Educational Media Reviews Online

Planning for Aggressive Growth and Building a Management Team is a compilation of the first two episodes of the series “Studies in Scaling Startups: Driving and Managing Growth.” It is, in essence, two reverse PowerPoint presentations, an annotated series of interviews blending seamlessly from one to the next while collecting bullet points along the way. The film is aimed at the college market (and is labelled as such by the distributor), but it would work equally well in a public library collection geared towards the entrepreneur community.

The film comprises almost entirely interviews with upper management figures, founders of startups, and CEOs; these interviews are literally underscored by annotations that summarize and condense the points the interviewees make. The production values are excellent, with the annotations hitting at exactly the right time in the monologue to drive home the point. Perhaps more impressively, the film manages to create a seamless flow despite flitting from interview to interview, staying on each topic enough to illustrate it and then moving on to the next. By using the stories from the people who lived them, the film strongly underscores the points it is making far more effectively than merely talking about the concepts. In essence, the film is a series of mini-case studies with a front seat view. Each segment ends with a review screen summarizing the points made throughout. The only evident flaw is that some of the interviewees chose to cut away to advertisements while they continued a voiceover, a move which felt like bragging and somewhat undercut the educational focus.

This film is targeted specifically for the college classroom, with this version granting Public Performance Rights, and at 10 minutes a segment has the potential to be minimally disruptive and an excellent alternative to a standard lecture. The caveat is pricing—like most films in business, it carries a fairly substantial price tag per minute. Thus it might not be the best bet for the general collection absent a specific request from a professor who plans on using it, either as primary course materials or supplementary watching. However, if the budget allows or if one is looking to provide quality business materials in the collection, this would be an excellent choice. To sum it up: The plural of anecdote is not data, but the plural of anecdote can be “narrative,” which Planning for Aggressive Growth and Building a Management Team creates with style. This is a well-produced, engaging, and informative collection that, while packing a hefty price tag, would be an effective supplement to any course on management or entrepreneurship.