As happens each February, we have kicked off our annual search for the 20 most promising venture ideas for my MBA Business Planning and Entrepreneurship course at Boston College.  As more of these ideas are now going live, with the entrepreneurs consistently using much of the students' work, for this cycle, we're taking a new tack: we're experimenting with radio and TV outreach, in order to better spread the word.  I've previously blogged about my involvement with Radio Entrepreneurs, and now additionally, a new TV show is debuting in the next few weeks.  Please view the 1-minute promo below, and visit the course's new web site.  You can send all interested entrepreneurs directly to me, please.  A one-page summary of the program is here, too.  Remember the Business Plans our students write will be completed free-of-charge, and the entrepreneurs will maintain all IP rights.  I sincerely look forward to hearing from you, or from your referrals.  

This post has nothing to do with business, except for the spurious connection that it involves an organization where I'm a Trustee, involved with their Investment and Retirement committees.  Our 11-year old is in the process of preparing for his 2014 Bar Mitzvah, where one of his requirements is to complete a 20-hour volunteer engagement.  He selected this senior care facility amongst different choices we offered, and today was his first hour of service.  My wife and I decided to join him.  Given the environment, we were concerned if we had done the right thing in involving him in working with this population at such a young age, and even if so, whether he would even enjoy himself.  He was extremely mature, received heaps of praise from the staff on a job well done and eagerly said he wants to continue next week.  We're so proud of him and thank you for briefly indulging me by reading this.  (And, for our part, it was nice giving back to this organization through a different type of activity).  If our son doesn't stop simply because he's fulfilled his requisite number of hours, it would then become a Grand Slam rather than just a potential home run.

Congratulations to evening MBA and MSF students Christian Biagetti, Christopher Canton, Michael Horth, Jonathan Paquette, Steven Pipp and Ali Siam who represented Boston College at the Regional Venture Capital Investment Competition (VCIC).  This is essentially the opposite of my MBA Business Plan course, in that VCIC brings the entrepreneurs to the competition and our students play the role of venture capitalists negotiating Term Sheets, under the supervision of a judging panel. This is a video of the Team's open comments to the start-up they chose to invest in and I've included some pictures below, as well.  This wrapped up an intensive 4-6 month process where we held an internal competition on campus in order to select this team across 15 participants and then they read articles, and met with entrepreneurs, financiers and mentors to prepare for today's Competition. 

Here are the latest Radio Entrepreneurs links.  We are trying to distribute via new RSS feed, so hopefully this will work.