Kansas City, Missouri. In this segment of the show, called the Sliver of Genius, we study people who have broken through and grown quickly and solidly. Neal Patterson has built this business into a leading healthcare software company. Starting from scratch in 1985, Cerner topped $150 million in sales in 1995. In 1998 FORTUNE Magazine named Cerner one of the best places to work in America.

• Be aware of trends.
• To grow your company, the best money to use is your own profits.
• Owning a business takes courage because you put yourself at risk.
• The sociology of business is the most difficult part.
• Don't make yourself the center of your thinking.
• Visualize the company 5-10 years down the road.
• Discounting can be dangerous.

• READ THE TRANSCRIPT: All the words of this show.
• GO TO SCHOOL: If you enroll in Small Business School, you can watch this show as well as learn from over 130 other entrepreneurs. It is all online. It requires DSL or cable connection with no firewalls. If you answer the questions in the teaching notes and study guide, you may qualify:
  • to get listed within your business type and within your state's listings,
  • to be profiled on a show (local or national),
  • to generate automatically a business plan for debt financing and/or a SCOR for equity financing,
  • to be listed within a Small Business Index, and
  • to qualify to be listed on the daily Small Business Index best of businesses within a business category.
• AT YOUR LOCAL COLLEGE: Check this list of schools (partial). Also, check for classes with your local Small Business Development Center, Chamber of Commerce, and Economic Development Commission.
• LOOK AT STEPS 1-8. Think about where you are and where you want to be.
• STUDY BUSINESSES BY TYPE.
• WATCH TV!To find out what is airing in your market, usually on your local PBS-member station, click here.

• CONTACT:
  Cerner
  2800 Rockcreek Pkwy
  Kansas City, MO 64117-2551
  Tel: 816-221-1024
  http://www.cerner.com/

In the Trenches : In this segment of the show, you meet the five who invented what some believe is "the right product at the right time." At idsoftware.com we read, "id Software is, by general acknowledgement, the coolest game shop in the world. Named for the instinctual part of the human psyche first identified by Freud, id’s software development team continues to make gaming history."