2007 goals for all of us: Our viewers of the show and visitors to the web site, and our small business advocates and our public television stations.

1. Be an agent for values-based business development throughout the world:
The small business owners who appear on SmallBusinessSchool are most often model citizens of their communities and are therefore roles models of good citizens for our global community. Because television is limited to a particular time slot within a given week, we have opted to make these shows available 24x7-global for anyone with access to the web.

From a 28.8 dialup to broadband, people can watch episodes of the show at anytime.

• Viewers: A goal is to have people join us first as weekly viewers of Small BusinessSchool, at least one-quarter of 1/12 of the entire population within each Designated Market Area (DMA) every week. We believe at least one-quarter of all people related to small business "would be, could be, should be" viewers.
• An example of a calculation of the numbers. In NYC the population within that DMA is 12 million people. That computes to about 250,00 viewers per week from NYC alone (Calculation: 12M divided by 1/12 equals 1M divided by 1/4 equals 250K).
• The demographics of viewership. Given past surveys of our audience by our long-term sponsors, the projected mix of viewers will be:
  • No less than one-quarter small business owners,
  • As many as one-quarter small business employees,
  • Up to one-quarter “wanna-bes” from corporate America, and
  • and the others from the PBS-standard demographic.
• The numbers. Across America, using this formula, we could have as many as 5 million viewers per week. This number would put us among the most popular shows on television today. The show now attracts about one million viewers per week.
  
  

• Learn Online: Provide access to the LearnOnline courses for their memberships. Maintain its value proposition but make it free when the small business owner creates another job or volunteers within the community or joins the local station.
• Collaboration Center: Access and use of a small business collaboration center and weekly training as a dynamic of television.
• Local Sponsors: Each advocacy group will be invited to have a small line item for the local production budget.
• Listings: Every small business owner recommended by their advocacy group can opt to post four pages on the SmallBusinessSchool website: an overview, case study, transcript, and streaming video. In the examples that follow, these businesses started with a listing. Each were recommended by their local Chamber of Commerce. These listings encourage digital workflow and opens the way for a local production.
  In San Diego: http://SmallBusinessSchool.org/SanDiego
  In Maine: http://SmallBusinessSchool.org/ME
  In New Mexico: http://SmallBusinessSchool.org/NM
  
  

4. Encourage and help small businesses use the new technologies. To encourage people to go further, at the end of every show where we install an edge server, the voice of the station will say, "If you ever miss an episode of this show, or you want to study this episode in greater depth, come online to SmallBusinessSchool-dot-org-forward-slash-”(insert station's call leters)”. This show is streaming right now, plus there is a case study guide, the transcript, and a general overview."

To date, we have ten edge servers in just four states but we are planning for many more.

Collaboration Centers for every Designated Market Area (DMA). Finally, in 2007, at the end of every show in every market we are aiming to open a Collaboration Center for use by each local Chamber of Commerce and /or Small Business Development Center and Economic Development Commission to meet with viewers of the show within their DMA. This Collaboration Center will introduce users to the idea of collaboration, demonstrate its power, and then be open for their business and/or personal use thereafter. These collaboration centers will then be available only for use by our viewer-members.

In the another document, we discuss the ownership of SmallBusinessSchool and how a 25% block has been reserved for each of four constituent groups and how each block is now being turned over to them:
(1) small business owners,
(2) sponsors,
(3) the airing stations, production people, and their small business advocates, and
(4) foundations, viewers and other investors who want to save public television and usher in a new model for funding.

For more information, please drop a note to Bruce Camber, executive producer.