John Laurie

This case recounts the story of the start-up in 2015 of a food truck named Pokey O’s that sold ice cream and cookies in downtown Waco, Texas. The couple who owned the truck, Julia and Austin Meek, had a very successful beginning; but by the summer of 2018, they were considering several options for the restructuring of their business. One possibility was to move their business inside at a local downtown Hilton Hotel. Other possibilities were to take the truck out of operation for maintenance and then vary its location from downtown to some of the municipalities outside of the downtown area. They were also considering purchasing another food truck and leaving one downtown and the other floating between several suburban areas. The couple wondered about the sustainability of a dessert food truck that relied only upon one downtown location.

The Entrepreneur Interview is an exercise that allows students an extended one-on-one interaction with entrepreneurs. Through this, students have an opportunity to work on critical skills such as communication and articulation, writing and reflection and evaluation of their closely held beliefs of entrepreneurship. The exercise is a more robust alternative to guest speakers and gives the instructor a method of both reinforcing topics covered during the course of the class as well as exploring avenues of student interest during the post-interview/write-up class discussion.

The Entrepreneurial Readiness Survey and Self-Evaluation is a reflective exercise designed to enable students to recognize the wide variety of basic business skills necessary to not only start but manage and sustain their entrepreneurial venture. The exercise both informs students of these skills and asks them to rate their own competency in each area from low to high. Through the self-evaluation and the corresponding follow-up questions, students are able to determine skill areas that require improvement.

"Many cities have begun to view the use of municipal wireless internet (WiFi) as a means to enhance or spur economic
development efforts, while at the same time re-establishing the importance of the city as a necessary location. However, most cities engaged in these ventures – whether wholly municipal networks or public-private partnerships – have tended to focus on frontend benefits such as revenue generated by service subscribers as opposed to backend benefits, that save the city money by increasing efficiency. The results have been largely unsuccessful. Using post-Katrina New Orleans as a focus area, this article explores the concept of municipal WiFi, the reasons
for its failures, and also the future viability of such projects."

"Historic preservation has most often been thought of in terms of architecture and aesthetic appeal as opposed to a vehicle for economic development. Recently, it has been shown that a range of industries can be economically fortified by historic preservation. However, historic preservation has the capacity to do far more than just bring about positive economic outcomes in various industries. Using the cluster based economic development theory, this article will describe how a cohesive economic development effort, centered on historic preservation, can be an important part of a city’s economic development strategy. The article provides an overview of the tourism,
environmental management, housing, and film making sectors in conjunction with a cluster based approach. This focus demonstrates how this approach can help cities increase inward investment and move away from imitation and toward innovation."