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Feb
24
It’s National Entrepreneurship Week!
(Don’t miss Wednesday’s webinar at 2 pm CST by Michael Simmons, Co-Founder & CEO, Extreme Entrepreneurship Tour, on Why Every Student Should Be an Entrepreneur! See details below or click here)
This week, February 20-27, the Consortium for Entrepreneurship Education is sponsoring the 4th annual National Entrepreneurship Week. In 2006 the US Congress established National Entrepreneurship Week as a celebration of American entrepreneurs and the lifelong learning educational opportunities that prepare the NEW business leaders of the future. Supporting the entrepreneurial culture is part of their emphasis, but advocating entrepreneurial education is their primary objective.
Who is the Consortium for Entrepreneurship Education?
“A national membership organization composed of 100+ agencies and institutions supporting entrepreneurship education as a lifelong learning process. Member organizations represent over 40,000 teachers that annually reach at least 2 million students nationwide. Our mission is to incorporate entrepreneurship education within all disciplines, to infuse students with the entrepreneurial mindset, and encourage our members to work together to create educational opportunities to meet the demands of a global economy. We believe that entrepreneurs are not “born”, but rather they “become” through the experiences of their lives.” (taken from their website, Consortium for Entrepreneurship Education)
Consortium for Entrepreneurship Education and the information they offered was largely responsible for the inspiration behind Homeschool Entrepreneur. Their philosophy of exposing all students to the basics of entrepreneurship as an essential component to any education was a revelation to me. As a child, I grew up with the spirit of entrepreneurship, which progressed naturally to making it an integral part of our homeschool. It’s one of those moments you realize that something you’ve always taken for granted isn’t necessarily a part of everyone’s experience – yet see the intrinsic value of making it so. Hence, Homeschool-Entrepreneur was born – as a way to share simple ways to make entrepreneurial thinking a part of every family that catches the vision.
Check out their website, www.entre-ed.org, for a wealth of information to satisfy your entrepreneurial cravings. If you know someone that is unemployed, send them to their new “One Stop Career Center” that is providing entrepreneurship education, training, and coaching to the unemployed as a viable alternative to the traditional job hunt. Individual entrepreneurs have been the fastest growing segment in the current recession.It simply works.
Find Activities In Your State
So, what exactly happens during National Entrepreneurship Week? Well, that depends on where you live. It varies dramatically, but a good place to start is the map at www.nationaleweek.org and click on your state. Many states (like Tennessee) don’t have anything at all, but there is something that I haven’t had a chance to catch yet that looks interesting that anyone reading this can access. The Small Business Administration is offering FREE Youthpreneur webinars at 10 am and 2 pm (CST) all week. I intend to catch Wednesday’s webinar by Michael Simmons, Co-Founder & CEO, Extreme Entrepreneurship Tour, on Why Every Student Should Be an Entrepreneur. For more information and access codes to this week’s webinars (held at readytalk.com) go to www.nationaleweek.org/eweek_files/SBANationalEntrepreneurshipWeek.pdf
We’ll cover more of this week’s activities later this week. Don’t miss it!
More From HomeschoolEntrepreneur
Oct
31
YEF Opens 2010 Scholarship Applications
The Young Entrepreneur Foundation awards scholarships every year to promising entrepreneurial high school seniors. As of midnight, 10-31-09, applications opened up for the 2010 awards.
NFIB Young Entrepreneur Awards are open to any graduating high school senior entering their freshman year in the Fall of 2010 at an accredited (not for profit) two- or four-year university, college or vocational/technical institute. You can apply online for a chance to win a scholarship valued from $1,000-$10,000. Hurry, deadline is Dec 31, 2009
Apply online at https://www.applyists.net/IntroPage.asp (click on ‘Apply or update a new application’)
Learn more about the Young Entrepreneur Foundation and the EIC (Entrepreneurs In the Classroom) Be sure to check out the free curriculum they offer -http://eitccurriculum.com/
Oct
24
4 Tools That Reveal How You Rank Online
Wondering if your website or blog is going anywhere? Your traffic goes up and down, but do you ever check your Alexa rating? During our blog contest someone asked me how they could increase their traffic and exposure, and she was (pleasantly) surprised when I told her that her Alexa rating was fairly good. She had never checked it before and was judging her blog’s growth simply by her traffic.
I have this nifty little toolbar that I absolutely love because it tells me at any given time where my websites and blogs rank. The really neat part is that it also tells me everyone else’s ranking, too! Having a serious case of business geek in me, I love to watch how different websites grow. It also helps me to know who is doing what is right and who isn’t, my inbound links and keyword density. Does anyone else thinks that’s pretty cool?
If you’ve never checked your Alexa rating, just go to http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo and type in your site’s domain (no need for http or www) and you should be able to see your results. If your site is brand new, then you can register it on Alexa and you’ll show up soon.The best part of watching your Alexa ranking is you can tell what is working on a daily basis. I’ve read that simply having the toolbar installed on your site can increase your Alexa rating…somehow that makes me question how they calculate their stats…
However, the toolbar I recommend is a Firefox plug in called SeoQuake. It gives you much more than an Alexa rating, but it gives you several other nuggets of info – some of which will not make any sense to you at all, but some will be very helpful. You can get your keyword density (and those of similar sites) with can really help with your search engine ranking.
Another excellent tool to find out what you need to do to fine tune your stats is Website Grader. This is another free service that will tell you what you are doing right and exactly what you can do to correct your shortcomings.
I’m not sure how accurate this tool really is, but it’s fun to see if you are really richer than you think you are. Again, I’m sure the factors that increase the dollar value are the same factors that will give you a good grade on the Website Grader. Actually, the data for this widget is primarily taken from Technorati, so if you don’t do much there, you’re worthless (as this widget goes, at least!)
So, traffic is what we all strive for, but isn’t always your best measure of your site’s status in the online world. Don’t be discouraged if you don’t like what you see, do some of the suggested improvements and you might see some dramatic results!
Here’s DoshDosh’s 20 Ways to Increase Your Alexa Rating if you’re desperate!
Oct
22
Youth Venture.org – Dream It, Do It!
A website to explore and see where you might be able to plug in, Youth Venture.org invests in and helps young people
make their dreams of community improvement come true. Idealism is a gift of youth, often dismissed, but if there were adults that were willing to help mold those ideas, why not? Young people have an energy that seems to wane with age, but doesn’t need to go to waste.
Check out YouthVenture.org and read the amazing things some of these teams have accomplished! You can visit their blog at http://blog.youthventure.org/
Ashoka’s Youth Venture® and Staples Foundation for Learning® have been proud to sponsor the Staples Ashoka Youth Social Entrepreneur Competition. The 2009 competition is closed, but watch the videos of those who won and get some ideas for next year!
Oct
16
What You Need To Know About The New FTC Ruling For Review Sites
We’ve been talking about different ways you can make money online, with affiliate marketing being the focus. One of the most common ways to promote affiliate products is to review products on your blog or website. Last week, some new guidelines were set down that if you are reviewing products on your website or plan to, you need to know. You can read it on the FTC site, or you can read a very well done summary by Augie Ray on The Customer Collective that explains the relevant points and how it affects you.
Remember, ignorance is NOT bliss.
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