May 17
This week we said goodbye to our graduating seniors. Whether they were single, double, triple or quad-semester CAPS students, Global Business became a better learning institution as we worked to meet the professional challenges they provided as they sought life and business skills.
There was no better send off than to host Mr. Harry Campbell as our final guest speaker. Mr. Campbell, author of Get Real Leadership, has been a past executive at Sprint and Embarq as well as a small business owner. He is currently an angel investor and does “breakfast and lunch for a living.” Harry provided a powerful message of success as he prescribed our students to 1) be an attracter, 2) embrace the crookedness, and 3) live to learn.
The juniors that remained were treated to the opportunity to listen to real entrepreneurs from the Digital Sandbox that are finishing their FastTrac course. FastTrac is the Kauffman Foundation sponsored entrepreneur training that our Global Business students have the opportunity to complete and achieve certification.
On the last day of class for seniors, the winners of "The Most Passionate Business Plan" presentations were recognized in honor of the CAPS Global Business founder, Mrs. Diana McBride:
Joe Cowden (AM)
Bryan Lucas (PM)
CAPS Alumni Brad Galamba visited the afternoon class this week, after returning 2 weeks ago, from a semester of high school in France. Brad shared the cultural differences he experienced while living in France, what it was like attending a French high school and about his readjustment to speaking English upon his return to Kansas.
May 10
Global Business students presented their final business plans this week in a "Shark Tank" setting - in front of a panel of judges. Numerous detailed and very helpful suggestions, ideas, and comments were given for each student. In many instances, the judges loved our students' ideas and presentations, but in a few cases, the volunteer judges had to be brutally honest: sharing blunt critiques about gaps in the students' business plans.
We are extremely grateful for the time and dedication of the following executives, who joined us this week as judges for the CAPS "Shark Tank" presentations:
Rhonda Atkins, Sprint R&D
Ryan Beckland, Motivation Science
Harry Campbell, Get-Real Leadership
Adam Crane, The Raiser Group
Chris DiNitto, CAPS Alum and entrepreneur
Scott Franklin, Economic Consulting
Don Gallagher, Consulting & Training
Grant Gooding, Startup Branding
Karen Hughey, PH3 Healthcare Management
Kurt Knutson, Freedom Bank
Michele Markey, Kauffman FastTrac
Kevin McCarthy, Baker University
Jaspreet Singh, CAPS Alum and entrepreneur
Mimsy Winston, First National Bank
Congratulations to CAPS Global Business students on winning 1st and 3rd places in the First National Bank Scholarship competition.
1st Place: and $2,500 - Stephanie Yowell, PM class, Grab and Go business plan - a drive through convenience store
3rd Place and $1,000 - Natalie Cabell, AM class, Cutie Tooti - a makeup party service for girls
May 3
This week was very busy, as the Global Business students were hurrying to complete their business plans and PowerPoints in preparation for next week’s presentations in front of judges. In addition, students are writing their team “After Action Reports” to summarize their semester’s work with outside partners and clients.
On Wednesday, Gus Koppen and Stephanie Yowell joined Ms. Graham on a visit to UMKC to learn about Enactus, an international student leadership program. They enjoyed hearing about Enactus national awards, and trips to China, from the Enactus sponsor, Mr. Cary Clark, a Sam Walton Fellow.
Eight of our students completed their last day of on-site sales work at the Raiser Group and Optima Worldwide: Joshua Wicks, Jordahn Whitlow, Matthew Schmitz, Tae Lee, Paul Law, Cody Kaemmer, Lindsey Gutierrez and Brady Baker.
The final business plans were due on Wednesday and a large majority made that deadline!
Ms. Juli McGuire, Product Development Manager of Sterling, a division of the Gerson Companies, came to speak about her work in China with factories and sourcing Christmas decorations. She covered numerous global business topics such as:
• the impending labor shortage in China, due in part to the 1-child policy
• the life of factory workers
• customization of products and exclusivity
• wholesale markets
• cultural issues that are important: using chopsticks, exchanging business cards
Friday was busy with students practicing their oral presentations, and giving tours to our Accenture guests. Thank you Bergen Stephens and Kyle Coffelt for giving tours, and Raj Kulkarni and CAPS alum Jaspreet Singh for speaking.
The students conducted “Plus Deltas” where they had the chance to talk about what things they liked during this semester, and were able to compile anonymous suggestions of “process improvements” for next year which will be compiled and given to the instructors at the end of the year.
In our ‘spare’ time, we watched Thomas Friedman’s Discovery Channel special on Outsourcing, which provides material from his book
The World is Flat. Here’s the Vimeo link if you have made it to the end of our report and would like to view this show!
http://vimeo.com/14287759
April 26
The week began with Mr. Todd Vincent, VP of Sales for SKC, spoke to us about sales techniques and possible careers in sales, which was helpful to many students who might be considering this area in the future.
On Tuesday, Mr. Kurt Knutson, CEO and President of Freedom Bank, shared with us a radio show re-enactment of the Root Causes of the Financial Crisis. As always, we are very appreciative of the time and expertise Mr. Knutson gives to our Global Business program.
The Vistage group invited several students to attend their Tuesday meeting and listen to their engaging guest speaker, Mr. Artie Isaac, who teaches Creativity at Ohio State University.
On Wednesday, the 6th graders from Prairie Star middle school toured CAPS, and Grant Stafford spoke to the group of 175 young people in the Atrium.
Harvard Business Case studies were the theme for Thursday, and the morning students from the 2nd semester group presented on their study of key strategies of venture capitalists.
The big event of the week was the Innovation Celebration held on Thursday night, which four Global Business students have worked on all year, in collaboration with many CAPS strands. Congratulations to Matt Hendler, Katie Overman, Nate Campin, and Joe Jackson for their work on this year-long project to plan this event.
April 19
Congratulations to Natalie Cabell and Stephanie Yowell, who are finalists in the First National Bank Scholarship competition. They are now preparing for the next round, which includes oral presentations.
Nick Klepper and Brady Simmons gave their After-Action Report and presentation on their client project with Senior Stock.
We took an amazing tour of Garmin on Tuesday, hosted by Mr. John Ferguson, Sr. Software Engineer. He and his team coordinated a fantastic, customized tour for Global Business, giving us a chance to view all aspects of vertical integration. Garmin designs, builds, test, distributes, and markets their products. Mr. Jake Jacobson captivated us with his presentation on social media, and we learned a lot about this cutting edge area of marketing through his entertaining and informative talk.
We had tours of manufacturing, and the morning group viewed the industrial design and personal navigation device sectors, while the afternoon group visited the 8th floor executive offices and the video center, where Garmin does their video shoots and photography in-house.
Thank you again to John Ferguson, Jake Jacobson, Nikki Thomas, Jamie Locke, Stacey Peterson, Carolyn Gray, Trevor Whitney, Yoshi Sato, and Kyle Hill and the rest of the team, for making the our first Global Business tour to Garmin a huge success and learning opportunity. CAPS student Lindsey Gutierrez took the initiative for this tour. Great job!
On Thursday, Mr. Lenn Taulbee, Field Director Johnson & Johnson, coached our students on how to give a good “elevator speech” and how to pitch your business plan idea to potential investors. Mr. Taulbee challenged each of us to practice our PowerPoint presentations, especially on how to refine our speeches. His presentation was inspiring, and taught valuable lifetime skills to all of us.
April 12
The passing of Great Britain’s first female Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, was the headline on Monday. We explored her amazing political career, and then discussed how Mrs. Thatcher initially worked as a chemist, having graduated from Oxford University, and then later returned to school to study law. The Cold War & Iron Curtain years were explored, along with how the British government gradually reduced socialist policies by privatizing numerous industries under her leadership. Ms. Graham brought in an “antique” poster that she obtained on her travels, depicting Mrs. Thatcher and President Ronald Reagan in a parody on “Gone with the Wind”. This gave students a chance to learn about the importance of political alliances and how that impacts global economics and trade.
Financial Statements were the topic on Tuesday, with Mr. Kurt Knutson, Founder & CEO of Freedom Bank, again sharing his expertise with our Global Business first semester students. Mr. Knutson explained the key elements of Balance Sheets and Income Statements, and guided everyone through the differences. We are so fortunate to have a banker donate his valuable time, to come teach these fundamentals of finance in such a practical way that every student can understand.
Mrs. Diana McBride visited our class on Thursday to work with students on projects, and to follow up on progress from last semester’s students, who were very pleased that she was in town from Texas! Mrs. McBride is the original Global Business instructor and was part of the pioneering CAPS team from the very beginning – when CAPS was just starting out as an idea. Mrs. McBride is preparing to open up a high-end Bed & Breakfast called the Iron Horse Inn located in Granbury, Texas (outside Ft. Worth), and has she has many real-life entrepreneurial examples to share with students.
In addition to continued work on the marketing sections of the individual business plans, students are finalizing outside partner projects in the next couple of weeks, and meeting with mentors where possible. The second semester students continue to work on their international research for expanding their business plans globally, and are preparing Harvard Business Case Studies to review with Mr. Brown next week. We also reviewed the TED talk by Simon Sinek on the “Why” of business.
Google’s Education group sent two people to visit our classroom this week, as well.
If you know some of the young men in the afternoon Global Business class, ask them about the ‘Friday cookie contingent’!
April 5
On Thursday, the first semester students were treated to a tour of Freedom Bank, by Mr. Kurt Knutson, the President & CEO and founder. Freedom Bank is a founding partner of CAPS, and hosted the first Global Business class during the 2009-10 school year, before our current facility was built. We were privileged to view the ORIGINAL 'boardroom' where CAPS Global Business met for that year at the Freedom Bank Satellite CAPS location. Here is a clip from the early days, including Mrs. Diana McBride, one of the pioneers of the CAPS program.
https://ibankwithfreedom.com/News.html
Mr. Knutson has an amazing story of how they designed this innovative bank to focus on the customers' needs first, and how the design of the lobby is unique in the industry. In just one hour, Mr. Knutson expertly explained numerous key business topics, through clear examples and detailed stories of how he has managed these varied issues throughout his career.
These included:
• entrepreneurship
• sales and cold-calling
• marketing & promotion
• customer service - the bank's lobby design to maximize customer experience
• community involvement - last week's financial course given by CAPS students Hannah Michael, Ryan Bird and Bailey Bettis
• Debit Cards for Blue Valley high school students
• investments
• asset liquidation of a foreclosed business
• property management
• property development
• "pad ready" plots of land
• ratio of a building's square footage to the number of parking spaces
• maximizing real estate location
• subleasing real estate
• capitalization of a bank
• retail banking
• commercial lending
• deposits
• organizational charts and strategic planning
• project management and the relationship of small business to local government authorities and zoning
• how banks make profit (rates of interest paid to depositors vs. loans made)
• personal career development and advice: be willing to learn new things, adapt, change, move to other cities, change jobs, and try things out of your comfort zone
Adam Crane, JD and CEO of The Raiser Group and sponsor of one of our afternoon projects announced that Lindsey Gutierrez and Matt Schmidt were the winners of the sales contest and received invitations to Invest Midwest, the largest conference of venture capitalists in the Midwest.
March 30
The CAPS students in Global Business returned from Spring break and quickly immersed themselves in their business plan development.
Second semester students finished their analysis of the modes of entry into international business and presented to Ms. Graham the results of their work. She shared insights from her experience of living and working in Asia for ten years. The students are now starting their business plans which require an international element.
First semester students participated in the week-long Kaufman FastTrac New Venture workshop on how to build a business. This is the same material and format utilized by new entrepreneurs worldwide. They will use this to build their domestically based business plans that will be presented to a set of judges the first week of May.
Second semester students participated in a financial planning session led by student Mr. Matt Hendler and guest speaker Mr. Doug Ciocca from Kavar Capital. Mr. Kavar spoke about financial planning for retirement. Quoting one of the students: “Mr. Ciocca’s speech was extremely interesting and captivating. The information he showed us was top notch and helped us to understand the importance of investing young and how the market has been acting lately. Along with his data, he thought us many terms that we hear every day that we may not understand.”
All students benefited from another guest speaker, Mr. Michael Viazzoli, President and CEO of Bank of Kansas City. Mr. Viazzoli shared his career story and provided his perspective of areas where they might focus to include international travel and keeping a clean social media profile.
March 8
This full week was full of great opportunities in Global Business. Students continued to work their projects and provide weekly updates. Nick Klepper and Brady Simmons are working with their client Senior Stock to pilot a mid-term project presentation for the class.
Congratulations to the Blue Valley CAPS Students Gus Koppen, Raj Kulkarni, Jason LaBau, Max Farris, Natalie Cabell, and Stephanie Yowell who have completed the application for the First National Bank Business Case competition!
Students received their requirements for documenting the business book of choice they have been reading for several weeks. Having managers read specific books and then summarizing them for the rest of the management team is a common practice in corporations.
Mr. Kyle Claypool, President and CEO of Optima Worldwide, shared a presentation of his company and how they help businesses increase sales through tools that show results of various social media strategies. Mr. Claypool also communicated that several summer internships were available to creative marketing people.
Mr. Knutson, Founder & CEO of Freedom Bank, led a discussion on the Harvard Business Case study of Michael Porter’s Five Forces Model. This is a popular business model that addresses the forces that shape the level of competition within an industry. The approach to analysis feeds into the students’ analysis for their own business idea.
On Friday, the CAPS Global Business students filmed their elevator speeches for their business idea. These videos will be shared with several judges who will evaluate the strength of their idea. This will provide them valuable feedback that they can use as they go through the FastTrac New Venture workshop the first week back from Spring Break.
Katie Kirkpatrick, Tim Fine and Matt Hendler joined the Optimist Club to share their personal and business plan elevator speeches. The members then voted with play money as a model of the funding mechanism for start-up businesses.
Mr. Brad Galamba, CAPS Global Business graduate and overseas exchange student, Skyped into both the AM and PM classes to share his experiences as he attends school in France.
Finally, Mr. Jaspreet Singh, CAPS grad, UMKC freshman and guest facilitator, provided the students with his assessment of his meeting with the executive marketing team at Delta Airlines. Jaspreet is a long-time student of the airline industry and has established a strong reputation with several leaders.
March 1
While only a short week due to two snow days, the Global Business students productively applied their limited time to their projects and our guest speakers.
Mr. Chris DiNtto, CAPS Alumni, current KU and University of Chicago student, and now employee at LinkedIn, provided an expert lecture on corporate structure and the ins and outs of navigating to get projects approved and implemented. After selling his business to LinkedIn, Chris was hired to run one of their web design teams.
Ms. Alana Muller, President of Kaufman FastTrac and author of her recent book Coffee, Lunch, Coffee, provided a presentation of the power and tactics of networking. She presented a copy of her book to the class for future reference and challenged them to make one contact by next week.
Next week, Mr. Kurt Knutson, Founder & CEO Freedom Bank, will be leading the first semester students in Michael Porter’s Five Forces model. The second semester students will be wrapping up their discussions on US Economic situation and beginning their understanding of international business.
February 15
The Global Business students kicked their projects into high gear this week and worked hard to put five days of work into a four day schedule. Many teams are now documenting the requirements and executing on the initial tasks. Soon several teams will pilot a new initiative to provide a Milestone presentation on the progress of the team.
First semester students focused on the assessment of their strengths using Strength-finder. They each met one-on-one with Margaret Moritz, a professional leadership expert, who helped them interpret the results.
The second semester students wrapped up their analysis on Globalization which included a TED talk from Niall Ferguson, Harvard Professor of History and Economics, on “The Great Divergence”- the six reasons the Western Civilization advanced and are now being copied by countries like China to improve their economies. They will now focus on the current US economic situation and how it will affect their personal careers and/or businesses while learning how to build an international business.
Congressman Kevin Yoder met with the morning class as a guest of the Blue Valley Rotary Club. Congressman Yoder asked the student’s their list of major issues facing Kansas and America as a whole. He provided an excellent assessment of the issues in a professional and balanced approach. His description of the current policy choices expressed in economic terms highly complimented the classroom discussions.
Mr. Brown and Ms. Graham met with one of our partners at Sprint, Rhonda Atkins, PMP, to explore state of the art processes to manage projects. This discussion will lead to several pilot initiatives for the students on potential project tools.
Mr. Brown and Raj Kulkarni attended the Leawood Chamber of Commerce luncheon with Guest speaker Ms. Michele Markey, VP of Kaufman FastTrac and Global Business partner.
Next week, Mr. Kurt Knutson, Founder & CEO Freedom Bank, begins his set of lecture/discussions on entrepreneur and economic topics.
February 1
This week in Global Business was devoted to projects. Assignments were made and time was provided to the students to explore and plan their initial client meeting. Mr. Adam Crane, our partner with the Raiser Group, met with the eight-member team of students and provided an expert communiqué on the expectations for the project. The team is highly motivated as they work to identify and develop new clients for their business.
Ms. Kathy Reinhardt was a guest speaker and made a presentation on Multi-level Marketing business Models used by such businesses Pampered Chef, Mary Kay and her organization Vemee; manufacturer of the energy drink Verve. The students asked excellent questions as they explored the advantages and risks associated with this alternative model of product distribution.
We were pleased to host Mr. Eric Peterson, librarian for the Kansas City Missouri H &R Bloch Business Library. He provided the students insights to explore and secure critical information from several databases that will support their analysis of industries and potential business ideas. These research skills will also be applied to their projects that require competitive and other business analysis.
Each team member performed a self-evaluation using the Global Business Performance Document. They applied the definition of both business and personal professional skills they had developed the previous week. They each shared this evaluation in a One-on-One (OOO) discussion with Mr. Brown or Ms. Graham. In addition to learning the primary mechanism used in businesses to receive feedback, this was an opportunity to build relationship.
Mr. Jason LaBau provided an expert presentation of the use of e-mail for marketing purposes. Mr. LaBau had previously attended a seminar hosted by the Enterprise Center of Johnson County. Jason utilized a powerful PowerPoint document to share his learning from the seminar.
Ms. Katie Overman shared insights she developed on the country of Haiti as she performed a mission in the early part of the month.
Finally, Mr. Jaspreet Singh, CAPS grad, UMKC freshman and guest facilitator, provided the students with the risks associated with their personal social media accounts and how to develop a strategy that does not impact their employment opportunities.
January 25
In Global Business, we kicked off the week with our first Staff meeting of the semester. Here we reflect on the events of the previous week, look at the schedule for the current week and celebrate accomplishments and identify issues at hand.
The schedule for this week included an ice breaker using our performance evaluation document. Students paired up and took one of the business skills or professional skills and defined it in their terms and identified how it could be measured within the CAPS environment. This will be used next week as the students self-evaluate themselves prior to progress reports. That self-evaluation will be reviewed with one of the instructors in a one-on-one discussion.
A unique aspect of Global Business experience is the real projects students work with our business partners. The project list was shared with the students as they expressed their preferences. These will be used to finalize assignments for next Monday.
In preparation for the projects, the students were indoctrinated into the CAPS Global Business Project Management process. Global Business uses a standard protocol for students to follow as they document the requirements of their project, develop a project plan of the tasks to complete it, and how to report progress and problems as the project proceeds. They also were provided access to BASECAMP; our project management application where all documentation is stored and collaboration with clients is facilitated.
The second semester students worked on the China business case. They read the case and are now building a PowerPoint slide for each major section of the case. This will be used to provide the students a foundation of the threats and opportunities of doing business in a global economy.
Several students were able to attend “The Pipeline." This is a major annual entrepreneur event where selected new and start-up businesses present their pitches to a group of potential investors. Our students served as ambassadors to the event and had a first row seat for the event.
The first semester students completed their formal career preparation training by constructing a business-quality resume.
The week ended with the second semester students on a field trip to Think Big. Think Big is a start-up business incubator. The students were able to see first-hand how small businesses get started.
Finally, Global Business and the Law class combined to hear guest speakers from Black & Veatch talk about international business and ethics. Mr. Clint Robinson (past Blue Valley board member) and Mr. Peter Loftspring shared their expert insights about U.S. law governing business practices and techniques to avoid corruption in potential situations.
January 18
The second week of CAPS saw the continuation of the Innovate Bootcamp for second semester students. The team members for the Innovation Celebration and the CHOPS project kicked it into gear as they developed their plans for the major events to take place later in the semester.
First semester students worked their first Harvard business case: Marketing Notes. Here the students learned the fundamentals of marketing to include the famous “4 P’s”. They also built basic marketing skills that they will take into their projects and business plans. They also studied the value of building relationships as they received their mentor assignments. CAPS is unique in that business partners volunteer their time to provide guidance for each student in their coursework and their careers.
Finally, in honor of his holiday, the students learned of eight leadership characteristics utilized by Doctor Martin Luther King as they listened anew to his “I Have a Dream” speech.
January 14
In the first full week at CAPS, the Global Business students were introduced to our new teacher, Ms. Janet Graham. Ms. Graham was an adjunct professor teaching MBA classes at Baker University. She also has traveled and lived extensively overseas to include 13 years in Asia. We are fortunate to have Janet join the cadre at CAPS. The students have already benefited from her international business and cultural experiences.
The second semester students began a two-week Bootcamp in the new CAPS Accelerator. Here they will experience the “Innovate” curriculum of identifying and prototyping new product ideas by using a quick start-up process utilized by many entrepreneurs. They will bring these experiences back to the classroom and accelerate the learning of the first semester students as they explore their ideas for business.
First semester students had their orientation into the Global Business culture of innovation and empowerment. As with new employees in business organizations, the students learned the expectations of them as they work projects, interface with mentors and guest speakers and build their business plan. They also became aware of all the structural support to include a vast set of experts and collaboration stations used at CAPS.
College Now credit opportunities through our partner Johnson County Community College were also made available to the students. These are an inexpensive means of securing college credit. The deadline is January 25.
Many students were fortunate to participate in a pilot program with Mr. Don Gallagher. Mr. Gallagher is a professional facilitator focused on coaching work teams and individuals on improving their leadership and personal productivity skills. He was an executive with John Deere for many years. Don presented a set of modules utilizing state-of-the-art video techniques and live in-class instruction focused on the importance and power of conversation as THE means to achieve personal and organizational goals. It was well received and the students provided valuable feedback for its immersion into the CAPS professional development cycle of instruction.