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Each Monday, I have been posting an excerpt from my 2001 book, Hoover’s Vision: Original Thinking for Business Success. I have posted about one-fourth of the book so far.
The book has been out of print for a few years and I have had requests from teachers of entrepreneurship and others to make it available.
Over the holidays I was finally able to piece it back together, including several chapters I wrote for the original book about specific industries – food, banking, retailing, Internet, education, and others – that did not fit into the publisher’s idea of book length. So this edition is quite a bit longer.
I have not revised the book. I would not change any of the basic ideas in the book. I think the passage of time has only reinforced the concepts in the book. Sometime in the future I may update the data, examples, and suggested readings. In the interim, this website contains my latest thoughts and book recommendations.
I did change the title back to my original (before the publisher changed it): The Art of Enterprise. This is because I believe that the creation and development of enterprises – for profit or not-for-profit – is a collaborative art form, much like making a movie or creating a great work of architecture.
I have made a PDF of the 300+ page book available at
for $10.00. You can also preview several of the pages there. If you have not used the innovative service Scribd, you may find a lot of interesting material there, both for sale and free.
At some point in the future, I hope to make hard copies of the new version available for purchase.
And, as long as I am promoting my work, I am co-teaching my first course in entrepreneurship, which begins at the University of Texas at Austin University Extension (night school) Monday evening January 25 from 6 to 9 PM and continues each Monday evening through early May.
The “foundations of entrepreneurship” course should be informative to anyone who is an entrepreneur, wants to be one, wants to think like one, or just wants to study entrepreneurship.
I think it’s going to be a very fun and interesting class. And probably very intimate (not too many students).
I will start with lectures and discussions on what defines entrepreneurship, move through how one finds and chooses ideas, right through finance and marketing. With my help, each student will write what I call a “business concept plan,” although the course is meant to cover for profit and not-for-profit enterprises of all sizes in all industries.
Lastly, my free-to-the-public lecture series on the history of industries continues on Wednesday evening, January 27, at 5:30PM at the AT&T center on campus with “Flying High,” the story of the pioneers who built the US airline industry. It should be great fun!
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