I’ve noticed a trend in our generation (the subset between Generation X and Y, The MTV Generation): two jobs. Almost everyone I work with and everyone in my family has two jobs. I have two jobs and even my wife has two jobs [Edit: She had two jobs before having kids, now she has one paying job.]. Why is this? Aren’t we supposed to be doing better than our parents? Therein lies the answer, I propose. Our generation expects to live like the generation before it, in the way they’ve grown used to: immediately. Everything is immediate in our generation: Microwave dinners; CDs instead of Tapes (DVDs instead of VHS – learn how to do DVD conversion) mean no waiting for the next song, just skip; and of course, the Internet. All of this leads to wanting to instantly have what we had while living with our parents (Generation Jones – Gen X). To get this we either have to work two jobs or max out our credit (usually both). If you have noticed this trend too, let me know.
Does it feel like the generations are getting smaller, or at least the names for the generations are getting named more often? A generation is generally defined as 20-30 years as this is the time it takes one person to grow up and have a new family. After Generation X (1961-1981) the names for generations began to take off. First there was Generation Y (1976-1997). In general, Generation Y is the offspring of Generation X, but since Generation X and Generation Y overlap by five years, both my older brother and I are both Generation X and Generation Y and our parents are part of neither generation. So what generation are my parents?
My parents are Baby Boomers (1946-1964). Generation X, also known as Echo Boomers, Cold War Generation, or Baby Busters, is the offspring of Baby Boomers so by definition my brother and I are from Generation X even though we fall into the potential range of Generation Y. Because our parents were Baby Boomers (the 12th Generation of Americans), we are by default, Generation X (the 13th Generation of Americans). But if I am definitively Generation X, and by definition my children are Generation Y (1976-1997), I had my children seven years too late. So what generation are they and what went wrong?
They are officially Generation Z (2001-2???). Did we skip a generation? Yes and no. To answer this question, we need to defined sub-generations. These are much more specific and this chart does a great job of explaining it. I am a member of either the Baby Busters (1960-1981) who are defined by experiencing Vietnam War/Cold War or a member of the MTV Generation / Boomerang Generation (1974-1985) defined by the Rise of Mass Media/End of the Cold War. Being that those generations overlap by 4 years, I am going to go with the MTV Generation because culturally, that is what I identify most with. What then, is the sub-generation of my parents?
Even though my parents could be considered Baby Boomers, they themselves have never identified with that generation and so I think them better fit to be in Generation Jones (1951-1971) and within the sub-generation called Beat Generation. Beats are considered the first modern sub-culture, but my parents were not “Beats”. They are simply the lost generation between Baby Boomers and Generation Xers which probably highlights why I feel lost between Generation X and Generation Y. My children’s generation will probably be more defined due to better tracking with technology such as the Internet and the World Wide Web.
People at the top of every profession share one quality — they get things done. This ability supercedes intelligence, talent, and connections in determining the size of your salary and the speed of your advancement.
Despite the simplicity of this concept there is a perpetual shortage of people who excel at getting results. The action habit — the habit of putting ideas into action now — is essential to getting things done. Here are 7 ways you can grow the action habit:
1. Don’t wait until conditions are perfect – If you’re waiting to start until conditions are perfect, you probably never will. There will always be something that isn’t quite right. Either the timing is off, the market is down, or there’s too much competition. In the real world there is no perfect time to start. You have to take action and deal with problems as they arise. The best time to start was last year. The second best time is right now.
2. Be a doer – Practice doing things rather than thinking about them. Do you want to start exercising? Do you have a great idea to pitch your boss? Do it today. The longer an idea sits in your head without being acted on, the weaker it becomes. After a few days the details gets hazy. After a week it’s forgotten completely. By becoming a doer you’ll get more done and stimulate new ideas in the process.
3. Remember that ideas alone don’t bring success – Ideas are important, but they’re only valuable after they’ve been implemented. One average idea that’s been put into action is more valuable than a dozen brilliant ideas that you’re saving for “some other day” or the “right opportunity”. If you have an idea the you really believe in, do something about it. Unless you take action it will never go anywhere.
4. Use action to cure fear – Have you ever noticed that the most difficult part of public speaking is waiting for your turn to speak? Even professional speakers and actors experience pre-performance anxiety. Once they get started the fear disappears. Action is the best cure for fear. The most difficult time to take action is the very first time. After the ball is rolling, you’ll build confidence and things will keep getting easier. Kill fear by taking action and build on that confidence.
5. Start your creative engine mechanically – One of the biggest misconceptions about creative work is that it can only be done when inspiration strikes. If you wait for inspiration to slap you in the face, your work sessions will be few and far between. Instead of waiting, start your creative motor mechanically. If you need to write something, force yourself to sit down and write. Put pen to paper. Brainstorm. Doodle. By moving your hands you’ll stimulate the flow of ideas and inspire yourself.
6. Think in terms of now – Focus on what you can do in the present moment. Don’t worry about what you should have done last week or what you might be able to do tomorrow. The only time you can affect is the present. If you speculate too much about the past or the future you won’t get anything done. Tomorrow or next week frequently turns into never. As Ben Franklin said, “Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today.”
7. Get down to business immediately – It’s common practice for people to socialize and make small talk at the beginning of meetings. The same is true for individual workers. How often do you check email or RSS feeds before doing any real work? These distractions will cost you serious time if you don’t bypass them and get down to business immediately. By becoming someone who gets to the point you’ll be more productive and people will look to you as a leader.
It takes courage to take action without instructions from the person in charge. Perhaps that’s why initiative is a rare quality that’s coveted by managers and executives everywhere. Seize the initiative. Be a crusader. When you have a good idea, start implementing it without being told. Once people see you’re serious about getting things done they’ll want to join in. The people at the top don’t have anyone telling them what to do. If you want to join them, you should get used to acting independently.
As the number of movies Kevin Bacon does narrows down, the new “Kevin Bacon” appears to be Owen Wilson. Owen is found at the center of so many influential Hollywood movies, that he is connected to every other person in Hollywood in six degrees or less, making Owen Wilson, the new Kevin Bacon.
For more on Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, visit Wikipedia.
A Review of the Tim Harford Article in WIRED 16.02
“In theory, technology should allow new-economy firms to prosper as easily in [Indiana] as in Silicon Vally. But far from killing distance, it has made proximity matter more than ever.” – Tim Harford, “You’ve Got Mail”
Harford writes how technology was supposed to level the playing field. It wasn’t supposed to matter whether you were in your office or at home, in the middle of Iowa or in lower Manhattan–but that’s not what happened. He references American Economic Review who found that most commercial innovations still reside in only three areas: California, New York/New Jersey, and Massachusetts. Indiana has been bleeding cash building up fiber optic networks and technology parks in counties all over the state. Will it make a difference?
Harford goes on to suggest that technology hasn’t allowed us to be farther apart–and yet still stay successful. Those who are more successful use technology to better communicate with the people closest in proximity to them. For example, the most productive workers are the ones emailing the guy in the cubicle next to them. Their also the ones who use tools to “meet up” with others based on cell phone proximity alert services. Face-to-face meetings are where ideas best come forward.
It could be said that by the Law of Averages, the greatest number of innovations should come from the areas of highest population, but there is something else going on here. The whole idea of communication via technology, whether that be by email, cell phones, social networking sites, mash-ups, or whatever, its people on the other end. People are social by nature. Facial recognition is built into our DNA. We need human contact. Use technology to get more human contact, and in so doing, be more successful.
When I first got into web design, I didn’t even know what SEO was, let alone stood for. If you’ve stumbled upon this article you might already know that it stands for search engine optimization. This refers to the process of improving search engine results, which leads to our next SEO term, SERPs. SERP refers to search engine results page(s). The number your site is on that SERP is your PR or page rank. When the term is smashed together with no space it is a Google registered trademark. You might also see the term PR5 or PR4. Search engines give greater credibility to sites with links from PR1-PR5 websites. PR, as noted before stands for page rank and the number indicates the rank on that page (1-10). A PR1 website is the number one website for a given search term, for example.
If you choose to get help on your Internet marketing, how do you decide which SEO firm to go with? Erich Stauffer, an Indianapolis SEO firm writes that, “web design built around search engine optimization,” is something to look for in a SEO firm. SEO is more than just in-bound links. The website has to have good content and a good structure. Are you using H1 tags on every page? Strong tags instead of bold? Are you adequately using your description and keyword meta tags? Are you using tables or DIV tags to organize your information? Can your web page be viewed on a mobile device? Have you submitted your website to ODP? If you do nothing else, please do this last step as the ODP, the Open Directory Project, is the most important step in your SEO or Internet marketing campaign.
So many major advances in automobile technology will come to market in 2010 that I started calling it the Year of the New Automobile. 102 years since the first Ford Model T rolled off the assembly line the internal combustion engine is finally on the way out. Nissan is releasing an all electric vehicle. Toyota is to sell a plug-in hybrid vehicle (PEHV) with next-generation lithium-ion batteries. The Prius is said to have solar panels by 2009. Volkswagon is releasing a vehicle with a 1-liter engine that gets 235 MPG. GM plans to make the Volt in 2010, which is an electric vehicle with a gasoline generator on-board. Audi is making a hybrid SUV beginning in 2010 called the Q7. France-based Zero Pollution Motors is releasing an air-powered car in the US called Breeze. 2010 also shows the return of the Camaro with GM‘s new 6-speed transmission. For all these reasons, I believe 2010 is the Year of the New Automobile.
So when was the Year of the Automobile? TIME magazine reported in 1934 that 1933 was the original Year of the Automobile. This was because, “in 1933 the automobile industry … fashioned some 2,040,000 cars, 42% above 1932. Its sales not only bulged in May and June when all industries were booming, but afterwards, when other industries felt a reaction, it continued making headway. In darkest November it did 108% more business than in November 1932.” Sales of alternative fuel vehicles rose to over 1.7 million in 2007. Hyundai’s Dr Sungho Lee predicted in June 2008 that the cost of running gas-powered vehicles will double by 2010 and zero-emission fuel cell vehicles could be commercially available within five to ten years. The future looks bright for alternative automobile technologies, especially in 2010 and on.
UPDATE: Honda is bringing the Insight back to the U.S. as a 2010 model for an MSRP of $18,500. The Insight is rumored to get over 70 miles per gallon.
I’m in Kokomo, IN this week, at a branch just off of US 31. I drove by this branch on the way to Niles, MI back in 1999 on the way to Michiana Christian Service Camp. The camp cook often visited a past family member at the graveyard just down the street from my home at the time in Franklin, IN. The son of the camp director left at the end of the summer to attend Milligan College in Tennessee. The next year, I’d leave Kentucky Christian College for Milligan College with my friend, Ben. By then, the camp director’s son had left.
While at Milligan College (read about my time at Milligan College here), I visited friends from Kentucky Christian College now attending Ball State University in Muncie, IN, Jason and Derek. The next semester I moved to Muncie and roomed with Jason and Derek in Jason’s home. I tried applying for a job at First Merchants Bank, but they were closed on Martin Luther King Day. I opened a free checking account at Old National Bank. Two months later Jason got a job there and married Krista. Derek and I had to move out into our own apartment. In June of 2001 I drove through Tipton, IN on my way to meet my brother in Lafayette, IN. He worked for Purdue University. That same month Derek began working for Old National too. The next month, I met my future wife in Tipton and also began working for Old National.
That August I began school at Ball State. By mid-semester, Derek met his future wife, Shannon. In December Jason, Derek, and I were given the choice to be laid off or transferred to Indianapolis. Our plant was closing down in Muncie. Jason left Old National for First Merchants Bank. Derek stayed in Muncie and got laid off. I stayed with Old National and moved to Indianapolis, transferring to IUPUI. There I worked with my roommate from Milligan, Ben. I also met Jake, who left to attend Purdue. I visited Jake a year later in Lafayette. He had just met a girl the night before, who he later married.
Ben left Old National in 2004 after a lawn mower accident cut off part of one of his fingers. Derek later moved to Indianapolis with his wife, Shannon, and began teaching. He works part-time for Old National in the evenings. In June of 2007 I left Old National Bank and in June of 2008 I began working for First Merchants Bank with Jason, which brings me back to why I’m sitting in a branch in Kokomo on the edge of US 31, where I passed 9 years prior, on my way to Michigan.
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.”
I was reading an article in WIRED magazine about Open-Source Hardware and how it is the newest trend to hit the open source market. It was mostly about the Arduino circuit boards, but towards the end began to mention David Rowe. I hadn’t remembered hearing his name before, but thought I may have used his products or been introduced to them in the past. A quick Google search and I am staring at this minimalist, humble-as-pie, mac daddy of projects. Check out this list:
Current Projects
Free Telephony Project: Free (as in speech) hardware and software for embedded telephony. My particular interest is using this technology to help people in the developing world through low cost community owned telephone networks.
The Mesh Potato: The Mesh Potato is a 802.11bg mesh router with a single FXS port. Adjacent mesh potatoes automatically form a peer-peer network, relaying telephone calls through a community without land lines or cell phone towers. The Mesh Potato is designed using open hardware and open software and is part of the Village Telco project.
Open Source Line Echo Canceler: A popular high quality line echo canceler for Asterisk that is free as in speech. Works with any Zaptel-compatible hardware, from humble X100Ps to multiple PRIs. Removes the need for expensive “hardware” echo cancellation.
Electric Car: I have converted a Daihatsu Charade to run purely on electricity. Estimated range of 50km, 130 km/hr top speed, 144V at 300A peak, and no more fuel bills ever again! Here is the evalbum entry and some slides from a presentation I made at Linux SA.
Peak Oil: I spend a lot of time researching this subject. IMHO the biggest challenge facing the world today – bigger than climate change.
Previous and Inactive Projects
I don’t have the time for these right now but would love to see them move forward – please contact me if you are interested.
WiSPCaR: Wifi Station Power Controller And Reporter. A PIC micro-controller gadget using to monitor solar powered remote Wifi stations. Parts cost is around $2!
Low Cost IT for The Blind: The Louder Router is a $200 talking computer for the blind, built around free software and commodity routers.
$10 ATA Project: Cheap telephony for the developing world using a novel $10 Analog Telephone Adapter (ATA) design and commodity routers.
gEDA gschem/PCB: Perl Scripts for the free gEDA/PCB CAD tools, e.g. automatic updating of PCB footprints, and improved component dragging.
This list inspired me to coin the term, “Stud in Geekdom”. Geeks who read this understand that this a) not easy stuff, b) is beneficial and useful, and c) varies in specialties, something that not everyone can do. Every once in a while I run across people like this and from now on I will start to track them as Studs in Geekdom.
If anyone has anyone, guy or girl, they would like to recommend for this honor, please post it in the comments.
“In theory, technology should allow new-economy firms to prosper as easily in [Indiana] as in Silicon Vally. But far from killing distance, it has made proximity matter more than ever.” – Tim Harford, “You’ve Got Mail”
I have two reasons why I think this site tanked:
