From lab to marketplace
Malcolm McCulloch is one of a growing number of UK academics who are using the services of a technology transfer company to get their inventions off the drawing board and into our homes
Before you quit the day job
Moonlighting is a sensible way to set up a business during a recession, according to the founder of Notonthehighstreet.com, Holly Tucker, who for more than a year ran a company while working for someone else
Bosses are a bad idea
There are no managers or employees at the high-tech materials company WL Gore ? only "associates". "It's a very chaotic environment," says Terri Kelly, chief executive officer, with pride
Work worth waking up for
Tired of the daily grind? Rhymer Rigby hears from people who have turned their hobbies, pastimes and passions into full-time careers
A woman of two styles
The head of GE in northern Europe mixes French idealism and US-style management
From the dump to the pump
A UK company is using landfill waste to run trucks for less than the price of diesel
Worst times can be the best
A crisis creates an external rationale to make unpopular but necessary changes. In a downturn, investors and boards are more forgiving of short-term earnings dips that might result from actions to improve the organisation in the long term, writes Donald Sull
Play the home advantage
From shoes to scientific instruments, smart companies are using their local strengths to compete against formidable global rivals
View from the Top
Allan Cook, chief executive of Cobham, the UK aerospace and defence company, on the impact of government budgetary pressures and why the financial crisis may help solve a skills shortage
Flexible working saves jobs and trims fat
The final part of a series on managing in a downturn looks at new work practices
Salesmen sitting pretty
After selling their first venture, two friends are putting the 'up' into upholstery online
Direct line to Japanese growth
After four years, Acrodea's software runs on almost every new mobile in the country
Identity revealed in the palm of one hand
Biometric systems are preventing both accidents and imposters
On the playing fields of Bangkok
Many British private schools are opening overseas offshoots
Lunches that make for better afternoons
From photography to sheep shearing, using meal breaks well can bring benefits


qualified to teach it.

Upon graduation from college my first basketball coaching position. was at the middle school level and I found quickly that I needed more education.

During those formative years of my coaching I searched for as much help as I could get and found it from some of the most talented people of that era.

In the 1960’s, I fell in love with teaching basketball defense after reading a book entitled, “Mosquito Defense”, written by Al McGuire, Marquette University’s coach. I used his methods of swarming defense successfully for many years, at the junior high and then at the high school levels.

I worked hard at teaching myself how to coach basketball and each season I improved, but it was a slow process.

A few years later, and with some seasoning behind me, my journey to “teaching-coach” moved up a notch from just reading about basketball to becoming proactive--attending clinics, seminars and camps. Among the clinicians to whom I owe much of what I know about teaching defense was Bobby Knight. This was in the 70’s. Knight, at that time, was the acclaimed guru of defense. His approach to playing defense and how to teach it, was innovative and genius to this young coach from California. His man-to-man defense philosophy and techniques gave me the ability to teach individual defense and then be able to build this knowledge right into my team defense . What I learned from Coach Knight, combined with my early success with “Mosquito Defense”, enabled me to develop my own brand of defense and my “Giant Killer” defense emerged. Defense was to become my hallmark as a coach and later as an international consultant and lecturer.

These talented “mentors” inspired me to want to be more than just a successful
high school coach. I read what they wrote; took notes on what they had to say at coaching clinics; I participated as a coach in their camps; I even took my players and my small sons to listen to them speak, to attend the camps as players, and to watch their teams practice. None of these “mentors” knew my name or would remember me, but they influenced my early growth in becoming the teacher of the game into which I evolved.

Now I’m a basketball coaching mentor for others. Oh, certainly not like Bobby Knight, Abe Lemons, Pete Newell, or John Wooden. But, I bring my teaching DVD, e-Books, basketball coaches tutoring, monthly newsletter and more to a special niche market. My more than 50 years of basketball playing and coaching experience have been successful, by won-loss standards and in the number of coaches and players I’ve helped to develop all around the world.

My focus is on the niche market where new, aspiring coaches venture into the sport without much more of a clue than a 19 year old boy in California had in getting started. I work with these “newbie” basketball coaches, with coaches who have some experience but are still learning, and even with more experienced coaches looking for a splinter of information which might give them the help they need to get to the next level of basketball coaching success. I work with high school players, whose goal is to play college ball,and teach position specific skills to help them be successful. My goal—and my promise—to each coach or player I work with, is that I will take them to a higher level of teaching and playing than they were at when we got started together.

The role of the mentor is to teach and guide the student to a higher level of understanding and skill, no matter what the field of interest may be.

Are you looking for a higher level of success from where you are? Who is your mentor?

Coach Ronn Wyckoff has spent more than fifty years in basketball, as a player and coach. As an international consultant, his programs have reached hundreds of players and coaches around the world. In forty-plus years of coaching, he has coached from school levels to national teams, winning over 70%. Go to

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