Marketing campaign focuses on Southeast during Entrepreneurship Week

After five years of hosting a Global Entrepreneurship Week, the staff at the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship has decided to take a different approach and focus on entrepreneurship at Southeast Missouri State University.

"It was [the executive director's] vision to show students we have accepted the challenge to accelerate creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship across campus," said Heather Holdman, project coordinator for the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

The event, Southeast's Entrepreneurship Week, will feature several speakers, including Glenn Campbell, the founder of LIDS, Mark Mullins, co-author of "Street Smart Disciplines of Successful People," and Charles Stamp Jr., an executive at Deere & Co. The staff wanted to provide the students with speakers from Southeast and Cape Girardeau. Dr. James Stapleton, the executive director for the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, said that this year's speakers will help give students a new perspective on entrepreneurship.

The center's staff has prepared for the week's events for the past year. This year a new marketing campaign also was implemented to show the students that the focus is now on Southeast.

Holdman believes that having local presenters will make it easier for students to relate to them.

"I think it gives them 'OK, well they have been here, they are experiencing everything that we're experiencing right now, and have gone on to be really, really successful entrepreneurs,'" Holdman said.

During the week, students will be able to attend events that range from the Extreme Entrepreneurship Tour, which consists of a series of entrepreneur speakers in their 20s, to Coffee with Entrepreneurs, which gives students the opportunity to speak with professional entrepreneurs one-on-one.

Stapleton said that one of the events that has been popular in past years is Coffee with Entrepreneurs.

"It's just a casual, informal, come get a cup of joe, grab a donut and meet some people who do interesting things," Stapleton said. "So I think that kind of atmosphere is interesting as well."

During the week students also will be able to attend a ceremony celebrating Southeast acquiring a new building on Broadway, which will become the new Creative Labs Incubator. The building will give students the opportunity to develop and design their own products and businesses. The renovations are expected to be completed by fall 2014.

Corrine Mueller, an intern for the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, said that she is excited to hear from the speakers.

"Every entrepreneurship week I look forward to because of the stories that come from it are one of kind," Mueller said. "It always makes it more interesting to hear first person than hearing it from a teacher or reading it out of a textbook."

Stapleton also wants students to be able to connect with other entrepreneurs throughout the week.

"One of the things that made the biggest difference for me as a young person and put me on the path of 15 years of entrepreneurial success was meeting a couple of people that could become mentors to me and then starting to meet other people who did entrepreneurial things," Stapleton said. "As simple as that sounds, it's a really important part of being successful in the entrepreneurial economy."

Holdman feels that the different events will benefit students because all of the activities directly relate to the theme of creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship.

Stapleton hopes that throughout the week students will learn that there are different paths to follow in comparison to the traditional path.

"It's one path is to come here, get a degree, go start working for other people," Stapleton said. "It's a different path to come here, get a degree and then get inspired about how to start to build a path to being independent. That's kind of what entrepreneurship is about."

The week is Sept. 24-28. A complete list of the week's events can be found on semo.edu.