I am in a love affair with Adobe Creative Suite. It’s true and I’m not even going to try and deny it. The software is just so useful! But it’s also so powerful and comprehensive that learning how to use it to its full potential is nearly impossible. That being said, I’m starting to get decent at it. At least I can make mock ups for graphic designers to work off of.
But I can honestly say I’ve got Flash Catalyst pretty much down! In fact, I just built my first real site for a few friends of mine attempting to start their own Non-Profit Organization, Educators For Change. The site is early in development and we need to pump it full of content, but I’m feeling good about it’s look.
Of course the project has a long ways to go with my next goal being a custom blog template for the project. I’m 90% done with the Adobe Illustrator mock up. Now just to learn PHP… Anyone want to help out?
In the Indiana Jones films, there is one scene that to me, sums up the greatest lesson any entrepreneur and business developer can master; building a successful product is very different from running a successful business. They may sound like the same thing, but in reality, they are very different.
The scene itself is the one where Indiana escapes with his father from a Zeppelin Air Ship via the escape plane. Like any good entrepreneur, Indiana, an intrepid and resourceful problem solver, sees the opportunity in front of him and dives headfirst into taking advantage of the opportunity. After all, having a first mover advantage is a major asset when trying to turn an idea/opportunity into a realization. It’s especially true when the opportunity is the chance to escape capture and not die. As expected, Indiana takes the plane, but when confronted by his surprised (and impressed) father about his piloting skills, Indiana quickly admits that he can, “Fly yes… Land no.”
Although starting a company and flying/landing a plane are very different skills, Indy’s famous words resonate all too well for many successful entrepreneurs: they can develop an idea, but they have great trouble managing the company after takeoff. It’s a situation all too familiar with a lot of great innovators.
Netflix, a product that I personally love has recently made itself a very public example of why entrepreneurs often make terrible business leaders. Yes the founders are a very smart group of innovators who obviously know how to start a business, but the fact is they are still entrepreneurs who live by the mantra, “fail often, fail soon.”
As a result of living by such a mantra, entrepreneurs tend to make radical changes in their products. In fact, it’s an understood part of a company’s lifecycle. Fledgling companies almost always go through huge changes as their core idea moves from “some crazy idea” to a validated and marketable product. In other words, the best entrepreneurs have the ability to not grow overly attached to any one idea, but rather, they can see opportunity in failure and change. What may seem like a phenomenal idea on paper often fails, but as a consequence of failing, that idea sparks a secondary idea that ends up changes the world. It’s called the Teflon Syndrom. That’s a hard concept for most people to comprehend, but that’s how many revolutionary innovations come to life.
Unfortunately, that “fail often, fail quickly” mantra is also a dangerous characteristic in regards to running an established business. What may have worked for an unknown company trying to make it doesn’t always translate well for established players. It’s like completely changing a TV show years after it’s become a classic. Think of I love Lucy turning into a drama. For all we know, it could have been a great TV drama (great actors, a good story line, etc), but the fact is, consumers would never accept it. People hate dramatic change. They especially dislike it when they feel the change comes out of greed.
And that’s where Netflix is today. They are run like a start-up, but they are anything but a start-up. Why do I say this? If you look at the numbers and think about what they are doing in a very business-model-entrepreneurial mindset, Netflix is doing something a lot of small companies end up doing. They are still finding out who they are. And for that reason, I don’t believe that Netflix has nailed its own coffin.
By splitting their streaming and mail delivery options (and potentially doubling the subscription price per user) they have only lost 1 million of their 25 million subscribers. That’s not a killer loss. As a strictly business issue, they could very well end up increasing their overall profitability. Their move is what entrepreneurs like to call a pain-threshold test; they are re-evaluating and validating their products and subscription prices.
It’s all basic economics. When your product is inexpensive, a lot of people will pay for it. The more expensive it is, the fewer people will pay for it. It’s really a simple supply and demand problem. At some point in between the extremes, a maximum profit point exist. Where that point is located exactly, that’s always ends up being an educated guess based on market research, testing, etc. Like I mentioned earlier, they are doing what all start-ups do; they are figuring out how much people will pay for their products. Unfortunately for them, their approach sucks and they will pay for it.
But that leaves another big question: why would they do something like this now? They have had years to play around with price testing. My guess is something major has changed within their revenue model; expenses. With the quick transition that television and film has seen from DVDs to streaming, everyone wants a bigger piece of the pie. And in that sense, Netflix is learning another lesson entrepreneurs often have to face, “Pioneers get slaughtered, Settlers prosper.” It’s especially true in the tech world where no one knows what’s going to be big, how much people will pay, etc.
Back when Netflix was getting started, media producers and distributors viewed streaming media as an afterthought, a secondary way to gain a little profit with little extra cost on their end. That being said, they didn’t make a huge deal out of making money off streaming media. Now that it’s clearly become a major means of media distribution, there is a lot of pressure to milk it for all its worth.
But that change is exactly why I’m not ready to call Netflix done. The fact is Netflix is better than the rest of its competitors. Furthermore, the changes in cost structure are not isolated to Netflix, they are industry wide. Unless media producers decide to pursue their own streaming solutions (can you imagine a world where you would have to use a different streaming service to watch shows for different networks?), every platform is going to face the issues Netflix is experiencing. In other words, don’t count Netflix as dead. Count them as overvalued because in my mind they still have the advantage over competitors. And that’s big.
Money doesn’t grow on trees. It’s something we all know. But it doesn’t mean that trees are a bad investment idea. In fact, the opposite is true. And in my experience wacky investment ideas are always worth a look.
A few days ago I was having a discussion about Japanese Maples. Why? I have no clue, but what started out as a conversation about trees quickly transitioned into a conversation about wacky retirement savings plans. Once again the question of why… I have no clue. Really. No clue. I honestly stopped asking that question a long time ago.
But regardless of the why, the conversation left a big question in my mind: could someone invest in Japanese Maples and beat the best of the best in the equity market? It’s an odd question to ask, but I like trees and anything I can do to make a tree look good… I’m going to do it.
So, without further interruptions… Introducing…
Brian’s Japanese Maple Retirement Plan
So let’s first look at the equity numbers. For a benchmark, I’ve researched two data sets. The first is the Dow annual return rate from 1968 to 2007. The second is the annual return rate of Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway Class A stock from the same period. Either way, the numbers are impressive. If you invested $2023 in the Dow in 1968 and pulled it out in 2007, you would theoretically have $109,431. That’s a 5,410% return. Sounds impressive, but compared to Buffet, it’s chunk change. For an investor that purchased $36 worth of Berkshire Hathaway stock in 1968, that share would be worth $141,600 in 2007. As for the total return, that’s 393,333% return. Impressive isn’t quite the word.
Now for the trees. Let’s assume we will be starting with seeds at a cost of 20 seeds for $4 dollars. Yes you can purchase seedlings for roughly $4-$5 per seedling, but like the equities, I’m looking at this as a full life cycle. That being said, let’s say that after planting supplies, each plant cost $5 per plant. No exactly a huge difference in cost.
This is where the plant investment really takes off. After just one year a seedling can be sold for $25! Give them two years and the price goes to $40 or at 4 years, the price climbs to $120 per plant. If we assume each plant cost $5 per year to grow (water, plant food, etc), that’s a $100 profit for each plant. In other words, if you have a spare acre of land (4000 square meters), the right climate, and the desire to grow trees, you can theoretically gross $400,000 in four years. That’s of course not including the cost of your time or the cost of selling them. For argument’s sake, let’s assume the grower sales their plants to a distributor for $20,000.
So a grower repeats this cycle 10 times over the same period of the equity investment. That leaves the grower a final gross revenue of $2,400,000 (4000 plants, $60 price, 10 sales cycles) and a total cost of $780,000 (4000 plants, $5/year/plant, 40 years). Do a little math and that’s a $1,620,000 profit or a 207% return.
If you are paying attention to the news, it’s pretty clear that the world’s economy is overall not looking so hot. Government debts have grown out of control, traditional industries are in chaos, and unemployment is high. In the United States, which in the past has weathered recent economic storms fairly well, it seems that everyone has their own solution to improving the economy. Not to be left out, I’ve got my own ideas. But before I introduce my idealistic solution, let me go through some basic facts about the current US Economy:
1) The Economy of past generations is no more. Yes we still live in a capitalistic-ish based economy, but unlike the economy of the WWII Generation or even the economy of the Baby-Boomers, we aren’t a manufacturing based economy anymore. The United States is now what economist call a service based economy. Think I’m off my rocker? In 1953, 23% of our economy was based on manufacturing. Today it’s roughly 12%. More important than the actual numbers is what the numbers represent: we aren’t numero uno in manufacturing anymore. Unlike the WWII generation, the world isn’t a mess of post World War I/II European economies nor is the Far East a economic afterthought. Instead, Europe and Asia are now economic juggernauts. In other words, the global economic landscape is not a one horse race anymore… it’s very much a multi-horse derby and the US Economy is not Secretariat.
2) Big Business does not equal jobs. In fact the opposite is true. In this year’s INC. Magazine’s 500, they open their article with a very sobering fact: From 2007 to 2010 (the worst period of the Great Recession), 488 of the top 500 honorees added 35,823 jobs. In contrast, the companies in the Fortune 500 deleted just over 820,000 jobs in spite of being profitable. What does that say? After hitting a certain point in company growth (the critical point), the limiting factor for further growth transitions from being human capital to being other capital investment (technology for instance). As these companies ultimately report to their stockholders, they basically perpetuate a top-heavy income growth trend. In other words, the rich get richer and everyone else get’s poorer. So get ready to party like it’s 1997! And no, it’s not because 1997 was way better; it’s because that’s where the median income has fallen.
3) We’re great at ignoring the truth. Take that however you like, but it’s true. We’re great at ignoring some very basic truths about economics. The primary truth we ignore? There is no such thing as a free lunch. We love free lunches such as having good schools, great healthcare, and huge militaries. But we don’t like to pay for it. To Americans, having a high standard of living has become a birthright, not a result of working hard and paying taxes. Once again, if you think I’m out of mind…
But don’t get overly concerned with the debt. I’m with Warren Buffet: I think the debt issue is important, but let’s face it, you have to spend money to make money. Anyway, the whole debt crisis a few months ago; you would have to be very gullible to believe that the US Government was not going to pass some sort of resolution.
What’s more important to me is how we spend money. I’m all for education, but from what I’ve seen from a lot of colleges, they are essentially pumping out “cheap” degrees. Notice how I did not say inexpensive degrees. I personally like the German System where education is based on teaching students concrete skills, not on making sure everyone has an undergraduate degree. From my personal experience, I know many people who would be much better off having never started/finished their “undergraduate” degree. Instead they should have attended a solid community college or other trade school.
So now that I’ve explained a few basic facts about the economy, what’s my solution? Well, it’s not concrete, but it is simple: justify government spending, stop cuddling the super rich/big business, and reward/fund small business. But most importantly, push overly dogmatic politics aside for the moment. If there has ever been a time in recent American history where our politicians need to leave their petty differences outside and work together on the big issues, this is it.
Business and society are funny things. We talk about the rapid pace of technological progress and how technology ultimately improves our lives (and businesses), but rarely do step away from our infatuation with technology and talk about what we lose as we continue to do things quicker, faster, and “better.” And that’s something we should do more often. Stepping away from technology for a few hours not only allows us to reflect on what we have achieved, but in my experience, it allows us to learn how to use technology better.
I was recently reminded of this while reading a blog post from Paul Gumbinner, a NYC based Executive Recruiter who often writes about advertising jobs, interviewing, and his experiences in the Madison Avenue Advertising World. I’ve sourced Paul a time or two for my post on Beyond Madison Avenueand I highly recommend reading his blog. It’s good stuff.
As a whole, we are technically more connected with each other today than in any period in history. But at the same time, I continuously find that we are much less personally connected. In fact, I often feel like we are quickly becoming almost impassive. Yes we email each other in what seems like a near constant stream of messages, participate in involved Twitter based conversations, and interact via social media, but less and less do we communicate via real personal interaction.
This is especially true in the business world where anonymous job posts are becoming what seems like the standard. As a result, we have become a society that seems to feel contacting potential employers via a phone call is rude. Furthermore when we do initiate a connection, interview with a potential employer, or even ask for advice from someone, it seems like it’s become a rare thing to write a real thank you note. And that is rude.
In the “old days” (the days before email, Twitter, Facebook, etc), we relied on three major forms of communication: personal interaction, snail mail, and the telephone. And although snail mail and the telephone seem impersonal compared to a personal meeting with someone, sending a letter to someone or making a phone call can in fact be a very personal way to communicate. Think about all the letters soldiers sent to their friends and family during the American Civil War.
Although business letters are not exactly in the same league as Civil War letters, both types of letters share many common threads; most of which stem from the effort involved in writing and sending a real letter. Compared to email, which seems to have been reduced to quick informal messages, writing a true letter takes time no matter if the letter is three pages long or three sentences long. And that effort shows; especially when it’s a thank you note to a business contact. Add in the fact that the business world is increasingly tough and guess what, that extra thirty minutes may in fact lead to great opportunities.
That being said, call me old-fashioned, but I still write snail mailed thank you notes. Yes they take time, but in my experience, they make a real impression on people.
The business world is a tough place. And if you think it’s going to get better in the near future, let me introduce you to this novel concept called reality. It’s something that the governments of the world are currently being introduced to (If you are unfamiliar with Marx’s Das Kapital; it’s a long, often difficult to understand set of works discussing the functions of capitalism, the history of capitalism, and most importantly, Marx’s famed view on capitalism’s diminishing rate of profit. Like I said, it’s not an easy read. Nor is it what I call uplifting).
But that’s not what I wanted to talk about today. I wanted to talk about the value of being rejected by a potential employer.
Like I’ve mentioned many times before, I’m currently in a purgatory like state of employment/unemployment. I’m in that fickle and highly stressful stage of life between my undergraduate degree and my graduate degree. Yes I graduated from a top tier university with a true liberal arts degree (I could of graduated in 2.5 years… I studied 4) and a work ethic that most employers would kill for, but the fact remains that I’m also competing in a world that is in all honesty a wash of “cheap” undergraduate degrees. (Notice how I did not describe the undergraduate as inexpensive. They are anything but inexpensive).
But I do not let that detour me. Doing so seems in my eyes unproductive as worrying about things that you can’t do anything about is simular to travelling via rocking chair: you expend a lot of energy, but you don’t move anywhere.
What I can do (and I encourage others to do) is continue forward progress. It may seem like you are constantly being pushed back 4 steps, but if you make 5 forward steps, that’s still a net gain of 1 step. It’s not a huge gain, but with the college football season coming up (and my string of productive Saturdays about to start disappearing), a gain is a gain. It’s not a touchdown, but neither are most plays in a game.
And that brings me to my point. When you get rejected by a potential employer, take it for all it’s worth. Make a connection with the people at the company, make a solid impression, and initiate a relationship. It’s not a job, but it’s forward progress.
I really need to re-learn to read. And I’m not talking about the ability to look at a word and know what it means. I’m talking about the ability to see the small details in a passage that most readers skip… things like exact dates.
It’s because I “skim” most articles that I read. ”Skimming” is a bad habit that readers tend to sink into and I personally think that it’s a result of years of having to “skim” through pages upon pages of reading for school. I was a literature major after all.
But enough of that. Today’s post focuses on a new tool that I’ve been playing around with in Illustrator CS5. It’s the Shapebuilder tool. And it’s wonderful.
So what is the Shapebuilder tool? It basically works like the Live Paint tool that makes coloring shapes in Illustrator super easy. Back in the days of CS4 and before, to make the shapes required for the Live Paint tool, a designer either had to use the somewhat complicated pathfinder tool or stick with very basic shapes… like circles and squares. But if there is one theme that defines CS5, it’s the way that it has simplified a lot of simple to solve issues. Unlike previous versions of CS, CS5 seems to have focused on doing things better, not just expanding CS’s capabilities. In other words, CS5 didn’t just put a bigger engine in the vehicle, it fixed the cup holder problem.
If you want to learn about the Shapebuilder tool via Adobe TV, just click on this link. Adobe has been kind enough to create this online series explaining virtually every tool in the CS5 family. It’s a great example of how companies are using customer relationships as a primary advertising tool.
Want a quick example of what the Shapebuilder tool can do? This comes from my attempt to enter a logo contest for a local based advertising company that ended 5 years ago… Like I said, I need to re-learn to read. But anyway, it was a great excuse to exercise the creating juices and learn a new tool in Illustrator.
Rarely do I find a piece of software that I adore. Most of the time I can easily find some critical flaw in the software and that seems to kill my love for it. Adobe software seems to be the exception. I fell in love with Adobe CS2 years ago and don’t let me get started with CS5. It’s brilliant. CS4 wasn’t my favorite, but CS5 more than makes up for all of CS4′s flaws.
But within CS5, there is one piece of software that I really do adore above all else: Flash Catalyst. I’ve played around with Flash enough to know it’s an untamed mythical beast. Yes, a good Flash designer can do marvelous work with Flash, but for 95% of developers, Flash is just too much. It’s the odd program of CS that really isn’t approachable by novice users. One can’t really do much with it without a lot of knowledge. It’s not instinctive like AI or Photoshop where absolute beginners can build basic outlines and teach themselves the basics via just playing around.
But that’s where Flash Catalyst is absolutely brilliant. It allows wanna-be Flash developers a bridge between Flash and AI or Photoshop. How so? Well for starters, it’s designed with the AI and Photoshop user in mind. In fact, you can build your site in AI or Photoshop and import the file directly into Flash Catalyst.
From there, Flash Catalyst offers users a limited, but wide enough range of interaction options to build a function Flash based website without the need for intricate timelines or interactions. In fact, with just a little practice, Flash Catalyst becomes dare I say it, very easy to use. So anyone interested in looking good on the web… listen up! Yes, there are some major limits (I tried to add a mailto: link with no success), but the limits are in the whole view of things very minor. And best of all, unlike Flash, you don’t need to know any sort of code to make things work.
So need a quick example? My latest project… NewYorque. It’s going to be good.
Meet James Bond the cat. It’s my parent’s cat and I generally dislike him on a personal level. I mean really dislike him. This 13 pound ball of fur is noisy, he can’t figure out if he wants to stay in or go out, and did I mention noisy?!? This cat screams it’s head off for hours on end and it’s not pleasant.
But the cat has something that I think lacks in virtually ever person I have ever known. He knows exactly who he is and he has the drive to do exactly what he was built to do. And he is good at it. Really good.
In his case it’s catch birds/lizards/mice and for that, I actually admire him.
And that’s exactly why I would hire this cat. I may not like him personally, but if I was looking for a mouse hunter, this cat would be who I would hire. He’s got the credentials (look at those claws), the experience (he is young, but he knows what he is doing), and most of all, he is an innovative, highly driven mouse hunting machine.
We say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but what about nurturing a young cat’s natural skills? I think we have a winner.
And on a side note, that gives me an awesome new business idea… a Rent-a-Cat Extermination service. It’s low employment cost and highly effective. Plus you get a cat for a day or two. Pretty sweet idea if you ask me.
Meet James Bond the cat. It’s my parent’s cat and I generally dislike him on a personal level. I mean really dislike him. This 13 pound ball of fur is noisy, he can’t figure out if he wants to stay in or go out, and did I mention noisy?!? This cat screams it’s head off for hours on end and it’s not pleasant.
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