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Faculty and Staff Intrapreneurship

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Faculty and staff members, particularly but not only in research centers, of higher education institutions can be the quintessential intrapreneurs. They focus on opportunities to garner funding from outside sources (typically foundations, government agencies, or corporate sponsors), to support their work in creating new knowledge, activities, or products, by supporting themselves, their labs, staff, and research. They have the intrapreneur’s advantage of infrastructure to support their work, including in sponsored research, accounting and finance, payroll, and HR, resources which are outside their core competencies, and which they pay for only in success as part of F&A rates. They also have the ability to tap into other academic colleagues across the university, perhaps in other universities, as well as through business and industry partnerships, and collaborating with government, perhaps particularly economic development agencies.

Unlike typical entrepreneurs, they don’t have the upside of ownership (nor the downside of not being paid in many cases), and unlike many corporate intrapreneurs, they often don’t have the salary flexibility to be rewarded by pay raises commensurate with the value they bring to academia or their customers. Certainly there are opportunities to create spinoff companies in some areas, but not in others, and most academicians aren’t interested in leaving their academic pursuits to pursue spinout ventures though they may be able to participate in some. Because they don’t have ownership interests (save for occasional IP interests) they also don’t typically engage in the founder’s dilemma decision making – do they maintain control or spin out for growth.

This last, the lack of decision making power about growth, control, wealth, and related factors, is probably the greatest weakness of academic intrapreneurship. While entrepreneurs are driven by opportunity recognition, growth, income potential, ownership, control, and more, academic intrapreneurs are driven by discovery, potential for social impact, opportunities to educate students, for recognition for peers, and related motivations. In many research centers funded by “soft money” they are also motivated by the ability to continue funding their employment and employment of their team. Adding the opportunity for true ownership, in addition to traditional academic motivations, might increase innovation in academic institutions in some circumstances.

Veterans and Academic Intrapreneurship? What?

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Wondering what veterans have to do with academic intrapreneurship? Simple, veterans and families, programs to support them, curricular development, evaluation outcomes, and more are all part of the intrapreneurial endeavor. I’d been in an academic institution since 1999, 16 years, dedicating my career to creating programs and projects in universities. (I have a new role in Student Veterans of America working with hundreds of universities, and with SVA chapters), I’d always been on “soft money” – that is, a job without a future unless we could raise the funds to pay the salaries and project costs year-after-year. Almost the opposite of tenure, I’ve had to earn our place each year both with the university and with funders. Some people worry about that, but not me. I love the idea of generating new ideas worth funding. I also like the intrapreneurship aspect – I don’t have to focus on cash flow and back office operations as some small businesses do because doing innovation in the context of a larger organization provides those shared services (for a cost) and experts who implement the services.

I think that may be why I like the idea of incubators and accelerators – they can allow you to focus on the core of the business instead of the necessary supports. The same with shared office space, like PivotDesk, or co-working spaces like those featured in the NYTimes article Co-working on Vacation: A desk in paradise! For me, the academic environment, with sponsored programs or sponsored research offices, sponsored accounting, procurement cards, travel supports, and IT infrastructure are ideal to pursue intrapreneurial ventures. It might not have the explosive growth potential of some startup environments, or the financial upside of stock options, but it provides an outstanding opportunity to innovate for stakeholders and create opportunities that might not be able to come to fruition outside of a university. How many places have hundreds of subject matter experts with deep expertise like universities? People who can focus on their passions for particular areas while partnering with others pursuing their passions and create novel approaches to societal challenges while teaching and training the next generation of experts? Veteran and family entrepreneurship, careers, education, and community integration have provided great platforms for innovating and creating for me.

What opportunities have you had in your university for intrapreneurship? What opportunities will you create?

A version of this post originally appeared at http://www.jamesschmeling.com/veterans-and-academic-intrapreneurship-what/

Planning and Implementation

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VTRNgroup assists with planning and implementation to reach your strategic goals. With extensive program ideation, creation, and management experience, James Schmeling, Eugenia Hernandez, and others can assist in planning and implementation for your strategic goals. VTRNgroup can make recommendations on hiring, engaging consulting teams or short term employees, and more.

We tackle higher education intrapreneurship and entrepreneurship, veteran career initiative planning and implementation recommendations, and other topics including diversity and inclusion goals. We also have the ability to focus on international commerce, import/export, Foreign Corrupt Practice Act issues, and more.

Reach us through the Contact Us page for more information if you need assistance achieving your business and education industry goals.

Speaking

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James Schmeling speaks publicly, at private events for industry groups, to business and industry leaders, to higher education leaders, and to human resources leadership in public, private, government, and philanthropic organizations. James has spoken to the Veteran Jobs Mission including providing training to new member companies, at Hiring Our Heroes summits, to the National Industry Liaison Group, to SHRM chapters, to universities individually including Cornell University, Syracuse University, various community colleges, and to higher education groups including the New England HERC’s Annual Diversity Recruitment Conference to senior administrators from Yale, Harvard, Northeastern, and many other institutions. He is available to speak at your organization or conference.

James also speaks on university and academic entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship initiatives, research centers, faculty and staff careers in entrepreneurial centers, and more. He is interested in how universities and their teams engage with the world, fund their work, and deliver value, and has extensive experience establishing and leading such research organizations, including with funding from external sources.

Other members of the VTRNgroup speak on ethnic diversity and inclusion, women in leadership, women and diverse professionals in the legal industry, at the Hispanic National Bar Association, on Latinos in the legal profession, on student inclusion, STEM education, diversity scholarships, and other topics.

Please send us your request for a speaker through our Contact Us page. We can arrange special rates for non-profit organizations, and hourly or all-inclusive honorarium rates as required for your organization starting at $2,500 for conference talks. Travel reimbursement or pre-paid arrangement is required for all speaking engagements outside of the Syracuse or Washington, D.C. areas.

Premium Experiences

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Sometimes premium experiences go wrong. Dates slip. Customers are disappointed. Items are out of stock or damaged in delivery. What distinguishes premium experiences from ordinary experiences are the way people interact with stakeholders before, during, and after the experiences, even the experiences gone wrong. The systems premium brands have to recover. Or simply a sincere apology or empathy when the disappointment can’t be overcome or corrected, only responded to with whatever is next.

So, first, an apology. I wrote this post during Day 4 of the #YourTurnChallenge, but didn’t ship. My own fault for forgetting that even though I have a premium business class airfare this trip due to using a Global Upgrade (thanks @DeltaAssist for appreciating my Diamond loyalty last night on Twitter when I mentioned it), my trans-Atlantic flight wouldn’t have that shiny blue WiFi light. So, I didn’t ship. I don’t consider it a failure, but it’s not what I intended. A premium blog (kidding, I don’t get to assign that to my own blog), or a promised expectation – even when only promised to myself – should be met.

It’s sort of like what I imagine the #YourTurnChallenge crew felt when they had to write a letter about what happened with the volume of submissions, with the weak points of their chosen platform showing through – what do we do and say to our audience? But they did what they needed to, and said what they needed to, and then followed up by treating people with respect, responding when they were mentioned, and providing a premium response to those who expressed disappointment. I know, because I mentioned my disappointment along with my pleasure at being motivated to ship my writing more quickly. When I mentioned the disappointment, @JoyceMSullivan immediately responded and searched for my post, Veterans Pay it Forward, (which I had done, but failed to find), and then searched for and linked my second post, Find the Others – Veteran edition. And THEN offered special attention if I would give them another chance with my third post. I didn’t need the special attention for the third post to remain interested – I had already written and posted the third BECAUSE of the attention from their team. I only needed to be heard and encouraged to continue as one of their stakeholders.

But, they didn’t stop there. They ALSO referred me to their philosophy, most recently referred to by Seth Godin in his post Please, Go away about the Big Blue Phone. And that’s a great philosophy. Most people hate to hear about problems, wishing the problem would go away. But it doesn’t. The vocal person with the problem goes away – as a customer, as an advocate, and as someone who could have helped improve the premium experience. And it still didn’t stop there – another of their advocates, @ericrovner checked with me and the first advocate to see if we needed help. And the person running the #YourTurnChallenge, @winniecao, also tuned in. They amplified my original writing too! And garnered more followers for me who were interested in my topics. They read my posts and praised them. And one even subscribed to my newsletter on my site.

I was already someone who echoed Seth’s messages to my team. I already bought a 5 pack of his newest book as a pre-order. But I wasn’t really an aficionado, just an occasional reader who saw value in his work that I could pass on. But now, now he and his team almost certainly have a customer for life. And likely several others on my team who pay attention. And a host of people online who see his work amplified, expounded on, and recommended. Had I been a skeptic this would likely have turned me around. Nice work.

But, that’s still not the lesson. The lesson is that anyone can pick up the premium experience mantle and deliver on it. The people who responded to me appear to be volunteers with no requirement to deliver premium customer service, but they took it on themselves to do so. And every single person out there could do the same thing. Imagine if they did – mediocre brands and services could become premium just by the actions of their people. Why would they? Well, that’s up to them to answer, but for me, and I think for my teams at each of my institutes and organizations, it’s because our stakeholders deserve our best. And, even more, we deserve to give our best, to feel good about what we’ve given. And that might be the lesson – we are the premium people because we choose to be, and that’s all it really takes.

(Posted from the @Westin executive lounge in Frankfurt while I’m waiting for my room. A premium response to a less than premium check-in availability for a 100+ night platinum member. Premium responses are everywhere.)

A version of this post was originally posted at http://www.jamesschmeling.com/premium-experiences/.

Learning from Others

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Today I was with representatives from a federal agency, my team, and IVMF instructors who deliver an entrepreneurship program across the world on behalf of the agency. As I wrote yesterday, I only met most of the instructors for the first time last night for dinner. Today we spent the time in an all day meeting covering a curricular refresh, their observations from teaching the course for the past 7 months, and the processes involved with running the program. I also teach the program, and have been teaching it for two years in various iterations. I know the program very well, but I also learned a lot from my instructors and team today. Time well spent.

They’re experts in a variety of business and industry sectors. Their experience ranges from the participants thinking they’re way too young to have anything to impart, to thinking they’re so old that nothing they say could be relevant to them today. The participants are wrong – these instructors know so much more about business startups already, or have forgotten more than many will learn, that they can’t help but be helpful. They’re sources of wisdom, of experience, of ideas, connections, and networks. They spend many hours (sometimes days!) on planes traveling to and from programs from Korea to Bahrain, Spain to Japan, England to Italy, Guam to Germany and more. They do it because they are passionate about entrepreneurship, experts in business, and, because they can make a living doing this. You’d expect them to be competitive with each other, to hold their secrets, to lock in their market position. At least that’s what people who aren’t entrepreneurs would think.

The reality, and what they teach our entrepreneurs, is that you need to share to learn. To build on the knowledge of others. To be open to feedback, critique, and even criticism. Our team is better because of today, and so are our instructors. We came into this with an open invitation – share what works and doesn’t, talk about how you teach, share examples of your techniques, stories, and approaches. Help us understand how to reach those we haven’t reached yet, to draw into the conversation, to help them figure out what they need to know to pursue entrepreneurship as a post-service vocation. Wow, they’re amazing.

What I learned, and want to share, is that everyone had something to contribute, and contributed it. Everyone eased quickly into a collegial friendship, swapped stories, shared meals, and engaged with each other. Tomorrow some will go their separate ways, others to their next teaching engagement, and some of us will remain and sum up the work, get it ready to share with the ones who couldn’t be here. All we had to do was ask for the feedback and information, and then be ready to receive it. They delivered.

And I can’t wait until I see them again, having applied their lessons in the classrooms, and sharing how their sharing improved my work. And I especially can’t wait to share the entrepreneurial successes of the veterans and family members I work with across the world.