Business Fundamentals, Team Entrepreneurship, Leadership and Innovation: Changemaker Lab

In this introductory program, students will develop the skills and insight needed to begin to find out what to do with their lives, how to conduct business and understand the relationship between business and society. This program will include fundamental work in entrepreneurship and business, decision making, finance, cooperative leadership, management, ethics, quantitative work, economics, accounting, income taxes, financial statement and ratio analysis, some principles of investing as well as the concept of time value of money. We will read texts such as Collins - Good to Great , Covey - The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People , Isaacs's - Dialogue, The Art of Thinking Together , Nonaka - The Knowledge Creating Company, and Godin - Tribes .

Key factors to business success will be explored from different perspectives and stakeholder views. Emphasis will be placed on working in teams and managing teams of teams.  We will also focus on the principles and application of effective dialogue in leading organizations and discovering where we come from, what has led us to where we are now and where we are going.  In this program we place an emphasis on trying things out, taking risks and failing in a safe environment and learning from our own and each other's small failures.  We will apply a learning method called the Partus Method to learn to find a way when you don't know what’s next.  

Fall quarter, we will cover fundamentals of planning, business fundamentals and theories and practices of team entrepreneurship, which will serve as a foundation for further work in advanced business and graduate programs. Students will examine leadership, business and finance through a variety of approaches and from diverse viewpoints. In seminar-type sessions we will explore planning, entrepreneurship, innovation, management science, finance, marketing and ethics. We will play Monopoly and through game playing learn how to record accounting transactions, prepare and understand financial statements for a small business or non-profit and understand how income taxes impact business decision making.

New students with project ideas and some knowledge of business fundamentals may be admitted to the program winter quarter. During the winter and spring quarters, students will continue learning business fundamentals.  The emphasis will shift to learning by doing: starting and operating real experimental companies and projects that engage with real customers, employers and stakeholders and generate real revenues.  Students will work in project and training teams to develop independent projects focused on improving their business, marketing and analytical skills. Students in the program will be able to start their own business or non-profit organizations should they decide it is feasible or develop their skills so that they may become effective intra-preneurs.

Student team entrepreneurs will work on innovative projects together and develop their skills using the Evergreen Interdisciplinary Learning style and the Tiimiakatemia Partus Method. Students will learn valuable skills and will have the opportunity to learn how to manage and interact with teams and teams of teams online.  Upon completion of the program, students will be better equipped to understand how a business operates and how to manage and launch startups using cloud technologies.

For a more detailed program description and details, visit  https://sites.evergreen.edu/entrepreneurship/

To successfully participate in this program students need access to a computer and internet with the capacity to communicate by Zoom conference. Students should expect to spend 16 hours using zoom, online collaboration tools and streaming service. Our approach will emphasize participation in synchronous (live) sessions; however, if students find themselves unable to participate due to technology, caregiving obligations, economic disruption, health risk, or illness, they can work with faculty to pursue alternate options to earn related credit. Students who are unable to participate in synchronous activities must contact faculty as soon as possible to seek possible alternatives.