How To Win In The Midwest

This is a show that will tell the stories of success for the Midwest. The modern media landscape loves to talk about outliers. The unicorns. The world-ending supernovas. Companies that have global impact. But the reality is that our lives are more frequently impacted by companies in our own backyards. The formula to win in New York or San Francisco might not be the same formula to win in Cincinnati, Milwaukee, or Nashville. The playbook for success in the Midwest, The Heartland, is mostly unique to the region.  Unfortunately, it's not well studied. Harvard Business School doesn't write a lot of case studies about tool and die shops in Dayton, Ohio. We don’t have New York Times best selling books being written about the companies that employ our families and friends. And we don’t even have a business journal of record that covers anything other than new real estate projects - no offense to those publications.  But these companies are worth studying because the Midwest isn't going anywhere. In fact, the Midwest is the beating heart of our country. Many of the companies located here have an outsized impact on our global economy and have more impact that a lot of buzzier names on the coasts. And while the Midwest has had some tough times, everyone knows that those don't last, but tough people do. And so do tough lessons.  So we want to study them, track them, dissect them, and find ways to put these lessons into action. We are going to study success stories in business and culture and who and what makes them work so well. We will answer questions like What's the story behind this enduring ice cream brand that's been around for 156 years? Why does that bank with a funny name seem to be everywhere and what makes them so successful? And why does the local orchestra proliferate and seem to own every concert venue in town and much more? We are writing a new playbook for how to win in the Midwest.