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SPEAKERS

 

Jeff York, Michael Connor, Jenny Dinger, Brad Werner

 

Jeff York  00:14

Welcome to creative distillation where we distill entrepreneurial research into actionable insights. I'm Jeff York, here from my mountainside bunker in Boulder, Colorado, hatches batten down, but fortunately a tasty beverage from a local Colorado company in hand. And I'm here with my co host, as always,

 

Brad Werner  00:35

I'm Brad Warner, and I'm in my bunker loaded with bourbon. So I welcome all of us here, trying to figure out our path forward in these crazy times. And I think that as we move forward, we have some really cool guests that can help us shed light on maybe some strategies or ways of thinking, to get you through this and to actually make a difference. And moving forward.

 

Jeff York  00:56

Absolutely. Obviously, this is not going to be our normal show. First of all, we're recording it over zoom, us and our guests are not in the same location. And clearly and sadly, Brad and I could not do our normal road trip to a local producer of beverages here in Colorado. So we do, however, have some really exciting guests and a really cool paper to talk about. And I think we're going to be able to get some provocative insights from that, that can hopefully be of some use and some help to both entrepreneurs, communities, and dare I say policymakers thinking about how do we, how do we move forward to the wake of COVID-19. I mean, it is obviously devastating, I think, particularly to small business owners, I know here in Colorado, we are under a mandatory stay at home order. Very few businesses are open in any kind of meaningful way. And hopefully this can provide some response. And we'll try to keep it as entertaining as possible. And just circumstances,

 

Brad Werner  01:56

meaning meaningful ways actually is in the eye of the beholder. Both of you, and I live in Boulder, Colorado, thankfully, in Luckily, but we're blessed with some great booze delivery. So people that are listening to this, there are ways still to support your local businesses without actually going there. You my neighbors are looking at me because I have Hazel showing up to my doorstep quite a bit. But that's okay, I'm very happy with that role, and actually embrace it. But there are ways and we'll talk about that in a moment, you know, utilizing some new techniques and think about this, think about if we were going through this in 1950s, versus where we are now what technology has allowed us to do. The quick transition to remote business has been incredible. Something actually I've never even seen in my life. It's been there, we've all had the ability to use zoom, or means of conferencing. But to be forced to do it to people finding best practices and developing best practices on the fly to me is actually really, as I guess the scientist in me, is really enjoying living this time of history. Terrible as it may be. And I'm not trying to put any light on the the massive devastation to the economy, to families to society. I embrace that. I mean, I think it's just it's a tragedy. But I think if you can look through that maybe there are some threads we can pull on and play with that will give us all maybe some hope moving forward. Oh,

 

Jeff York  03:22

I couldn't agree with you more, Brad. I mean, obviously, if you've, if you've heard crib distillation before, you know, we take a very optimistic and entrepreneurial view on pretty much just about everything. Brad and I have not only drank many fine whiskies and beers, and Bourbons and coffees across Colorado, we drink the Kool Aid, we actually believe entrepreneurship is going to be the path forward. And I couldn't agree with you more, Brad, in fact, you know, most of my research is on how entrepreneurship can help us to address environmental problems, and particularly climate change. And as I look at this, I'm in the process of writing an essay, I actually believe there are really valuable lessons that will come out the immense hardship that so many are going through, that are going to be helpful as we face greater societal challenges in the coming years. So there's a lot of good that can come out of an event like this. so deeply.

 

Brad Werner  04:13

Sorry, one more thing, though. Think about think about this as an entrepreneur. And I know people are trying to take stock of their situation, wherever they're, they're sitting right now in lockdown, but it's more of a, let's be proactive and not reactive. And I think that is the soul of what an entrepreneur is. So if we can actually talk about how can we be proactive instead of saying, Oh, my God, this is terrible, what's going on? What can we actually do to help to help our neighbors or family and society in general? And I think that by definition, is the essence of being an entrepreneur.

 

Jeff York  04:49

Here here, well said read. So I'm on that topic. I want to go ahead and bring our guests in because honestly, you know, I bet the lead school business for about 10 years now and Both of these folks were doctoral students when I started. And one thing I think, that does differentiate the lead school business and our Ph. D program in many ways, is we tend to attract people who not only are excited about entrepreneurship, but excited about what can entrepreneurship actually do. Beyond just generating wealth for people, of course, that's a wonderful thing and hugely powerful force. But these two folks are just two of my favorite folks that have ever come through our program. Just amazing, amazing researchers and I'm just thrilled I'm so and, and I know they also enjoy a fine beverage as much as you and I do bread. So let's go and bring them in. First of all we have we have Jenny Dinger, Jenny. Well, she's just started a new role at Indiana University. So I'll let her talk a little bit about that. And we bring her in. Hey, Jenny, it's great to see you.

 

Jenny Dinger  05:55

Hey, nice to see you.

 

Jeff York  05:56

Welcome to you're currently in Boston, right?

 

Jenny Dinger  05:59

Yes, I'm finishing the year at Suffolk University and then I'll be joining Indiana in the fall.

 

Jeff York  06:05

Okay, fantastic. What a great group of researchers and folks there is there an Indiana I know they're thrilled to be joining them as well

 

Jenny Dinger  06:13

and then need to be joining them.

 

Jeff York  06:16

And then we also have Michael Connor who is at Miami University

 

Michael Connor  06:21

am Hey guys the cold Miami in Ohio not not the real Miami So

 

Jeff York  06:27

you mean you're not you're not down there in Florida with the Spring Breakers right now Michael is throwing caution to the wind. That's where

 

Michael Connor  06:32

I was supposed to be actually for spring break but

 

Brad Werner  06:35

not so Michael What did

 

Brad Werner  06:36

you think when you when you saw those Spring Breakers a couple days ago on the beach? How did that make you feel?

 

Jeff York  06:43

Just start with the you know the softball questions Brad is he always had

 

Brad Werner  06:47

that is a softball.

 

Michael Connor  06:48

So I met I met them I haven't seen them bread. It's it always rains here in in southwest Ohio. If you don't know, Miami of Ohio, I'm sure people have heard it. But we're right near Cincinnati, just north of Cincinnati little bucolic college town called Oxford. So I've been here for about five years now. After I finished my doctoral work at ¶¶Òõ¶ÌÊÓƵ and globose. Yeah, no buffs.

 

Jeff York  07:13

It's awesome to have you guys both of us. So usually on Creative distillation we, we interview, the founder of the business We're located in and since I'm a sole proprietor, and I am in my house, that's pretty much me and that would be really boring. So instead, we thought we would talk about two things. We just kind of go around the horn here. Let's talk about our favorite quarantine beverage. We all brought our own beverage of choice here today. And then also we want to talk a little bit about Sorry, my dog just ran through here. This is gonna be a little different. We'll have the brewery dogs like we normally do Brad love our own dogs interrupting the podcast is

 

Michael Connor  07:52

no one able to relate Jeff nobody is going through.

 

Jeff York  07:57

Yeah, I know. It's a hardship. And and then we were gonna talk about our favorite sort of story of entrepreneurship or innovation what we've seen on the wake of COVID-19 so I'm happy to start off so I am actually enjoying a dark and stormy made for my bottle of deviate bourbon from our very first podcast according to deviant spirits. Wonderful distillery here in Boulder. I am sure that you can order their spirits online through Hazel's and other fine vendor such as North boulder liquor. There's the two I'm aware of that will deliver it to your house. But I am drinking that mixed with ginger beer because I heard someone who is previously working at the CDC say that ginger is a wonderful immunity booster and so that you should drink ginger cocktails and plus i just like them. Jenny,

 

Brad Werner  08:42

what did what is your drink of choice today?

 

Jenny Dinger  08:44

I am drinking the last of my wife Lynn from this amazing vineyard south of Rome called to nuda de Fiorano. And I was supposed to be there taking a class over spring break to restock my inventory. And unfortunately that didn't happen. So this is it. Okay, well

 

Brad Werner  09:03

that's great. That's actually really quite a plug to add flavor profile. What would you How would you describe it?

 

Jenny Dinger  09:10

Oh, I mean, it's citrusy a little bit sweet. Very good. Yes, they only purchased about 9000 bottles a year. Perfect. Michael.

 

Michael Connor  09:19

I'm playing the role of Homer today. I'm plug in list German brewing company here in Cincinnati, one of the oldest brewers here in Cincinnati in the craft beer scene. They started Dan and Sue militiamen started a home brew shop here in 1991. So they were part of that first wave of craft brewers. I'm a big beer appreciator. So this is their brew force 2.0 which they delivered to my home in a very innovative way which is brand new and just newly legal here in Ohio. So thanks to them for that. This is a new england IPA, with galaxy Victoria's Secret mosaic sabouraud and Lotus hops. And it is

 

Brad Werner  09:59

never heard of Lotus. hops before I have not either actually

 

Michael Connor  10:02

know her Victoria's Secret hops. Oh, you haven't. They're delicious. Yeah. So very tropical, has a nice, bitter backbone to it. And I like it a lot. So they're a really innovative company. And they're they're very community oriented kind of company. I really like their beer. And I really like that they exist in a place like Cincinnati. So

 

Brad Werner  10:25

also here, so that,

 

Jeff York  10:27

what are you drinking today, Brad,

 

Brad Werner  10:29

I'm going with a whistle pig, which I believe is straight from Canada. So I'm sorry, to our Colorado listeners here. That's a 10 year old rye. It's kind of a celebration drink. For me, though. It's one, it's one where you maybe have one or two and then you move on to something else. Because after two, you can't taste the difference. But anyway, whistlepig if you hear this, we would love to actually broadcast from your distillery. So anytime reach out to our producer Joel. And we'll see in Canada,

 

Jeff York  10:57

here here. I used to be in a bluegrass band called the whistle pigs.

 

Brad Werner  11:01

Seriously.

 

Jeff York  11:02

Yeah.

 

Brad Werner  11:04

I love it.

 

Jeff York  11:04

It was a great band, his best band I was ever part of. I miss them dearly. So I'm favorite entrepreneurial stories from COVID-19. I'm going to cheat and do too. And we'll get the links to the stories down wherever we're putting our podcasts in the various places where you can get pretty much anywhere fine podcasts are sold. My first favorite story has been about and this is not just a Colorado story, but but I'm taking the Colorado perspective on all of the distilleries that have gotten involved in making hand sanitizer. This has been happening across the country. But here in Colorado, I swear I first became aware of it. I just think it's a wonderful repurposing of resources in a way that is not just about staying in business, but but entrepreneurs taking what they have at hand, figure out what can I actually do with it? You know, if we're going to be all academic, we talk about fluctuation. But don't do that. The idea that like, you know, hey, what can I do to help address this problem, and many of them are giving it away. And I just think that's really

 

Brad Werner  12:10

an object for a second. I thought it was something timely to be drank. So this is really for your hands. I thought it was like just kind of a cute name for a drink. I'm gonna change

 

Jeff York  12:20

my shower. Oh, no, no, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about people repurposing their distilleries and their distilling equipment to make high 100 proof ethanol, that then you can blend with various lotions and other formulas to make hand sanitizer. So for example, I mean, there's so many I couldn't read them all off, which is really heartwarming in itself. But, but just for example, in Colorado Springs, Lee spirits, His goal is to make 1000 bottles a week, and donate it to medical providers, individuals and nonprofits in the community. And that's happening with la boulder distilleries as well. It's just basically, you know, there was a whole thing with Tito's vodka saying, Hey, don't use our vodkas, hand sanitizer drink it instead. Because, you know, won't work. It's only 40 proof. But these folks are repurposing their distilleries in a way to try to meet an unmet need. And I just love this headline, from this Westworld article will link to Colorado drinkers will not go thirsty, nor will we have to worry too much about a lack of hand sanitizer. So just, you gotta love it right. And then another really inspiring story I saw there's a beer canning company, they make beer canning lines, which is basically how breweries get their beer into cans, obviously, called Cody manufacturing, they're actually based down in Golden. And Cody is realized very quickly that with the shelter in place orders and other orders, closing down non essential businesses, that these very small breweries we have all over Colorado that I mean, the first thing you do when you start breweries, you rely on tap sales, because that's your highest margin. And that's what you can actually do. And when people can't come pick beer up from you or drink it in your venue, you're basically dead in the water. I mean, there's no delivery, there's nothing. I mean, maybe you can take a Growler to someone or something. But that's just not going to be on a scale that that will help that much. And so Cody is going around the state with a mobile canning line, and canning small breweries beer for free, so that they can do home sales. And I just thought that was awesome. So I wanted to call that out. So I mean, there's so many other stories. I don't want to steal anyone's thunder. But I mean, anybody who pays attention can see the roles of entrepreneurs really trying to help out with this horrible situation. So who wants to go next night?

 

Brad Werner  14:39

I'd like to give a shout out to one of my students. Oh, yeah. I should say prior students, her name is Rachel sharp, and Rachel is graduating with an engineering degree in a couple of weeks. And Rachel has taken upon herself to repurpose 3d printers. And she's now creating the infrastructure. The structural mechanisms for mass for healthcare workers. And so she has 16 printers working 24 hours a day, putting these things out first to Colorado, first responders, and then has plans to go even larger than that. So I think that's, first of all, what's amazing is people could turn on a dime, right? It's not like, oh, let's think about this for a minute. There out there, all the people that you just refer to Jeff, Rachel, and they're all the Rachel's out there are really reaching and digging deep, and figuring out small ways. And I think that if we all do something small, in total, though, it's a big difference. And I just I'm just really proud to be able to work with the types of students that Rachel represents. At the University here. I'm sure that Johnny and Michael can probably relate stories as well from people they work with, but just to see entrepreneurs reaching out and doing these types of things, I think is fantastic.

 

Jeff York  15:54

Jenny, Michael, either of you guys have a story you'd particularly like to share.

 

Jenny Dinger  15:58

Yeah, similar to Brad. So at Suffolk University, more than a third of our students are from other countries. And so we have allowed them to stay at the dorms, but most chose to return to their families abroad. And one of the students has family, his name's Yusef, and he is from Paraguay. And his family makes apparel clothing, and they have repurposed their facilities. They're now making hospital gowns, sheets for the beds, and other things that can be used in the hospitals in South America. I have another one, two, I love the one out of New York, where 220 something students created, basically an Uber for grocery delivery for senior citizens and at risk members of the population. So I think in less than 72 hours, they organize 1300 volunteers to deliver groceries and necessary products, and it's called invisible hands. And they are operating seamlessly in just a few days.

 

Brad Werner  16:56

That's amazing.

 

Jeff York  16:57

Yeah, that's really cool. Yeah, let's make sure we get the Should we get all these links up so that folks can check out these stories as we go around? For sure. Michael, you have one you want to share? Yeah,

 

Michael Connor  17:08

I got I have two, they're both related. And it'll be a toss back to somebody on this show, actually. So I read an article. I don't know these people personally. But there is a scuba gear company in Italy, which of course is a really tough spot to be right now if you're thinking about COVID-19, or scuba dive, but or scuba diving. But what they have done is adapted scuba masks to be able to be used as ventilators because they have a severe shortage of ventilators. And there's a 3d printed valve. That's the key piece to converting this. So not only can they get these masks that they already have, and that are relatively inexpensive to hospitals that need them. But these valves can be printed right there on demand on site. So there's no need for manufacturing, those kinds of things. And my second was just like that, because I give a plug, Jenny's going to Indiana, they did a very cool, I worked with him a little bit on this in the setup. They did a very cool kind of online Startup Weekend hackathon thing, this last weekend, all focused on innovative solutions to problems related to COVID-19. And that's where Jenny's headed. I know Jenny participated in that a little bit. And I want you to tell that story, Jen, cuz I think what you did was really cool.

 

Jenny Dinger  18:24

Yeah, I wasn't involved with planning it at all. But they were able in a very short amount of time to organize 200 people from around the globe. These were academics, entrepreneurs, students, just people who had an expertise and wanted to contribute. And so many amazing potential solutions came out of that. And similar to some of the ideas you guys just talked about, one of them was converting c pap machines, to ventilators, for triage situations, so kind of last ditch solutions. And now that idea is in front of Medtronic and Philips respironics. So a bunch of the companies who make these things are now working on it to see if it's feasible, which is really exciting.

 

Jeff York  19:07

Awesome, thanks, guys. I mean, those are really inspiring stories. For me, I had heard about a couple of them, but not all of them. And I it's just exciting to see so many different solutions oriented type stories coming out of this and people aiming to make a serious difference. So thank you for that. So speaking of which, as always, here on Creative distillation, we want to turn to the academic research and see if we can distill some some actionable insights out of your work. So the paper is called somebody that I used to know the immediate and long term effects of social identity and post disaster business communities. Ginni is the lead author on this paper. Michael is the second author, one of my colleagues, David Heckman, who's a professor of organizational behavior, Here at ¶¶Òõ¶ÌÊÓƵ is the third author and then one of their fellow doctoral students from cu. Carlos Bustamante is the fourth author and this paper was published looks to me, like it was published just last year. Is that correct? February 2019. Fantastic. So I, I vaguely recall the work that started this. I remember, Ginni going to Joplin, Missouri, in the wake of the awful tornado there and starting to do research. So, so maybe you guys could talk to us a little bit about you know, where this paper come from? How did it come about? And

 

Brad Werner  20:36

before we even start there, I'd like to know how the hell do you guys come up with these titles?

 

Brad Werner  20:42

Right, I'm that was when

 

Brad Werner  20:47

I look at this. If I'm living in a disaster, let me find the paper, somebody that I used to know immediate, long term effects of social identity and post disaster business communities, I think how to how's that gonna help me?

 

Jeff York  21:01

It's not written for that.

 

Jenny Dinger  21:02

I mean, do you know JSON, somebody that I used to know?

 

Michael Connor  21:06

Yeah. So Brad, I'm a longtime listener. First time caller, I know that you guys have talked about the the long standing norm of having a cutesy title with a colon and then the actual title. So we're following that following that norm. And we'll get to, I think later is that we saw kind of a rift in the community after some coming together. And so we wanted to come up with something we thought we need to we need like a breakup song. That's what we really need the title. So that was, we went through literally a list of probably 50 different breakup songs, we could find it.

 

Brad Werner  21:41

I love it.

 

Brad Werner  21:42

I love it.

 

Jenny Dinger  21:43

Yeah. So Jeff, how this paper came about. So you mentioned that you in Colorado, you've drank the Kool Aid. And it's not just about financial profits. So I entered the Ph. D program, only focused on financial profit. I was a corporate strategy, focused PhD student, and then I was home visiting in southeast Kansas in Joplin, Missouri, for my brother's wedding, and it occurred the day before the f5 tornado hit Joplin in May of 2011. And so I was there when it hit I was in my parents underground tornado shelter, watching just before it touched down. So we were very lucky. We had a shelter. And I stayed there for several weeks after and I was seeing these entrepreneurs vowing to come back and making these commitments. And from the outside looking in, I was just thinking, this is really irrational. How are they committing to rebuilding when four miles around them, there's literally nothing. And so that kind of just piqued my interest in terms of the small business side of it. And I started collecting data and talking to people and when I got back to Boulder for the fall semester, Michael, Carla and I, I think we were in a instrument design course through the education department. And so we decided, Okay, this will be the project that we practice making survey instruments and really fine tuning our skills. And so that's how we initially started down this path. And it was completely personal. Just because I had, you know, seen I think it was 8000 homes were destroyed in Joplin. 200 people lost their lives. So it was horrific in terms of the human impact. But the small business impact was just as bad. And so that's really where

 

Brad Werner  23:30

this came about. Part of the interesting part of that story is your family has a bunker.

 

Jenny Dinger  23:35

Yeah, so I mean, growing up in southeast Kansas, I mean, you're accustomed to getting in closets and taking shelter when there's a tornado warning. Of course, the tornadoes of today are very different from when I was a kid. So yeah, so after picture Oklahoma, which my family lives on the tri state line, so where Oklahoma, Missouri, and Kansas meet and so pitcher Oklahoma had been hit by a tornado. I want to say in 2008 I may have the year wrong 2007 or 2008. And it almost hit my hometown of Baxter springs. And so the entire town got new roofs because there was so much hail damage, like literally every house in town has a new roof. So after that happened, they made the investment to put in an underground bunker and because we're kind of into the weather, they paid for the upgrade so that there's a bulletproof glass so we can actually see out when we're in the underground bunker which is maybe not

 

Brad Werner  24:31

when you have a tornado viewing.

 

Jenny Dinger  24:34

So I think are the Joplin tornado. Their shelter is supposed to hold I think nine people and we had nearly 20 people, six pets. I mean we had we were in there like sardines. It was crazy.

 

Brad Werner  24:48

How many people are in there now with the virus scare?

 

Jenny Dinger  24:51

I don't know I'm not there. So probably my parents for sure.

 

Jeff York  24:56

I have my first experience hiding from a tornado and Laura This summer in Kansas, at home with a new puppy with my daughter and we're walking through Lawrence, we're in front of this kind of like, hippy crystal shop kind of place and the sky turned green and sirens went off. And this fellow came out and said, Hey, would you and your lovely daughter and young dog like to come into our back room? It's like, No, not really. I really think it's a good idea is like, because of the tornado is like, Oh, yeah, okay. Yeah, we should do that. And so, yeah, anyway, Kansas hospitality there. Okay, so the reason I mean, I immediately Brad and I were talking, we were saying, Okay, what can we do? You know, we kind of have established this, this podcast format, what would be some insights we could derive about entrepreneurship, both in response to and in the wake of disaster. And, of course, I immediately thought of this paper. And I thought, you guys, and as I look at the paper, the research questions are looking at how do individual entrepreneurs respond to a disaster? And how are their responses shaped by their relationships with and within the communities in which they're embedded? And finally, how do these factors affect the identity and defining values of the disaster affected communities over the long run? I think that, to me, that's, I feel like with COVID-19, like, we've been so focused to the extent we've focused on on small businesses, of course, we all know entrepreneurs and small business folks, our community that are affected, and we're all trying to think of ways to support them. And there's a lot of really interesting are the mechanisms emerging to do that. But I like this paper, because it kind of takes more of a long view. And grant, of course, what we're talking about with COVID-19 is very different than a natural environmental disaster, like a tornado, or hurricane or something like that. But, but the end of the day, I mean, from an academic perspective, anyway, it's kind of the same thing, something comes along, that destroys the business. And then we gotta ask ourselves, what makes entrepreneurs more likely to recover and what helps them? And so I was hoping you guys could share some kind of insights you have from this research, or you also both know, there's an emerging literature on entrepreneurship in the wake of disasters, which is really exciting. And part of I think, anyway, the literature turning more towards trying to understand how do we use entrepreneurship as a tool to really help people and to solve society's problems? So anyway, that's, that's just why I saw the paper. I mean, what do you guys think? Is there something we can take, specifically from your research in this paper, or more broadly, that could be useful or helpful to entrepreneurs and or policymakers or communities?

 

Michael Connor  27:35

Yeah, I think it's been a big pleasure to work on this research with Jenny, I'm really interested in this kind of question. I've been thinking about it a lot over the last, I don't know, week, right? Sort of what's going to happen? And what role will we play as researchers, practitioners, students, everybody who's involved in kind of entrepreneurial activity? You know, what, what will happen after this and through this? So I think there was a couple things you talked about the long view, some of the key takeaways that we saw were, that it's about, it's really important to think about the community holistically, and kind of recovery holistically. A lot of times, what we focus on is economic recovery. But there's more to it than that. If you look at the paper, that's one of the things that really kind of jumped out to us. Another thing was that unintended consequences, we talked about the breakup song, and how things kind of went weird in this in this community, right, are several of these communities where you'd find kind of new sub communities created within them because of, you know, who had rebuilt and who hadn't. And sometimes that didn't go very well, sometimes that was not a positive thing. So there are unintended consequences that can or will happen. And I think for both community leaders and entrepreneurs, that's something to keep in mind. And then the last key takeaway that I wanted to feature I'll kick it over to Jenny as things change, right? So we saw Jenny had this really powerful slide that she showed, in a presentation a picture of a map, where somebody had rebuilt their business in the middle of a debris field, something like a year before anybody else had started to rebuild. And they basically rebuilt the business exactly the way that it had been before. And I thought, Well, hey, that's kind of brave and cool. But on the other hand, things are not going to be the same as they were before, right. And we really found that in the research, right? You You're going to get to as a community and as an entrepreneur, a new normal. So I think that's part of it. We're hopeful that people will be thinking now, you know, what can our communities look like? They're not going to be the way they were before. Right. So what can we do? What can things look like going forward?

 

Jenny Dinger  29:39

Yeah, and I think it's important, you know, Michael talked about the foreboding, like breakup song that, you know, things didn't go necessarily as we expected, and some of these communities. Our research started really focused on the financial side and understanding whether these kind of academic social psychological aspects matters. In the process of deciding whether or not to reinvest and rebuild and their communities, and that's where we started, and this long game consequence of people essentially being crowded out of the business community, we didn't even recognize it until we had all of our interview transcripts back in Boulder in our crowded PhD offices. And we started going through them that we saw this trend. And there were just little quotes and digs honestly that people said it other people in their interviews. And then we started to see this pattern that this was happening not only in Joplin, but in vilonia, Arkansas, and in Estes Park, Colorado after the 2013 floods. So it was happening in all of these independent disaster zones, which was really important. And not surprisingly, I'm sure Brad is the skeptic on the podcast. You know, oftentimes, there's, of course, like, that's obvious in the research, you know, and one of those things was, of course, people come together, and then immediate aftermath of a disaster. But what we saw wasn't just that they were feeling more as a community, but they felt obligated. So these ties to the community were strengthen. That's what the business owners were feeling. And they felt an obligation to come back, even if it didn't make financial sense, which was the really interesting piece. And that obligation pushed them through kind of the uncertainty of finances, and not certain if utilities would be back in place, or what the community would look like. And so even though it's a little bit obvious, that increased strengthening of ties to the community really does matter. And that's one thing in this COVID situation, it is so much different than an isolated event. And because we all have our own communities that are impacted, will that rallying for each and every community take place? I think that's one of the big question marks.

 

Brad Werner  32:03

Well, I have to tell you guys, what I normally don't do is read a paper before we have a podcast, I skimmed a paper. But I noticed a common, a common thread that I see all the way through your dissertation here is the term social interaction. And I'm thinking, how do you balance this social interaction? And you've looked at different disasters tornadoes, but people feel safe, once the threat is gone? walking outside? This is different and we're in a land. I mean, the new normal is the social distancing. So are those two terms compatible?

 

Jenny Dinger  32:39

I think they can be I think it's just a different type of social interaction. I mean, we're on the zoom call. I'm a pretty introverted person, I live alone. And I've honestly felt overstretched in terms of the interaction and engagement over the last 10 days, I feel more connected with people through this process than I think I normally do. So it'll be interesting to see if that translates to other people as well. And I think like you said, you know, 50 years ago, this would be an entirely different experience. And before we saw the increase in the US, I mean, I know I was watching with bated breath, what was happening in Italy, and China and South Korea. And it just creates such a unique interaction, not just in our immediate physical geographic community, but everywhere.

 

Brad Werner  33:31

Right. But if you live in like you were talking about Kansas, or Kansas, and your family, people are used to in the spring, there tornadoes, right? We have these weather events that happen the certain times a year, and this is different. And so what what kind of lessons Do you think that would resonate with our listener that might actually help them get through this and make some sense of this? And to provide clarity, instead of being that person that you mentioned? Were builds the exact same business? How would you suggest to an entrepreneur, what lens they look at this through to say, Hey, this is a better path to move forward.

 

Michael Connor  34:10

So one thing I would say is maybe something hopeful from our study is that, as Jeff said, we kind of have a longer view. You think about a social interaction, not as a single conversation like we're having now. But it's sort of an ongoing structural kind of relationship. Right? So we, we are part of a community and that lasts beyond one conversation we have at the grocery store, right? It's it's an ongoing kind of thing. And Jenny kind of touched on this idea of people feeling this sort of Bigger, Longer term commitment to their communities, right and obligation, and I'm part of this community that that comes with obligations for me. Right. I think that's something that's been kind of a source of hope for me is seeing people respond and in kind of the way that you'd hope that people who are members of a community and neighbors would respond. That's been a helpful kind of thing. So,

 

Jenny Dinger  35:03

so one of the stories that I remember from Estes Park was one of the utility providers, I think it was the internet provider. She employed maybe 10 or 12 people, and they were located right on the stream right there in Estes Park. And of course, they were immediately impacted by the flood. And other business owners were coming and bringing sandbags because they knew she needed it more than them. And you know, the equivalent right now is like to what Jeff said about the distillery shifting to hand sanitizer, but we also see these individual people sewing masks for nurses and people on the frontlines. And I think those are comparable behaviors, they're different. But they're still strengthening those ties to their communities, which is the encouraging piece. So it kind of mirrors what we saw, with a natural disaster, I think, to your point, because this is so different. And the uncertainty is obviously going to be extended for a longer period of time. I think. And I don't think we know the answer is, when does that mental fatigue set in? How long can people maintain this? This upbeat community minded behavior? And and that's what I don't know.

 

Brad Werner  36:15

So I think the both of you are looking at this in a very positive way. But I actually think that were made up in I don't like to say this, but I'm trying to be honest here. I think there were multiple communities that were talking about, we talked about humanity as a community. Awesome. But when we actually start to break that down a little bit, the five of us on this call right now, we're taking responsibility for social distancing, we understand repercussions that if we get this, it could kill our parents or our grandparents, maybe ourselves. So we're not only protecting ourselves, but our loved ones, our cohorts, our colleagues at all of that. And then you get that over overlaid with, I saw a couple of influencers, we could talk about influencers and what they mean and how stupid some of this is looking toilets. And then 10 days later, the influencers like By the way, audio doesn't show quote marks very much, because I think some of this is so stupid. But I you see these people really, I mean, getting sick now taking this as a joke early on, because they thought I mean, there was a hashtag floating around Twitter called Boomer remover. Right? So in some of this is, yeah, so some of this is, to me, there's a little bit of social friction going on as well,

 

Jeff York  37:26

of course, and so if I can just step in for a second, I thought we'll practice trying to distill these papers down for Brad. So let me let me give it a shot here. So we can talk about influencers and Boomer remover. And I absolutely agree with what you're saying, I think, my one hope, and I just respond that real quick. So I've been studying climate change, and entrepreneurship for like, I don't know, 1520 years now. It's the same conversation. It's, those people are bad, and they don't understand us. And they got to go away on both sides. So anyway, that's, that's an old hat. We'll get into that more. And I think that's something that this paper gets into at the end of this idea of when we create in groups and out groups, that's really not helpful. And it's destructive. And and that's what we really, that's one of the lessons I took from the paper is, we have to avoid that in our own lives, especially as entrepreneurs, you want to avoid that. But particularly policymakers and individuals we want to enjoy, we want to even when even when we see the Spring Breakers, and we're all social distancing, and we're like, oh, those dang kids, we got to resist that urge. We got to say, Hey, you know, what, if I was 21 right now, and it was my spring break? Would I have been social distancing? I don't know. Maybe, and maybe not. And

 

Jenny Dinger  38:48

what we found in our studies, is that that in group out group was kind of pre determined, based on who was directly impacted by whatever disaster it was. So either your business will be destroyed, or it wasn't, and the ability of those who went through it and they suffered a loss by them kind of telling that story and becoming the face of the, you know, the resiliency, that created that natural split, because the folks who weren't directly impacted, weren't receiving the attention. They weren't receiving the inflated support from everyone. And my concern in this is because almost every business is impacted. It seems like that that split is going to be determined in some part by the stimulus, and what funds are doled out by various governments and we saw it today with the $2 trillion, you know, the big business gets this amount of small business 350 billion, and their stipulations on it. And so, I think that we're going to see those divisions form in some part based on who gets money and who doesn't and I don't think that that's necessarily been thought about about the long term ramifications of that. Yeah,

 

Brad Werner  40:06

I agree with you. 100%. Yeah, I'm sorry, Michael, go ahead.

 

Michael Connor  40:09

Oh, I was just gonna say I think so one of the things that we mentioned in the paper is sort of a difference between as two examples, post World War Two, versus post one of the examples in our paper, right. And post World War Two, there was not a lot of community focused entrepreneurship. That was happening, right. There was a lot of public programs, there was the Marshall Plan, there were all those kinds of things. But not a lot of those things happen at the entrepreneurial level in terms of building community kind of stuff. Whereas we saw a lot of that after these acute, localized kinds of things. So I think it's an unsatisfying answer, Brad, but I think we don't that's I think we don't know, is sort of what will determine whether an entrepreneurial action that happens after this after COVID-19 will be sort of this positive community building inclusive kind of business building? And how much will not. So I think that's an unknown. I think what Jenny's point is really good, though, is is is that I think they really need to keep in mind, and I know one of the things you guys want as a recommendation for real entrepreneurs, real business community people is, I mean, Jenny's point is, is partially, this doesn't just, this isn't just people deciding that they want to hold up and create a new group. Some of these things are because of outside factors and right. So it's not enough to just say, Well, I need to try to be an inclusive person, I need to try to be someone who partners who is a cooperative community building kind of entrepreneur or community leader, you also have to be on your guard for those external factors that could be pushing, pushing your community in that direction. So being inclusion is key at the community level. And thinking about cooperation, like we've seen, Jeff, give a bunch of examples about breweries and distilleries cooperating with each other canning for free, things like that is not only wise, like in emergency times here, but it's probably a good long term strategy for the next 10 years, and the new reality will be facing.

 

Brad Werner  42:18

And I love it that you're talking about long term, because I do think that we're right now we're seeing a reactive response by our governments, and even by our communities. But the science that I'm reading is showing this could be wave one out of wave three, or four. And so in a sense, this is the early shot across the bow. Now, what do we do to plan in the future for our families, our businesses, our communities? And all those types of things? I'm hopeful that like minded people. Oh,

 

Jeff York  42:47

did we just lose? Brad?

 

Michael Connor  42:48

It's possible?

 

Jeff York  42:50

I think we did. Crazy.

 

Jenny Dinger  42:54

So So Brad, talking about the uncertainty in the long term aspect of this? And I think, not from our research, but research that we look through as we were forming our structure for this paper.

 

Jeff York  43:05

Yeah, cuz you guys are familiar with this broader literature.

 

Jenny Dinger  43:08

So we know from disaster literature, that two big macro level factors. Number one is it takes 10 years typically, for a community's population to return after a disaster. And the primary reason why people leave is jobs. And so as we see industries directly impacted by COVID, what will the population moves do? So that's a 10 year thing that typically it doesn't return. And then for communities, the economy typically settles at 10%, below, pre disaster level. So immediately following a disaster, the economy enjoys a boom, and then permanently it settles 10% below. So I think the big question mark is with everyone going through this, what is that going to look like? But I would say another piece like that Michael and I have talked about many times, is the one thing that we feel is applicable from our single site disaster research to COVID is the big cautionary tale is for entrepreneurs and small business owners to take a breath, and reevaluate, evaluate what the opportunity really is. Yeah,

 

Jeff York  44:21

yeah. So glad you said that

 

Jenny Dinger  44:22

the bureaucracy and the red tape with insurance companies and with these government stimulus, traditionally, through FEMA, and I don't know the details of the 350 billion that was assigned today. But typically, the caveat on those is that you have to go back in business to get any of that money. And so what does that incentivize them to do? It incentivizes them to get back in business as quickly as possible? And what they're not doing is reevaluating the market and the industry to understand what the opportunity is post COVID in this situation,

 

Brad Werner  44:55

I love Jenny. Okay, I love I love exactly what you said there because I think that is So true. And that gets to the heart of the matter. In a sense, it's saying, continue to create what you had before. But we actually don't know if that's appropriate moving forward. I think that that's fabulous. And I think that as the entrepreneur, the message to me is re evaluate, understand your customers understand the the competitive landscape moving forward, because it's definitely changed. Within this month, we've never seen a time where in one week, we've lost 3.3 million jobs one week. I mean, insanity is like running amok here. So that is a great takeaway, Johnny.

 

Jenny Dinger  45:30

And another thing we know, like, it's been shown by several different folks, most recently, I think, Chang in 2010, is that businesses that reinvest, they're resilient, and they come back following a disaster fail at a higher rate than their peer group. So this, this is a myth that is not being addressed. And so I think there needs to be some intervention, whether that's from the SBA, or from your local Chamber of Commerce, somebody has to intervene and really ask the questions of what is the opportunity for this business today? Or is it Adam Smith's invisible hand?

 

Brad Werner  46:01

Is it the invisible hand up there saying, you know, what, you know, move forward at your own risk, just like any other business to?

 

Jeff York  46:08

This is awesome, because here, here, okay, so I took three things from the paper, it's always three things with me, Jedi consulting, mind trick one to one, many listeners out there that just got a job as a consultant or want to be a persuasive academic first lesson, have something cute in your title, followed by a colon, and then the real description what the paper is about. Second thing, there's three contributions, three different literature's and the reviewers will tell you which one to shoot down, and you'll take that one out, and then you'll add something else. Anyway, those are inside jokes for nerds. So, first one, this is something that everyone can do right now, in your paper, and you guys tell me if I'm going wrong, or misinterpreting your findings, because what they do that you can't see over the podcast is they create a process model of how do individual entrepreneurs and communities interact through this mechanism of social identity and groups out groups to either recreate a community, entrepreneur ecosystem or not? So first thing, entrepreneurs in the wake of disaster need to feel a large outpouring of support from their community. They need to feel like people care. And their studies, it's people going by walking by on the street saying, Hey, can I come help you with your store? Whenever we definitely saw this in the boulder floods, I've seen this in hurricanes. And COVID-19. We Dan will ought not do that. But we surely can reach out to entrepreneurs. We know small business owners, we know, employees of small businesses, we know try to purchase their products over delivery in a safe manner, buy gift certificates, even just reach out with supportive email, messaging, whatever to say, Hey, is there anything I can do to help your business because I know you're struggling right now. I think that's the first thing that everyone can do. So that's a lesson that comes to the paper. And when people when entrepreneurs feel that, when that happens, then what happens is there's a bit of a tipping point, or a switch that flips in their mind, where it doesn't just become about recreating my economically viable business, but about obligation to this community that was there when I needed them. And when that happens, they will focus on opportunities to improve their business, and will be more likely to persist, not just saying, Hey, I'm gonna keep the same business going. But no, I'm willing to change things like how likely do we think it is that I, oh, my God, if I worked for the Brewers Association, and I was representing craft brewers, I damn well will be lobbying for home delivery in the wake of COVID-19. That's a whole new revenue stream for home brewers. It's just an industry, I'm familiar with it, hopefully, we'll see things like that happen. So that's for the entrepreneurs out there, I'd say the main lesson is, you know, try to find the ties in your community, try to find that support network, buy into it, but look for opportunities to improve, enhance, streamline new markets, new opportunities, find those new opportunities. And then the third aspect of this would be I think, really much what Jenny was relating to is, we have to avoid this creation of in groups and out groups, not just amongst entrepreneurs, but in communities. So anyway, I said a lot, but I always try to distill this stuff down and make sure I get some actionable insights. I don't know I could have totally misrepresented your work.

 

Brad Werner  49:22

Let me throw up throw in my three takeaways, Jeff? So my three takeaways are as an entrepreneur, just like before the virus, understand your customers, talk to them understand what's going on, understand how they feel,

 

Jeff York  49:35

maintain those ties.

 

Brad Werner  49:36

Yeah, yes, and I am definitely parroting some of the things that you just said. Number two, understand your industry and where it's going. It's probably not the same as where it was a month ago. And number three, you're going to be defined your brand is going to be defined through the lens of how you treat your employees and how you treat your stakeholders. And I think it's going to define you maybe for the rest of your life or the lifetime of your business. So before Very, very careful moving forward and take true calculated steps to make sure that you are taking care to the best of your ability, your stakeholders, your employees, and anyone that does business with you.

 

Jeff York  50:14

So those would be my takeaways and encourage new entrepreneurs to come in. I think that was the big thing that I love in this paper is like, some of the stuff we said, like oftentimes, academic research, as Jenny was saying earlier may seem a little obvious. But you know, a lot of times things we think are obvious or not true. And what academic research does is it goes and explores the things that we may think are obvious or not. And the thing that this paper gets to that is not obvious, is that what we have to be very cautious of, and whatever community we're part of business community, academic communities, whatever is some kind of, I think of it as survivor bias of like, we made it through therefore, we're the legitimate parts of this community, and creating sort of a group of you didn't have to go through that. So you can't be part of our community. This is in Boulder quite a bit with people have lived here a long time of like saying, Hey, you know, we don't want we don't wanna create density. We don't want more people here, which right now, obviously, is quite a blessing, but in the long run is just not sustainable. So anyway, that's why I took from the end of the paper, which is not so obvious at all the unintended consequences could have on communities. Now get it right, Jenny, Michael, I don't know if I'm misquoting you or misrepresenting your work, please

 

Michael Connor  51:23

tell me I want to let Jenny have the last word. But mostly, I just want the first word. So that's why I'll jump in. But yeah, two things that resonated with me from what you guys said, One, Jeff and I both work on the journey to do a lot of work on identity and kind of how people define themselves how entrepreneurs defined themselves. So this is a thing to remember, I think, is this came up in both of what you guys said is, remember that this is personal. Right? So a big chunk of that paper, we're writing about saying like this is actually like an important personal process for these people that are making rebuilding decisions. And what we found was that this is, like important to people, even to just have the option to consider restarting, even if they don't restart is an important thing. So you know, to stay stray away from or stay away from this idea of like, Hey, we should be thinking about, it's just business. It's not personal, it is personal. It's really personal for people, especially people that are struggling and their businesses are hurting. And then the other thing that I heard that resonated with me was sort of thinking about some of these bigger things we talked about in the paper, sort of manmade slow moving disasters we talked about this is with no advanced knowledge, there was going to be a pandemic, but things like you know, climate change, inequality, poverty, those kinds of things, and saying, you know, how, how can we look at those disasters that are sort of slow moving, and the thing that really occurred to me in the last week or so is, wow, that stuff is really going to get a lot worse. Inequality for example, like that, that's going to grow after this right. And so how should we be thinking about our businesses as entrepreneurs? And how should we be thinking about as community leaders, the kind of businesses we want to encourage Tom Lumpkin and Sophie Bach just wrote a really cool paper on creating civic wealth they called it which is sort of this holistic idea of how do entrepreneurs or how can businesses create value for their communities in a holistic way, money, community, social interaction, environmental responsibility, all those things? So those are the things that kind of came out to me as we should be thinking about these things more than ever. You're

 

Brad Werner  53:34

right. I think you're right. What do you think, Johnny?

 

Jenny Dinger  53:38

You know, last night, I think the encouraging thing to kind of what Jeff was talking about is that the role identity of being an entrepreneur, what we saw in the communities that we studied, was that being an entrepreneur became almost synonymous with like community hero. And so entrepreneurship was elevated as this very positive thing for everyone in the community and the effects of it, that, you know, kind of went out from there. And we did see that new entrepreneurs, so aspiring entrepreneurs, young professionals, who opted into the group took on that role identity. And so the positive impacts of the disaster played out and I think that we're going to see that in this as well, because, you know, even what Michael said, you know, the Indiana design sprint last weekend, there were so many students involved. And this provided them the opportunity to see that innovation can create solutions that really matter. For the community overall, yes, you can make money from these, but you can also do things that matter. And I think that that's gonna, you know, have a ripple effect moving forward, which is exciting. Perfect.

 

Brad Werner  54:50

Thank you, folks, both for being here today. I think that we shed a lot of light on kind of our current situation and hopefully we can have you back when we get the all clear to walk outside again, and to see how it's progressing.

 

Jeff York  55:03

Yeah, here here, it's wonderful to see you guys even if it's just, just virtually, thank you so much for joining us. It's great to see you as always Brad, I look forward to returning to our field trips. If this is your first listen to creative distillation, we have four previous episodes, we will continue producing them. Throughout our stay at home quarantine, we're gonna be looking to seek further into the entrepreneurship research and lessons we can learn and move forward. So if you're listening out there, stay safe, stay well, and hang in there. This too shall pass and we will see a new day for entrepreneurship in the world.

 

Brad Werner  55:42

Thank you for listening. Yeah, and let us know your thoughts. Yes, please. And if there's something that some of our listeners would like to have us address, look at our page on Spotify, Apple or wherever you're getting these podcasts. Shoot us a note and we'll try our best to address your concerns as well.

 

Jeff York  55:56

Thank you, Jenny and Michael again. We

 

55:58

really appreciate it.

 

Jenny Dinger  55:58

Thank you.

 

Michael Connor  55:59

Thanks, guys. Take care.