Last night I had a dream that I went to a restaurant with a couple of friends and we all ordered a strawberry cake pie. It was served in a “taco salad”-like pan with a friendship bread, cake-like base. The topping was similar to a strawberry pie, but the kind with strawberry glaze mixed in. That was our meal.
In the morning I called my friend on the way to work and he thought the idea was fantastic, but then he took it to the next level. He said, “Why not take strawberry cake mix, churn cold butter into it, and make that the crust instead.” BRILLIANT and DELICIOUS-sounding. I’ve got another friend who makes exceptional deserts (such as the 7-layer bar) who is going to do the testing.
Analyzing Facebook
During our conversation I had mentioned that I was so excited about the strawberry cake pie that I had posted it to Facebook first thing in the morning. This led to a discussion about a recent Facebook “analysis” I had done on this friend’s Facebook profile. I had noticed that his wall posts were down compared to a month ago so I mentioned that his Facebook wall posts were down 83% compared to last month. I hadn’t really done the analysis, but he thought I had, which made me think that Facebook is ripe for analysis.
A while back a different friend of mine did a quick study to find out how many wall posts one of his friends made before and after a point in time. He was able to go back through all of his wall posts to discover that, even though they had been Facebook friends, before the event there were no wall posts, but after the event, the wall posts were near-spam levels. The metric in that analysis was wall posts, which inspired me to use the same metric for what I call the Facebook Coefficient.
The Facebook Coefficient
The Facebook Coefficient is the number of wall posts you make compared to the number of wall posts received. This is a measure of your popularity on Facebook (or how big of a jerk you are, which a friend of mine pointed out). The coefficient takes into account the last time the user logged in, not counting incoming wall posts until after the user logs back in.
The coefficient can be computed manually, but would best be done by a Facebook App. I am a member of the Facebook Developers community, but I have yet to produce a Facebook app. This is in part because I never had a need to or an idea of what Facebook app to write. If you are a developer, feel free to use or adapt this idea. I would be interested in using it. For more ideas, check out this blog post about wanting Facebook Statistics.
What Facebook apps would you like to see? On May 19th, 2009 I posted about using Twitter as a business research tool. If you are a Facebook developer I would consider doing something similar. Here’s why: the following two wishes have been granted.
WISH there was a way to permanently hide any news feed info relating to those “What kind of blah blah are you” quizzes on facebook.
wish there was a way to opt out of getting messages from some people in facebook. Seems like whey need a spam filter.
But this one still has not:
wish there was a way to post PDFs in #Facebook messages…
So if you are a developer who wishes to develop a popularity app like The Facebook Coefficient, then you may have already developed Popularity. Popularity is a, “fun and rewarding ranking game that calculates how interactive people are with Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube and Flickr,” but when you try to use it on Facebook it errors out and says
There are still a few kinks Facebook and the makers of Popularity are trying to iron out. We appreciate your patience as we try to fix these issues. Your problem has been logged – if it persists, please come back in a few days. Thanks!
You may have heard the expression, “There is no such thing as competition.” No matter how good of an idea you have, if you can’t execute it, then it is not worth much. Execution is really the name of the game and whether you are baking a strawberry cake pie or a Facebook app, you must deliver the goods – otherwise, it’s just a half-baked idea.
We have gone through several changes in the last year including a major facelift, a name change, an identity crisis, and now a new way forward. It’s time we stop managing our thoughts and start to manage our actions.
Zac and I are passionate about life and we want to help you become more of a success than you already are. If you’re reading this article right now you have already chosen the first step in learning more about yourself, your purpose, and your life.
We want to inspire you, motivate you, and lift you up so that you can go do whatever it is that makes you feel strong. Be better tomorrow than you were today. Move up in the world. Get exited about life. Find your spirit and develop it.
Thank you for reading Managing Actions. We are glad that you are a part of our life and look forward to bringing you great content for a long time. Cheers.
Occasionally, you should take time out to stop and evaluate why you are doing the things that you are doing. Slow down to think if what you’re doing is the best idea or not. Brainstorm with pen and paper (yes, actually grab a pad of paper and a pencil). The best ideas come by brainstorming, which provides an opportunity to evaluate your productivity, your methodology, and your overall goal. Brainstorming brings diversity of knowledge and perspectives effective for a more forward looking career. Brainstorming is a great activity, but it’s also good to talk to someone about what you are doing, in order to help establish the purpose.
Mentor Review
Take someone you admire out to lunch and pick their brain. Tell them about what you are doing to get feedback from them. Write down their responses, whether you believe them or not, and thank them for their time. Make sure you pay for their meal. Successful people like to share what they know (that’s why I have this blog) so don’t be afraid to ask them.
Technology Review
Also, keep yourself up on new technology and continue educating yourself to keep yourself alive and fresh. It’s easy to become stale no matter what business you’re in. Try to spend at least 2-3 hours a week just researching and finding new ideas. It’s hard to break away from the normal routine but brainstorming with new ideas is refreshing and can renew enthusiasm. This is part of innovation and entrepreneurship, which looks for innovations in changes in technology, among other things. It could be that the way you have been doing things is no longer relevant at worst or at the very least, no longer efficient. Ask yourself the following four questions:
1. Is there any new technology I could be using? — Technology may have become more efficient since you first developed your original time-saving method. Relying on an old template could be costing you time and money.
2. Have I learned any new ideas lately that I need to apply here? — You may have acquired some new skills or read about some new ideas that will handle your project even better than the time-saving technique that you are using now.
3. Are there new requirements that mean that I need to review this process? — The client may have updated his or her requirements for their projects. Using your old template or time-saving tools may not meet the client’s newest requirements.
4. Are there any other new tools I could be using? — There may be new tools or resources available to do the work that weren’t originally available when you developed your template.
Personal Brainstorming
At least once a month I block off an hour to go into a dark room and just wait for ideas to come. I don’t anticipate thinking about any one thing, but there is something about the pitch black silence that allows great ideas to surface. I’ve had many revelations, not just about business or problem solving, but figuring out why I thought certain ways about certain things. It’s a chance to re-evaluate all aspects of your life and help you determine your purpose in life or in process.
CollegeClub.com was registered on April 4, 1996 and by 2000 had around 3 million registered users. I was one of those users who used it to find friends at other colleges online. On August 22, 2000, CollegeClub.com announced bankruptcy and said it would be acquired by Student Advantage, an Internet educational content and commerce specialist, for $7 million in cash and 1.5 million shares of its stock. Almost exactly three years later, in August of 2003, MySpace.com launched. Less than a year after that Facebook.com began as a social network for colleges on February 4, 2004, but eventually opened up to the general public on September 26, 2006. What happened to College Club? What made it different from Myspace or Facebook?
Why did MySpace and Facebook succeed when CollegeClub failed?
All of a sudden what seemed so hard for CollegeClub.com to do seemed easy for others. Was it the curse of the “first to market first to fail” concept that’s befell such greats as Palm, Netscape, and Tivo? Or was it something else? EDIT: since writing this initially in September of 2009, MySpace may not be the best comparison, but Facebook is still doing just fine. 11/4/2011.
CollegeClub.com’s Business Model
Lets take a look at the business model. CollegeClub.com allowed users to sign up for free, create profiles, communicate with each other, and post pictures online. Once it attracted a certain number of users, the site was then able to sells advertising to businesses looking to sell to this highly impressionable market with loads of free time and disposable income. Marketers know that if they can hook a customer in college, they may have them for life. Both MySpace.com and Facebook.com used this same model so why did CollegeClub.com fail?
CollegeClub.com was getting funding at the tune of $15 million from a group of investors that included Convergence Partners and France-based Viventures as well as $40 million from Seligman Technology Group via the group’s investment fund and additional money from previous investors Convergence and Sony. Later deals included partnerships with Ericsson and General Motors, with a planned IPO in the offing. The old addage of “it takes money to make money” wasn’t making CollegeClub.com any money. Why?
I have two reasons why I think this site tanked:
The first reason is bad management and the second reason is the high cost of technology at the time.
Infoworld said at the time, “While one source close to the company traces the financial difficulties to some unorthodox spending practices by management, [new owner, Student Advantage] said it believes that problems stemmed from the nature of the site’s business model.” I think Student Advantage was wrong. We now know there was nothing wrong with their business model (because it worked for both Myspace and Facebook) and this next statement from Infoworld backs this up:
In the recent past, Student Advantage has shown less than stellar financial performance itself. Since the beginning of the year, the company’s stock price has plummeted from a high mark of just over $20 to its current price, which is hovering just above $7. In addition, Student Advantage has continually met analysts’ predictions of red ink, and the company has suggested that losses will continue throughout next year.
The company went from bad management to worse management – and technology costs were adding up.
“The business model works.” said Monte Brem, senior vice president of corporate development at CollegeClub in said in 2000 – and he was right – but he noted that with nearly 3 million users, the back-end costs for the site ran high and needed multiple rounds of financing for success. “It requires a tremendous amount of scaling to be profitable,” Brem added. And back then, scaling cost much more than it did in 2003 and 2004 for MySpace and Facebook respectively. Moore’s Law has two effects. Not only does technology double in speed or capacity each year, but the price almost always shrinks by half every two years. For example, a Pentium III desktop PC with 128 MB RAM and a 40 GB hard drive cost $1800.00 in 2000. In 2003, the price of a desktop had dropped below $1000 for over twice the power. Multiply that over all the equipment needed to run a large social network. In April, 2008 Facebook expanded the number of servers it uses to 10,000. The more CollegeClub.com added users, the more technology they had to add on back-end to support the load. Their revenue simply could not overcome their expenses.
So why did CollegeClub.com fail?
Primarily, it was ahead of its time. It had a good idea, but no one had really succeeded with it before. Bad management decisions were made and the implementation of the idea did not match up with the cost of the infrastructure at the time. Had they waited until 2002 to launch, they could have superseded either MySpace or Facebook, but there is another reason why they may never have made it: their name. Names like MySpace and Facebook are not associated with a specific group like CollegeClub.com is. Eventually CollegeClub.com started HighSchool.com to address this problem but even it has the same problem of locking it into a specific group. There were also privacy and age related problems on the site, much like MySpace ran into in 2006 and Facebook has ran into almost every year of it’s existence.
What can we learn from CollegeClub.com?
There are three things they could have done differently:
They didn’t pick a scalable name that was generic enough to be applied to almost anyone, anywhere. Sometimes it is good to be niche, but you take on more risk if you’re running your own equipment. Sometimes is pays to have a name that can be used broadly, even if you start off small within a specific niche.
Take the time to develop a good business plan and don’t be afraid to change the business plan as you go. Create metrics for success, track them, and change course if necessary. The businesses that are most successful are the most agile.
Avoid debt if possible when starting a business. It always catches up with you. And the more debt you have the less your’e able to (as in #1) scale or (as in #2) change course. One of the most important things in any business is cash flow.
When You Say Yes but Mean No: How Silencing Conflict Wrecks Relationships and Companies…and What You Can Do About It
“Saying yes when you really mean no” is a problem that haunts organizations from startups to big businesses. It exists across industries, levels, and functions and is inflamed by a sour economy, when the fear of losing your job is on everyone’s mind and the idea of allowing conflict to surface or disagreeing with others seems inherently risky. Too often, the conversation at work bespeaks harmony and togetherness, even though passionate disagreements exist beneath the surface. Is this what really happened to CollegeClub.com? Read the book to find out.
CollegeClub even had email by phone. It was pretty advanced for its time.
CollegeClub “The world’s largest college community” FREE E-mail you can also hear through the phone! FREE voicemail, with your own 800 number! FREE discount card! FREE Web page builder! TONS of ways to meet people like you! (Chat, Interest Groups, and more!) LOTS of other cool stuff! (Including online games and music videos!)
Suprise. CollegeClub is no longer offering free email.
In 2007, Alloy Media, owner of the CollegeClub.com trademark, discontinued the CollegeClub email service rendering all “@collegeclub.com” email addresses defunct. Their website (http://mail.collegeclub.com), simply said:
“Oops! Sorry about that! These CollegeClub applications are no longer in service.
If you are trying to access your old emails so that you can forward them on to another address, use this url: http://legacy.collegeclub.com/mail.
This Service will only be available until Friday, March 16th, 2007.
Here is what the email login screen last looked like in March, 2007:
CollegeClub.com Where Are You Now?
If you type ‘http://www.collegeclub.com‘ into your browser you will be taken to Teen.com, which is, according to their web site the, “ultimate online destination for teens on celebrities, entertainment, music, and fashion.” I think what they mean to say was that they are a ‘destination for teens’ that covers ‘celebrities’, not “teens on celebrities,” which has an entirely different meaning.
Teen.com is owned and operated by Alloy Media, LLC, which is a New York based media company that is partners with Alloy Marketing and Alloy Entertainment. Alloy Media also owns Channel One News, which most know is a 12 minute news program for teens broadcast via satellite to middle schools and high schools across the United States.
The Internet is not a friendly place. Things that don’t stay relevant don’t even get the luxury of leaving ruins. They disappear.” -Facebook’s Little Red Book
For those looking for other ex-CollegeClub.com members, check out ExCollegeClubbers. The ‘tribe’ is “for everyone who wants to meet new friends, but in particular for ex members of Collegeclub.com…It used to be cool like Tribe and we have all lost contact with each other. So non-ex members and ex- members alike are invited to join.”
There are many variations of the Law of Focus, but they all stem around a singleness of thought. In Jeremiah 32:39 The LORD says, “I will give them singleness of heart and action, so that they will always fear me for their own good and the good of their children after them.” It seems that God supports the idea of focus in order to achieve a desired outcome. Six Sigma mixes the Law of Focus in with Pareto’s Law stating that 20% of a process causes 80% of the waste. Six Sigma is about increasing efficiency, but I would like to introduce a Law of Focus that is based on three things: management, measurement, and value.
Management
Every manager managing a department worth his salt collects data of some sort. This data is usually associated with a predetermined metric of some sort. A metric is simply a measurement that can reliably compared to another measurement to allow for analysis. Analysis is in of itself the act of comparing one metric to another. The manager then uses these measurements to make decisions. How many errors were there last month versus this month? Why? Production was higher this month than last month? Why? What happened? How can we do this again?
Measurement
The manager can only manage what he or she is measuring. If you’ve ever had a boss that cracks down hard on dress code or attendance, he or she is probably not busy actually managing what Peter Drucker calls “social technology”. They are not innovating, they are only keeping the status quot. Innovating managers will look for differences in their analysis of the metrics, but they can only create an analysis if they have measurements to begin with. What you are not measuring you are not managing. Period.
Value
The last leg of this three-legged stool is the glue that holds it all together. For unless the manager cares about the measurement, he would not ask for it. And by default, what he or she is not asking to be measured, they are saying that they do not value it. Regardless or not if this is true, this is how your staff will perceive it. Have you ever noticed that once a metric begins to be measured, that metric naturally begins to improve over time? This is because the manager is bestowing value on the measurement by asking for it.
Summary
Measurement changes things. What you care about you will focus on. What you focus on, you will measure. And because you are measuring it, it will improve. This is the Law of Focus. I like the way Karl Moore put it, “Intention sets direction.” What you focus your intentions on will grow. These are universal truths that can help you in your business, your life, or both.
The “con” in con-man is short for confidence. Con-men are successful because they are confident. They “fake it until they make it” one might say. This same confidence can and is used by successful law-abiding citizens every day. What I am suggesting is that there is such a strong connection between success and confidence that once one enters the loop through solid work, the loop begins to feed itself.
Lets talk for a moment about what I have identified as the entry point, “solid work”. This is the preparation, the due diligence, the hard data gathering that backs up the confidence. Yes, you can “fake it until you make it”, but those who make it eventually create solid work to back up their confidence. Without it, the faking can only last so long.
Now, if you’ve heard or read Jim Collins talk about “the flywheel concept”, you can see how this kind of applies here. In the beginning, it takes more solid work to get your confidence up, but once you have it, the past successes will make you more confident. Confidence will then lead to more success, but if you don’t keep backing it up with solid work, the flywheel will eventually stop spinning.
Danielle Franklin of ForexExplore.com says that “Once you earn new experience, the confidence increases,” and I would have to agree. Whether you are in stocks, sales, teaching, politics, or management, managing your confidence-success loop is critical.
Last night I had a dream that I went to a restaurant with a couple of friends and we all ordered a strawberry cake pie. It was served in a “taco salad”-like pan with a friendship bread, cake-like base. The topping was similar to a strawberry pie, but the kind with strawberry glaze mixed in. That was our meal.
The Facebook Coefficient
I have two reasons why I think this site tanked:
The “con” in con-man is short for confidence. Con-men are successful because they are confident. They “fake it until they make it” one might say. This same confidence can and is used by successful law-abiding citizens every day. What I am suggesting is that there is such a strong connection between success and confidence that once one enters the loop through solid work, the loop begins to feed itself.