Talking business at Ball State

Gerry Dick, founder of Grow Indiana Media Ventures and producer of Inside Indiana Business, visited Ball State on March 1 to speak with students about innovation and entrepreneurship.

A Professionals in Residence series speaker, Dick shared the story of how he grew his own business and developed a television show. He expressed the importance of students developing their own skills and thinking of innovative ways to use them.

Dick got hooked on television after going on air during the blizzard of 1978 at a local news station in Terre Haute, where he was interning while a student at Indiana State. That brief experience showed Dick had on-air charisma and the station hired him to be the weekend weatherman. After graduation he moved to Channel 33 in Ft. Wayne and then spent 12 years at Channel 6, Indianapolis’s ABC affiliate, working primarily as a business reporter.

When a job at Eli Lilly came along, it forced Dick to think about his skills and what else he could do with them besides reporting on business news. The job at Eli Lilly fell through, but it became an opportunity for Dick to create his now popular business television program, Inside Indiana Business.

Dick used the skills he had developed through the years to design a program around what he knew- businesses in Indiana. In 1998, he went to the IU Kelly School of Business to ask if they would sponsor the television program. The program aired on channel 6 and on local PBS stations. Following the program’s coverage of the Eli Lilly CEO change, more stations across the state began to pick up the show.

Dick asked Steve Jones to partner with him and together they made the Inside Indiana Business more than just a TV show. Using the convergence model, which Dick compared to the ESPN model, the show is now on 16 TV stations, 27 radio stations, sends out two e-newsletters a day and has a fully interactive website.

Dick ended his visit with some last thoughts followed by questions from students. He emphasized the idea of branding yourself and knowing what you have to offer to a job. He reminded students to focus on collaboration and partnerships to help share content while extending their brand.

As a closing thought he proposed students create a niche for themselves. For Dick, business reporting was his niche but he suggested students work to find an area which best suits their skills and knowledge.