Background: For every population of 100,000 people anywhere in the world there are no less than 3000 and as many as 8000 businesses. That is a statistical range – 1:33 within socialist countries and 1:13 within the democratic capitalist countries – based on populations of people and businesses in many countries throughout the world. Of that range, it seems fair to hope that there are 333 to 800 business owners (10%) who are highly ethical, generous, and successful.

These are businesses all of us should study, some should invest, and all of us can help to grow.

Let us all reward ethics, generosity, authenticity, leadership and success.

We'll all vet the Good and turn our backs to the Bad & Ugly. Since 1994 Small Business School (SBS) has been gathering recommendations of business advocates everywhere. The school is always looking for the most ethical, generous, and highly-successful business owners within every Designated Market Area (DMA) in the USA. In the new release of SBS, that search will be within every country of the world.

History. Since 1994 SBS has been working with lists of business owners who have received awards and who were loved int their community. Anywhere from 100 to 300 people would be nominated for every episode. The advocates would vote and a Top Ten would emerge. Once a person was selected to be featured, often the station and independent producers were invited to do an even better episode on the others among the Top Ten.

The financial model was always problematic.

The Future. With these announcements, that financial model is being addressed. Local business advocates will recommend, the general public will have ways to add to it, and everybody within the DMA or the country will vote. Of the 6.8 Billion people in the world, there is anywhere from 250,000,000 to 400,000,000 businesses in the world.

Let us find the best 4,000,000 businesses. Let us get 400,000 of them working on their scripts, and 4,000 of them being profiles around the world every year.

Small Business Index for Learning Companies is for best 4,000,000 businesses.

Small Business Index for Growing Companies is for best 400,000 businesses who actively help others.

Small Business Stock Market & Exchange is for the best 40,000 businesses who share their numbers and are open for equity investments.

Just think what an economic force 40,000 small and fast-growing businesses would be if they had ready access to capital to grow. Ethics and generosity, authenticity and leadership would be given a platform to grow.

What about this election? Who is Barack Obama? Who is John McCain?

Not too often will you find us touching the third rail of politics within Small Business School.

I am stridently independent; I grew up distrusting politicians. Perhaps I heard my father say a few too many times, abusing Lord Acton's famous quote, "Power corrupts; political power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."

Hattie is a partisan (very conservative), so we try not to impose our political views on others. Besides, the website and the television show are all about how one creates an abundance of value such that a business emerges and how it becomes sustainable. It is not about the people who believe they can lead a nation and the world.

The website -- http://SmallBusinessSchool.org -- and the show are all about our universal struggle to answer the question, What is life? ...that's about how each of us creates meaning in the world. Good people try to make this little world of ours a better place. Bad people, the "not-so-good," arrogant, or narcissistic, think, "It is all about me."

Yet, as this election unfolds, I find myself less and less confident of both parties so I had to stop and ask "Why?"

The Key Questions about life:
There was a philosopher in the 1700s, Immanuel Kant, who reduced life to four simple questions:
- Where did I come from? (the past)
- Who am I? (the present)
- Where am I going? (the future)
- And what is the meaning and value of my life? (the evergreen, eternal, first principles)

Answers to questions open the way to develop a relation. Now, in the nitty-gritty world of business, it is often said that for anyone to do business with you, that person must know you (past), like you (present), trust you (future), and believe you (evergreen).

Every question renders an answer, opens the way to more questions that render answers that build upon knowing, liking, trusting and believing. These dynamics of going deeper within answers is actually little understood. As children, we all played with "Why?" until we were asked to stop the silliness. We've been conditioned to rebuff anyone who asks "too many questions." But, is it silly to want to reach deeper and deeper within any subject-as-given?

The answer, "Of course not," is ever-more heightened with the total collapse of space and time -- the paradigm shift ushered in by a world-wide-web -- so increasingly there are no traditional boundaries that separate any of us and any piece of information about us.

We have only begun to understand what this means.

Questions & Answers (Q&A). I believe there is an actual structure to the Q&A; I call it an epistemology of interiority. It comes out of my work in the foundations of physics and theology; and it drives the first principles of this show/website. Real answers create the continuity conditions that build real relations, and those relations become actions or the dynamics of a day. The lack of deep answers leads me to make this observation about Barack Obama's candidacy:

If Obama were to lose this election it will be because people either do not know him; or, they do not trust him; or, they do not believe him. Nothing more; nothing less. All the words we use and the actions we take matter.

Memorial Day Weekend in the USA, 2008

Memorial Day puts life into focus for us all. The greatest discontinuity in life is death. Yet, although we seemingly know so much about life, we truly know very little about death. As a people, most of us turn to religion and then we all fight over the words and meanings. And often, wars and deaths follow. It is a strange irony. We can do better.

We all need foundations. Even the television series has a simple foundations statement. It is based on three universals about the very nature of perfection. The first and most simple is continuity; as a function it creates order. The second is symmetry and as a function it creates relations. The third is harmony, a complex symmetry moving in time, and it creates fleeting moments of perfection (as well as all the dynamics of life within an imperfect, fundamentally chaotic, physical world).

Reality Check. This three-part statement can be used as a reality check for all religions and their statements about life and death. If their holy writings are not implicitly about continuity-order, symmetry-relations, and ultimately dynamics-harmony, then that statement is an historic statement, stamped within a moment in time, and its universality can only be understood within the context of perfection and perfected states in space and time.

All universals inherently satisfy those three conditions (more about this statement in future blogs).

The struggle of life and death. In a prior blog the work of Ahmad Chebbani and the US-Arab Economic Forum was introduced. The net-net of that forum is that we will be working with the embassies and their country's investors to re-introduce the television series into every Arab nation. We will also be launching a new series about the best businesses in the world. We'll look at the oldest to examine the essential nature of their continuity conditions. And, we'll look at the businesses creating the most jobs to look more deeply into the dynamics of innovation.

Business is fundamentally about creating value. And, value is measured by those same three universals. Business may not discuss universals very well, but they are inherent in the essential fabric of good business and this show and all the shows that we introduce will always be about the best businesses.

Every day should begin as a Memorial Day. This weekend it has been a profound pleasure to review several episodes where the founder has died simply to see that their legacy vibrantly lives on.

May 1: An open letter and a request for a prayer on this National Day of Prayer

There are many benefits in doing a weekly television show about people who start, run, and grow a very successful business.¹ The greatest benefit is just to be with these very special people for a few days.² We have met some of the finest, most-evolved people on the planet.³ The second benefit is a blessing; many have become friends. And third, sometimes we are invited as their guests to special occasions.

Surely, we feel this way about Ahmad Chebbani and his wife, Michelle, and their three lovely daughters. What a privilege to get to know them. And, what an honor to continue to know and to watch this family and their businesses grow.

Ahmad has invited us to attend his U.S. –Arab Economic Forum on May 7-9, 2008 in Washington D.C. and I am anxious to report the results.

On September 11, 2001 the chemistry of the global community was forever changed. Now people like Ahmad are trying to build bridges over the chasm that was created that day.

Thought-leaders from business, government and academia from over 35 countries will convene to struggle to answer the question, "How do we bridge the divide?" Of course, I have been thinking about the finest possible outcome of such an event.

Today is May 1, 2008. It is the National Day of Prayer. I ask that you stop for a moment and offer a little prayer that together we all might get involved in bridging the divides between cultures, religions, and political systems.

On a selfish note, I also ask for your prayers for this television production, Small Business School. It has a big vision and mission.

Just think what might happen if we were all looking for the most ethical, generous, and successful people in the world to profile and understand deeply. What role models these people would be! Just think what might happen if there were a series like American Idol but all about business. Reward the good and ignore the bad.


Thank you.

Bruce Camber
camber@SmallBusinessSchool.org
214-801-8521

Footnotes:
¹ This show is on mission and is driven by a new vision for the future.

² The people invited to be stars of this show have been selected by their communities -- they are profoundly respected within their industry for their leadership and integrity and they are loved in their community for their generosity and ethics. Here is a link to the selection criteria.

³Of course, one's blog is a personal reflection on the meaning and value of life.

Who are the most evolved people on the planet?

I received an email from an old friend inviting me to join a telephone conference call, a discussion with some of "the most evolved people on the planet." I thought, "What an interesting idea! " Yet, it begs the question, "Who are these most evolved people? What makes them so? Who's the judge?"

I began thinking about it.

Most of you won't be surprised that I think small business owners are some of the most evolved people on the planet. They are the risk takers, the job creators, the problem solvers... they are the same people who have been called crazy, out-of-touch fools, and stupid-and-ignorant of basic facts. In spite of the harsh judgment, they persevered and proved people wrong. They moved us all forward.

I am especially keen of people who take on the biggest ideas that reach into the very first principles of life. Jack Miller is such a person. Remigus Shatas is as well.

Ever since I was about five years old, I have had a fascination with inventors and people who literally create things just from an idea. Early on I made the study of creativity a quiet passion which carried me throughout school and beyond. In 1994, I discovered a simple truth about our lack of intellectual curiosity (and our lack of understanding the brain-mind connection and the very meaning of basic structure). I decided to share these simple insights with my old friend who was convening some of the most evolved people on the planet.

This is what I wrote:

Hi Craig,

Three simple questions tell us how unenlightened we all are. These are questions kindergarten children should be able to answer but we have not created the environment for understanding interior things.

Interiority is little discussed. People sleep every night, they dream, they close their eyes and meditate, and they pray, but we hardly have a clue what goes on within. It is on the other side of the Planck constant; it is where the 0,1 become the Janus face of universality.

The three simple questions are:

1. What is the most basic structure of the universe. The answer: The tetrahedron. That is true for physics, chemistry, biology and a host of others.

2. What is perfectly enclosed by the tetrahedron? For that answer, we must go inside it. Half the six edges (three coming down and three on the base) and we discover there is a tetrahedron in each corner and an octahedron in the middle. A bunch of people, yet probably less than .000001% of the population knows this simple interior structure of the most basic structure on earth.

That's blasphemous. It is intellectual nincompoopery... a disgrace within the history of scholarship.

The third question perhaps is obvious by now, but it is:

3. What is perfectly enclosed by the octahedron?” Again half the twelve edges and you discover the eight tetrahedrons in each face and the six octahedrons in each corner. I have asked literally hundreds of people that question over the years, and only John Conway of Princeton had a quick answer. Yet, his answer did not come as fast as 8-times-8…. He said, “Let’s figure it out," and of course, he did rather quickly.

Here we have the two most basic structures on earth and throughout the universe and we do not know them. What riches there are to be discovered within them once we awaken from our dogmatic slumber!

So, my question to you is in the form of a verbal survey of those who are some of the most evolved people on the planet. I wonder, “How many would know the answers to those three simple questions?”

If you find this to be a lot of foolishness, shame on me for not being clearer.

If you find it a bit intriguing, perhaps we should be talking about it sometime!

Warmly,

Bruce

PS. The answers do have many functional applications. Even some of the greatest achievements in intellectual history, such as the double helix, get put into a new light. Not much is known about the “other side” of Max’s constant. Yet, the wonderful physicist, David Bohm, did a calculation back in the ‘60s about quantum fluctuations at that transformation point. He said that within any cubic centimeter of space that the fluctuation energy is approximately equivalent to 14 Hiroshima detonations. When I read that in Causality & Chance in Modern Physics as a student in the ‘70s, it became a source of great fascination.

________________________

As a footnote to my letter above, in 1980 I started my doctoral dissertation entitled, “Perfected States in Space-time.” All my professors thought I was crazy. Yet, in thinking about that little discovery in 1994 I wrote this little summary about the nature and meaning of life and business: http://search.smallbusinessschool.org/page869.html

I would like to think it moves me closer to my earliest goals to understand creativity. Perhaps those simple notions (within the page linked above) are a first principle for people who are among the most evolved on the planet. Perhaps... perhaps.

Phishing and Phishers and Phreaks

I just got my 300+ email from a freak of nature that was phishing for my PayPal account information.

I genuinely like most people; I do not like these evil souls who have become another of the many "Phishers" (fissures) within the ethical and moral fiber of our fragile human equation.

In that light, I just penned this note to PaylPal asking them, "What can I do?"

______________________

"Good people of the PayPal team:

To date, the most basic and simple questions of life were voiced by Immanuel Kant in the 1780s: Who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going? And, what is the meaning and value of life?

The lesser-ones among us-- those who are unethical and prey on the naiveté of the uninformed -- do not address basic questions. They are short-term thinkers. And, what may have started as mischievousness, has become a phishing industry that costs us all billions of dollars.

Those of us on-this-side-of-the-equation have to do more than just send you, the FCC and FTC a copy of an occasional phishing email that we might receive. So, please help us out. Help us to do more.

I have a thought about it. Let's find a few of them and interview them. Let's find a few who have been hurt. Let's get them together and see what happens.

Since 1994 we have done a weekly, half-hour television show, Small Business School, that airs mostly on PBS stations in the USA.

You can find us in the metro San Francisco on these stations - http://smallbusinessschool.org/webapp/sbs/States/6.jsp

The show also airs around the world on the Voice of America.

We did an episode about protecting your priceless data that almost touched on phishing:
http://search.smallbusinessschool.org/page98.html?epid=171
http://search.smallbusinessschool.org/video.cfm?clip=1603

We did episode on Intellectual Property rights that talked mostly about IP theft:
http://search.smallbusinessschool.com/video.cfm?clip=1244
http://search.smallbusinessschool.org/page98.html?epid=125

But we have not looked at the issue of phishing per se.
If you are interested, we are interested. Shall we talk?

Many thanks for your earlier response.

Warmly,

Bruce

PS. Identity is important. I think we should all follow Adobe's lead. Have you seen their products when they load? There are 40-to-100 developers names listed. When you steal from Adobe, you are stealing from these people. That's a start. I think every company should be using real names and faces. You are not some abstract entity, but hearts and minds.

So, please write or call, and identify yourself!

Thanks.

-BEC
214-801-8521

Bruce Camber, Executive Producer
Small Business School, Inc.
Private Business Channel, Inc.
http://SmallBusinessSchool.org

What can you do? Let's team up together and tell good stories about good people doing good things for each other and their communities. That is the least we all can do.

"I'm going to be a producer" so say thousands

Grassroots television productions by the over 60 crowd

An Interview of Bruce Camber, written by Andrew Caster

Dallas, San Diego, Denver, Palm Beach, Glendive, Montana, and Damariscota, Maine: Hundreds of small business owners throughout the USA are beginning to produce docudramas for television and the web, and according to Bruce Camber, “Soon millions will.”

Camber speaks from 14 years of weekly television productions. His series, Small Business School, opened on PBS television stations back on September 3, 1994. Right from the beginning he has been telling any body who would listen -- every PBS station, all their independent producers, and every business owner, “Mel Brooks got it wrong! We are all producers. Get a website and get busy producing.”

He continued, “Everything was getting cheaper, faster, and easier. There were virtually no barriers to entry. It was a no brainer then, and it is common sense today." He believes that video productions are about where word processing was in 1980, "Today, nobody talks about word processing . We all just do it. In just a few years even the over-60 crowd will be producing television.”

Camber is teaching people to do it. Instructions and tools are all online. For every episode of their show, over 200 businesses are nominated. They have 60,000 businesses that have been highly recommended to them by local business advocates. "These are businesses that have created jobs for at least ten years. They are loved in their community for their generosity and ethics, and they are respected in their industry for their leadership and integrity," he said. Of that group he says about 1000 businesses are developing the B-roll and answering questions online to develop their transcript and a case study guide.

"Our goal is to have over 2000 businesses each year profiled on their local PBS station. That is about 210 stations, each doing about ten episodes per year. The best of those episodes will air nationally and globally." The show, Small Business School, has aired on most PBS-member stations over the course of 14 years. It has been airing on the Voice of America around the world since 1995.

To be sure, these are not hot and flashy productions. They say that these are just good stories about good people doing good things, “This is a Pollyanna production. We believe in the goodness of people and we go out to find the best role models we can to tell a story that is not being told on television – most business owners are fair, ethical and very decent people.”

Camber rather whimsically cautioned all the young, sassy producers, “All of a sudden we turned 60 and now the kids think we’re old. Sorry, kids, we ain’t. We’re not going away. We’re not retiring. Retirement is boredom, then death. We’ll die with our boots on. Now, we may have become slow adopters, but just remember, we invented this stuff in the first place.”

For more information, contact Bruce Camber,
Executive Producer 214-801-8521 camber@SmallBusinessSchool.org
Small Business School, Inc. http://SmallBusinessSchool.org