We need more television that focuses on people who are making the world a better place. Small business has an important role. In one of our episodes we learn why small business is the most important institution for a civil society and truly the only hope of the poor. With that episode's case study guide, Michael Novak is very instructive.

Although we have done well over 300 episodes of the show since 1994, we have barely scratched the surface of the big picture of small business. For each episode we had from 100 to over 300 business owners recommended. We believe any one of those businesses would have made a very fine episode. We believe every state (and eventually every country) could support local productions about their finest small businesses. Where there is no such effort, we are now trying to encourage it. To help such local productions we will allow people to use our templates, including our music, the web infrastructure ...and so much more. That is the purpose of these nine pages.

This is a working document, an outline of a business plan¹ for local productions. I welcome your comments and feedback.

There is so much about small business that is right. But, there is also too much that is wrong. The two statistics about very basic failures represent altogether too much human misery.

One of the goals of this show has been to show there are paths to successful business and living.

Our first shows began airing on September 3, 1994. We were empowered to search the nation for special people who are "loved by their community and respected within their industry" (from our selection criteria).² And as a result, over the years we have met some of the finest, most-generous people on earth. Out of their imaginations they have quietly created and grown a business. It is the American dream³ all over again; these are today's new pioneers and quiet heroes who are making our world a better place.

These people are the role models for all small business owners and their employees.

Yes, it was September 3, 1994 when our first shows began airing. We thought we were heading into a time for giving back where we could slow down a little. Hardly. It has been the most intense years of our life. But it has also been the most rewarding. It is time to open up this venue, turn over the top level productions (and sponsorhsips) to the stations and the best independents to see if we can get the production values to an even higher level.

I also believe that a more grassroots collaboration between local economic development and their public-education-government (PEG) stations to begin doing many of the preliminary productions could help us all tremendously. First, there are 210 television markets. If, on average, each did 20 profiles per year, that is over 4000 stories. I see 1300 from PBS-member stations (100 producing 13 per year and competing for the 52 slots of the national/global feed of the show) and 2700 from the PEG stations. That becomes an unprecedented "talent" hunt and it changes the very nature of television. It is a search for extraordinary roles models that lift our spirits. It'll also be a major competitive thrust against the exploitive programming of commercial television.

So much of commercial television encourages the nasty, confuses the marginal, and weakens the strong.

We need new role models.

We also need more good people as members of their local public television station. We need more to serve on the boards of stations; many more of them could. Some have been very generous with public television; all of us should be.

In one of our episodes of the show we go to Maine Public Broadcasting (MPB) to try to answer the question, "What happens when everybody in a state studies and celebrates the role of their small businesses in their community?" Since 1987 MPB has been airing their show called, Made in Maine. So, in one of our episodes we saluted their achivement. You hear from the Governor, the Economic Development Commissioner, and from dozens of small business advocates. This episode is Who's Who of the State of Maine and everybody concurs that such documentaries inform and encourage good business.

With this Open Letter we are engaging all the small business advocates in every state and every Designated Market Area (DMA) to consider using the infrastructure of SmallBusinessSchool to produce local episodes that would air in place of the national feed of SmallBusinessSchool. Our not-so-modest goal for 2006-2009 is 1300-to-4000 locally produced episodes per year.

We all need to understand the heart and encourage the best motivations of all business owners. In this little section of our web site, we also share our willingness to help every station and to rally the support from their small business community within their state (or region) to get these productions in motion.

This is a working paper and I hope that we can all talk about it and make things happen. Thank you.



PS: The links to each of the references are on the following page. Each link will take you outside of this document. You will have to use the "Back" Arrow within your browser to return to this page.

PS: Each of these links will take you outside of this document. You will have to use the "Back" Arrow within your browser to return to this page.

1. Business: What is business if it is not value creation and social capital?

2. To make our selections, we actively work with the local Chambers of Commerce, SBA, SBDCs, Economic Development, business press, and so many other -- listings in your state are here.

3. The American Dream: There are twelve key points that Michael Novak makes in this episode of the show that studies the roots of democracy and capitalism. We explore his reasons for saying, "A democracy will work best the greater the number of independent owners that there are" and "Small business is the most important institution for a civil society."

Starting a business is wrapped in the fabric of the USA; it resides deeply within the Declaration of Independence. And, though it may be hard to believe, it appears to have started in 1636 within the "incorporation" of Harvard. Read the words of Oscar Handlin, Harvard's professor emeritus and Pulitzer-prize winning historian.

4. Our Open Letter to Support Public Television. We work with each local station to do an episode of the show; not long ago we were in Connecticut (CPTV), DC (WHUT and MPB), Dallas (KERA), Detroit (DPTV), Houston (KHUT), Los Angeles (KOCE), Oregon (OPB), New York (NJN), New Jersey (NJN), MainePBS, and New Mexico (KRWG-Las Cruces).

We have developed a series of pledge specials, half-hour fund-raisers where the premium is free to the stations and a value- add for anybody who renews their local public television station membership.

5. Watch our episode, The Magic of Small, about Maine Public Broadcasting's Made in Maine. Their production began in 1988 making it the longest running show about small business in the world.