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Demeter Exekutor
Stefani H 0:07
Welcome to another episode of creative distillation. Your hosts Jeff and Brad from the University of Colorado boulders lead School of Business, discuss entrepreneurship research while enjoying fine craft beverages. Previously on creative distillation, Brad and Jeff conducted field research at the burns pub, a truly authentic British public house. Located in Broomfield, Colorado. They tasted some fine whiskies and other spirits and had an illuminating conversation with founder Johnny OD. This time, Brad and Jeff are still at the burns, where Brad tricks Jeff into discussing his own research a first for creative distillation. Jeff tells us about an unpublished working paper that explores a public private partnership addressing climate change through entrepreneurship, right here in beautiful Boulder. Enjoy and cheers.
Jeff York 1:06
Welcome to Creative distillation, where we're gonna steal entrepreneurship, research and actionable insights. I'm your host, Jeff York, the research director at the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship at the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado Boulder, and I'm joined by my co host.
Jeff York 1:30
It is old school taking it back to the old school like Oh, fool, I love ya. So while two weeks have gone by, for you, people if you're listening to this regularly, mere minutes have gone by and Brad and I are now going to attempt to go back to the future here. We're going to do an old school version. If you've not listened to our original podcast, you really should go back and listen to episodes, one through 50 Odd something and give them five stars every time you listen to them. Because that actually really would help us out we'd appreciate it. Let's think about
Jeff York 2:04
Are we close that stuff? So if you want to hear how much improvement we've gone through, then don't listen to this episode. Go back and listen to the old ones. Because what we originally did, we started the podcast, the whole podcast was generated when our research director, the famous Eric Mueller, and by the way, I'm gonna continue with my Halloween actionable insight sounds just because you know, it's not Halloween yet for me. Although for you people listening, it's well after Halloween. Just Just bear with me. I love Halloween. I gotta I gotta keep it go. I gotta go. I gotta go. Thanks. I appreciate that Brett. And our famous Executive Director, our boss, the man who says, Brad don't cut so much on the podcast, says, Jeff, you know, you really should maybe not drink so much whiskey. Those kinds of
Jeff York 2:55
know it starts with I made one of my family members. Choice. feedback I got the feedback was actually helpful. Yeah, that was there was a very helpful we'd love any feedback Write to us at CDI guest at colorado edu. If you out there are researcher or not, and just want to come on the podcast. Or if you'd like whiskey, or if you like whiskey or beer, or if you're gonna have a pulse. Anyway, we started off this podcast, the famous Eric Mueller. We were sitting at a coffee shop, he said what would you guys actually be excited about doing for the very committed boys he has like Brad nuts. And I was like, you know, I'd like to do is I'd like to do a podcast where Brad and I go have a drink and talk about research. Because we had had several conversations, we weren't really good friends them. But we had some some really interesting conversations about like, you know, research where you would say that sounds like the biggest load of crap I've ever heard. And I would try to explain why it was useful. And then sometimes I'll convince you a little bit. And throughout the podcast, it's been the same pattern. Sometimes you're somewhat convinced sometimes not so much. And that's fine, you know, but the goal was to actually say, hey, what if we talked about research to someone who's not particularly interested in the research, other than what's useful about it? And that's what led to this. And so it's kind of cool. And I would be the guy doing it, then COVID happen? Yes. And we said, oh my gosh, it's much better if we have guests instead of Jeff, which I wholeheartedly agree with. But today, we're going to try an old school episode where it's just me defending a paper.
Brad 4:23
Let me ask you this as a research, I don't mean this. Yes. As a researcher, are you thinking that when I finish up when you when you guys should be writing research, or doing this? When you're considering research to do? Is the goal, the research to get published? Or to actually have an insight for someone like me that may be looking for it?
Jeff York 4:45
None of the above? What's the goal? The goal is for me, I don't think this is true for most researchers. The goal for me is, can I find something that I think is interesting that I could spend the next like, you know, two or three years There's like investigating and writing about. And then second is do I think it's actually important. So important to me is not necessarily defined by it's actionable for an entrepreneur, or it could be a broader question of policy, or understanding the emergence of an industry, or understanding why some people do some things, even if they're not particularly helpful to them. My goal is not really necessarily to help entrepreneurs do my research. It's more honestly to find things I think are interesting and important. That's really cool.
Brad 5:30
So you said a couple things that resonate with me. Number one, spending two or three years of my life, we've had people here 11 years plus Oh, no, I mean, that's in the best case scenario, right. And then, actually forgot my second insight here. Here's my here's my second question. So my question to you, Jeff, is you have written many, many papers. That is true. How many papers would you say that you've published? Approximately? Over 20? I mean, which is in a researchers career, that's a big number, correct?
Brad 6:03
haven't finished my question. Well, you, my enemy answering your first question, but I haven't have a second. Because they depends. Okay, so think so think about your lifetime body of work so far. Yeah. And is there one that resonates with you most, you said, Oh, my God, I discovered this or found this. And this really, maybe is impactful to me, but was really impactful to you?
Jeff York 6:34
Sure. Yeah. I mean, I have this paper called converging winds. That's about the wind energy industry in Colorado. It's in the Academy of Management Journal. I can't remember the year honestly. I mean, I'm not. I say things like that. I feel like I generally, like I've just written a lot of papers, I can't remember when they're published. And, and the thing is, you, as you've heard from many of the authors on this podcast, you the papers done, like about two years. But it took like eight years before that. And that paper means a lot to me, I just because I think it's a really important question of when and how do these environmentally relevant industries emerge? And how do they emerge? And what we find in that paper, that's the most interesting thing, to me that I think is really an important insight, and that I actually plan to write about at some point for a more practitioner orient book, practitioner Orient, people that aren't researchers book
Jeff York 7:33
it wasn't that environmental movement suddenly became right, or that the industry suddenly became like, economically viable. It was that the environmental movements realized how to use economic arguments for what they were trying to do. And that was well before wind energy was economically sustainable. And once they figured that out through this process of going back and forth and evolving over time, then they started to win and actually push for the industry. And what's really cool about this is like once that industry emerged a little bit through policy change, you have to have policy to support a lot of these industries, because market failure exists for a reason market failure is when we have negative externalities for an industry due to inappropriate regulation. That's just why there's multiple market failures. That's one. That is the reason we're our world is going to hell in a handbasket as far as climate change goes, unfortunately. So once that's captured, you create a influx of new entrepreneurs, new businesses. And once that happens, all sorts of other kinds of coverage happens in the press about this economic opportunity. And then you start to see more investment in these industries. And then you start to see more positive policies that are more carrot and stick based. And once you get that virtuous cycle going, this will happen in Colorado, those industries will take off and be self sufficient. That's really cool. To me. That's really cool. The other thing about that paper is, I wrote most of it or not most of it, but a lot of it when my dad was in the hospital. And I just remember writing it as like, frankly, escape from really hard time. And, you know, I think writing is a often overlooked part of our research. Yeah. So it's for me, it's simple. How
Jeff York 9:28
I don't think it's predictive. I think it's prescriptive. Okay. I've talked a lot about it. I actually presented it multiple, like energy kind of conferences and other places like that. And I think it tells you, I mean, that was 100%. I mean, you know, one thing about we're talking there's research, it's always directional. It's never it's never like this is the fact right. Anybody that comes on here and tells us I think I'll I think you would acknowledge I'll challenge them as much as I don't think we've ever had. Well, we've never had anybody that unthoughtful which is awesome, right? But I think it does tell you Like, what does it take to actually get these things going? And the broader kind of insight that I would say comes from that paper and a bunch of my overall work is that like, entrepreneurship, as a mechanism, and as an ideology, is extremely helpful for getting people past their politically infused divisions. It's really hard for people to not be in favor of creating new businesses and creating jobs talked about that a lot. Yeah, I haven't talked about my homework about you and I have talked, but that's the message like, I mean, and I think, I think environmental movements, and pro business movements do themselves a great disservice when they try to create these divisions between people. I think that's really true. A lot of the problems we have in this world in this particular instance, I think there is huge business opportunity and climate change, and, and you'll get critiqued for that by the left as well as the right and I'm fine with that. That makes I feel great when my student evaluations, half of them say like York is like a really left leaning liberal and is like trying to make us all do these things. And that people they're like York's to like pro market and you hit it right down. I'm like, great. Okay, perfect. I'm really happy when that happens. Right.