who are committed to Life-long Learning and Public Television
Small Business Index of Learning Companies
One of our goals is to identify 20,000 small business owners in the WHRO-TV viewing area who are commited to lifelong learning and who are actively working to those ends by supporting and participating in work of WHRO-TV and your local Chamber of Commerce.
Our mission and that of all public television in the USA have much in common and it is very different from commercial television. Our television shows are uniquely dedicated to empowering people through continuing education. We, Small Business School (and Small Business 2000 from 1995-2001, and Small Business Today from 1994 - 1995), focus on the topic of work; and we search for the best examples among those people who, in creating work and wealth, make our world a better place.
We ask and find answers to the questions, "What is work? What is good work? And, what is value?" It is a close-up on how people discover their special gifts and how they convert these gifts into meaningful work. It is education by example and inspiration and that is the heart of empowerment.
Like many programs on public television, we go around the country to capture the best of the American spirit – people who follow their dreams. Our unique focus is on those people who start and grow a business. These people are value creators. They are the prime movers of social capital. In the opening of every show, we say they are "... today's pioneers and quiet heroes." They forge into unknown places. These people bring out the best within their employees, suppliers, resellers and customers.
This site and these pages belong to those small businesses doing good things, to WHRO-TV, and to your many chambers of commerce in the area. Every one of the 20,000 small businesses that are recommended by the community can build their own pages, beginning with an overview, then a study guide and transcript, and finally streaming video, all just by joining WHRO-TV and by being active within your chamber (or business association). The goal is to begin doing short video introductions to outstanding small business owners within all the communities in the WHRO-TV viewing area (not just those mentioned above). What a gift it would be if these one-minute introductions were to become an indepth study of the process of creating something of value.
Our goal is to see at least 2000 small business each year work with WHRO-TV to do a one-minute overview! Within ten years 20000 good businesses and their good owners would have been recognized. And from those one-minute interviews, the community can select who this show should study indepth!
What an alternative to Tony Soprano that would be! We finally recognize the good (an alternative to the bad and the ugly by commercial television)!
Small Business School is an alternative. Please join us first by joining, or renewing your membership within, WHRO-TV. If you are a small business owner and you're doing well, become a member of their Leadership Circle (begins at $1200/year).
We need to support our Three Sopranos that create harmonies not those HBO Sopranos who thrash values and make a mockery of small business. In lifting up exploitation as an artform, cleverly shaping every second, HBO -- and so much of commercial television and our cinema -- encourages the weak, confuses the marginal and weakens the strong.
Our viewers and web visitors respond. Your notes are always welcomed. Some have told us they quit jobs and started a business because the success of others inspired them. Others have told us how they've adopted some of the working principles used by business owners within episodes of the show. Some turned their businesses around. Other told of how their businesses took off! The stars of this show are small business owners who become Master Class teachers; all have all reached a place in their life where they want to share their insights and experiences. In part it is their legacy. In part, they truly want to help make our little world a better place.
With our abiding thanks and every good wish for your greatest
success,
Bruce
Camber
PS. There is more information about small business resources in the WHRO-TV viewing area and in the Commonwealth of Virginia. This letter is one of our basic statements. There is also the mission statement, an explanation of the name of the show, and the story behind the show.