased responsibility at work and greater success in promotions and raises too than the other groups? So that's an impact on their lives, where they're actually implementing the entrepreneurial skills that they've acquired and it's helping them with their careers and their lives.
00;30;08;10 - 00;30;31;24
Mark Ginsberg
Well, that's really a very tangible statement of impact and consequence in a positive way. Well, Dr. David Brannon, thank you very much for joining me today On the Mark.
Entrepreneurial education, an important part of how students in our College of Business and Education are learning to be leaders, learning to be successful in not just businesses that they may create but organizations they might join an important part of the practices in our College of Business Economics.
00;30;31;24 - 00;30;53;23
Mark Ginsberg
Thank you so much for being with me. And thank you for joining us today on On the Mark, a regular series here at Towson University where members of our faculty are discussing with me some of the key and important ideas and constructs that they work with and the success that they bring to our students and to our whole university.
We look forward to seeing you on the next edition of on the Mark. David, thank you again very much.
00;30;53;28 - 00;30;54;05
David Brannon
Thank you.
00;30;55;20 - 00;31;10;00
Mark Ginsberg
Thank you for listening to On the Mark. If you like what you've heard, please give us a follow or leave a review. It helps ensure that we can keep bringing you more candid conversations about the consequential impact of higher education.
00;31;10;03 - 00;31;23;01
Mark Ginsberg
And if you have feedback about our podcast, feel free to send me a message at. Onthemark AT_TOWSON.
00;31;23;04 - 00;31;54;01
Narrator
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