Gallup's CEO to State Governors: Train Entrepreneurs to Grow

"If you have the wrong premises, the more you lead, the worse you make the place."

That's how Gallup's Chairman and CEO, Jim Clifton, led off his address to the National Governor's Association this weekend, explaining why Gallup's founder George Gallup put his energy into uncovering the will of the people.

Clifton told the nation's governors that the new will of America is to have a good job. He went on to say that, in order to provide good jobs, states need to help train entrepreneurs to grow.

Specifically, he said there are 1.5 million small businesses that could create enough GDP to push the U.S. economy forward if leaders put the right engineering systems and policies in place.

"I think we're making a very big mistake betting all of our money on innovation," Clifton said."When we're trying to create jobs . . . the most valuable part of it is the business model and the entrepreneur that can fire it."

Clifton said the U.S. likely has an oversupply of invention at the moment, and that what leaders need to do is focus on the intellectual development of entrepreneurs, so that innovators find customers.

Watch the complete speech here.


Clifton's comments were based on Gallup's behavioral economic research and the work Gallup does with its Entrepreneur Acceleration System.  You can learn more here and in these articles:

• The All-Out War for Good Jobs
• Why Entrepreneurs Matter More Than Innovators
• High-Energy Workplaces Can Save America
• U.S. Students' Entrepreneurial Energy Waiting to Be Tapped
• Mentor Support Key to Starting a Business

To learn more about Gallup's entrepreneurship research or to become a sponsor, guide,
or participant in Gallup's Entrepreneurship Acceleration System, call us at 202-715-3030 or email EAS_Help@gallup.com.

Opinion Briefings on Egypt and More

While most Egyptians (79%) supported protests to overthrow former President Hosni Mubarak, a noticeably smaller majority (56%) support calls to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad in Syria and nearly half (46%) of Egyptians oppose NATO's intervention in Libya.

These findings lead our Opinion Briefing on Egyptians' Views of the Arab Spring, published on Gallup.com Wednesday morning. We also recently published Foreign Policy Opinion Briefings on the EU and Pakistan, and we are planning several more in the coming weeks, including reports on Iraq and Iran.

We timed the Opinion Briefing on Egypt with an event on the topic held at Gallup's World Headquarters in Washington, D.C. Gallup Senior Analyst Mohamed Younis presented  key findings from Egypt at "Inside Egypt: The Path Forward." The in-person briefing in Washington summarized the big picture around the wealth of findings on Egypt that we have reported on Gallup.com over the past year.

“While a  majority of Egyptians still say Mubarak’s overthrow will likely improve their lives in the future, inflation and unemployment continue to be the major concern of most Egyptian households,” Younis said.

Additionally, he presented to the following top findings:

• Despite recent challenges in the country’s transition, Egyptians are still optimistic that Mubarak’s overthrow will improve their lives.
• Confidence in the transparency of upcoming presidential elections remains high in Egypt.
• Most Egyptians believe SCAF will hand over power to a civilian government after the presidential elections.
• Islamists and liberals agree on issues of most immediate concern for Egyptian households.
• Skepticism regarding the United States’ support for democracy remains high.
• Attitudes on U.S. assistance mirror recent rhetoric on role of U.S. NGOs in the country.

You can access the complete presentation here.

"A lot of guests were surprised by the consistency on issues of major concern for Egyptians across political party lines. Whether it's supporters of the Nour Party, FJP, or the more secular and politically liberal Free Egyptians Party, all overwhelmingly cite the economic issues as top priority for the country and its political leaders,” Younis said after the event.

"Many guests were taken by the overwhelming opposition to U.S. economic aid in Egypt," Younis added. "I had a discussion with several Egypt experts after the event on how this sentiment is clearly reflected in the current discourse on the role of U.S.-funded NGOs in the country such as IRI and NDI."

The "Inside Egypt" briefing was the first in a series of events Gallup will host providing an in-depth look at key countries in the world today. Gallup will hold a similar briefing about China on March 27 and will hold briefings on Pakistan and India later in the year.

You can read much more about our Egypt stories here.  If you would like to sign up to receive future World News stories including Foreign Policy Opinion briefings or to be notified about future events, sign up for email alerts here.

Dramatic Swings -- And the Lack Thereof

Our readers count on us for empirical evidence about what is happening in the world. When other organizations claim that issue x is hurting candidate y, or that controversy is raging on a particular topic, they come to us to find out if it's true.

Our Gallup Daily tracking metrics are especially useful because we survey every day, before and after every single event in the news. Check out these recent reports from our Gallup Daily tracking:

• Rick Santorum surges 14-points in support among Republicans nationwide, from 16% to 30%, in the days after winning Colorado, Minnesota, and Missouri on Feb. 7.

• U.S. Economic Confidence surges to its highest level in a year, in the week after the U.S. government reported another downtick in the U.S. unemployment rate.

• Catholics' approval of Obama hardly budges during the headline-news making battle over whether religiously-affiliated organizations should have to pay for contraception as part of their employees’ health plans.  

These trends showcase the power of surveying Americans every single night.  We can scientifically measure within days whether a candidate gets a bounce from primary contests, the extent to which Americans react to an economic report, and whether every day Americans are as charged up about a particular issue as the media are.

As you compare polls, it's worth reminding our readers that Gallup's results are based on live telephone interviews and that we include a minimum of 400 cell phone respondents in every sample of 1,000.  Visit our FAQs to learn more about how Gallup polling works.

To get all of our stories as soon as they are published, sign up for Gallup news alerts and select "All Gallup Headlines" or the topic of your choice.

And as always, feel free to send us your questions and story ideas by posting comments on this blog or emailing us at gallup_news@gallup.com.

State of the States Schedule

It's State of the States time at Gallup.com, which is when we report state-level findings based on key Gallup Daily tracking metrics. We kicked off the series Tuesday, reporting on President Barack Obama's job approval rating by state.

The state-level findings help to reveal where Obama is, relatively, better positioned as we enter this presidential election year, and where he faces an even bigger challenge than he does nationwide. Our data, based on more than 179,000 interviews conducted in 2011, also reveal that Obama's approval rating declined in most states compared to 2010.

Over the next several weeks, we will continue to report state-level findings on several other key political, economic, and wellbeing metrics.

Here's the tentative schedule:
Thursday, Feb. 2: Political party identification by state
Friday, Feb. 3: Ideology by state
Monday, Feb. 6: Economic Confidence Index by state
Wednesday, Feb. 8: Job Creation Index by state
Friday, Feb. 10: Underemployment by state

Update:  Monday, Feb. 14: Government employment by state 

We'll follow this first round with another round of state-level findings on key wellbeing metrics, including obesity and health insurance rates by states.

Additionally, we're always interested in what our readers would like to see us explore at the state level.  Feel free to browse our daily tracking metrics to let us know if there are metrics on which you would like to see a state-level report.

The best way to make sure you get every state-level story as soon as it is published is to sign up for our email alerts and to select "All Gallup Headlines." Additionally, check out the Get Gallup News bar on our homepage for more ways to get the findings.