Please help me figure out how to assist the protest
If you haven’t noticed, there is a revolution happening in America. It’s called the Occupy Movement, and it’s made up of the 99% who are getting royally screwed by the richest of the rich who have rigged the system in their favor.
Today, I read stories about how the police are clearing out protests in various cities around the country: Portland, Oakland and New York. If the government is being rigged by the richest 1%, then the police are simply pawns in their game. My goodness…I feel myself becoming a radical as I type.
As I was reading, I was reminded of this passage from Charles Bukowski’s Women, on the vibrant nature of the crowd at a boxing match:
The crowd screamed and roared and swilled beer. They had temporarily escaped the factories, the warehouses, the slaughterhouses, the car washes–they’d be back in captivity the next day, but now they were out–they were wild with freedom. They weren’t thinking about the slavery of poverty. Or the slavery of welfare and food stamps. The rest of us would be alright until the poor learned how to make atom bombs in their basements.
I’m not suggesting that we turn to violence or bombs. Let me repeat: I do not support or encourage violence. I support a Gandhi-like approach…non-violence is the best solution in America because it will earn the affection and support of the masses.
So, here’s my question for you: How can I help? What can someone like me do?
And, it’s not just me: How can we all help?
The World Needs Heroes (or, Why I’m Sad that Joe Pa Was Fired)
I will probably be misunderstood for saying this, but I am sad that Joe Paterno was fired.
Not because I believe he was innocent—none of us who get our information on this topic through the media really know what happened, so we are not in a position to judge.
No, I am sad because I believe the world needs heroes, and the nature of our media is to tear down and destroy heroes.
I’ll grant you: it may be true that there are no heroes, that heroes are a fiction. That there were never any heroes, that the media is just revealing the truth behind the facade.
I understand that everyone is human, everyone is imperfect, everyone gets tummy aches. Yet, I value heroes. Why?
Heroes, fictional as they may be, serve a valuable purpose. Heroes are role models. They give us normal people something to which we should aspire. They illustrate excellence. They provide hope and inspiration.
Striving to be a hero makes life worth living.
P.S. I realize that someone could easily interpret these comments to say that we should overlook the crimes of our heroes. No, stop that thought right there because that’s not what I’m saying.
P.P.S. Ivan Meisel at ESPN conveys my thoughts well:
The idea that Paterno’s legacy, built with the highest of ideals, will be stained by the vilest of scandals should test the faith of all of us…if we cannot believe that JoePa knew to do what is good and right, than in whom, pray tell, can we believe?
It is a sad and stunning end to a 20th-century American success story. An Italian-American kid from Brooklyn grew up to become one of the most influential figures in American sports. He supped with Presidents. He transformed a university. And a career that should be celebrated is sullied instead.
Why didn’t they call it “The Bing Phone”?
Today, I was asking my friend Aaron “to google something” on his Windows phone when I caught myself and said, “No, bing it!”
Then the lightbulb went on: why don’t they call it The Bing Phone?
It rolls off the tongue better than “Windows Phone 7″.
It’s a better brand: Windows means “work”, Bing means “discovery”.
So, it positions the phone as the “information when you want it” phone.
Or, for that matter, call it the “Xphone”. Xbox, Xphone. Integrate the experience and then you’ll get the added benefit of all the youngin’s wanting one. (And, for goodness sake, make the phone sync to the Xbox, not the desktop.)
The Only Constant is Change
In my home office, I have a chair that I’ve had for many years. I really like it, and it’s important for you to know that it’s a bit of an usual chair.
The nature of the chair isn’t the point. The point is that last night I noticed the chair was starting to show wear, so I thought getting a new one. Then I thought, “Hmmm….maybe I should get two our three, so if in the future the company stops making this chair, I’ll have enough of them for the rest of my life.”
After having the Seinfeld “sponge” episode run through my mind, I thought to myself
Scott, that is totally crazy and neurotic. You’re going to have to come to terms with the fact that you might not have this chair forever, and at some point you might need to get used to a new chair.
Then, this morning, in the strange, coincidental way the universe works, as I was walking to the office, I saw this bumper sticker…and that’s the truth.
Taken and edited with Photoshop Express on my iPhone 4.
Mailbag: How to Open a Bar or Coffee Shop
I regularly receive questions from readers. If you have a question for me, on- or off-topic, please don’t hesitate to send me a note.
I have an idea for a small business, but I have very little idea of what the proper process for how to go about it. I have a small “two pager” to pass around to drum interest along with a full business plan I’m working on, but gathering all the resources I’d need and trying to figure out the other unknown seems a bit insurmountable.
I’l give you a bit more clarity of what I want to do. I would like to start a theme bar in [location removed for privacy]. Seems simple enough, but I’m not sure how to go about accounting for finances of running a bar, what are the license needed, how to supply and forecast inventory and supplies, etc.
In any case, I’d appreciate any tips or best practices on how to approach these kind of unknowns and any other advice you can provide.
I don’t know anything about running a bar, or how to start one. But, once a few years ago I was interested in opening a coffee shop in my neighborhood. In addition to doing as much research online as possible, I did a few things:
- I networked and talked to everybody I knew or could meet about coffee shops. It was easy—I contacted them via e-mail and asked if I could come down to their shop and pick their brains for 15 or 20 minutes. (Only one person said no.)
- I contacted a few suppliers. It turns out that the people who supply both coffee beans and coffee shop equipment know a lot about how coffee shops work.
- I contacted business brokers to see if there was a coffee shop for sale. (I found that http://bizbuysell.com was the best source.)
Naturally, in all these cases, I had to be polite, respectful and accommodating while asking as many questions as possible. Nobody told me “The Answer”…I just had to keep on asking questions until I was able to piece together the puzzle by myself.
In the end, it turned out a coffee shop wasn’t the right fit for me at that time in my life. I didn’t have the money to get it started (or the experience with coffee shops to be a credible borrower), and with a young family, it wasn’t going to fit my lifestyle.
So, that was my experience, and it seems like it would apply to a bar…or, really any business, for that matter.
Good luck!
“There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own — nobody.”
Elizabeth Warren, candidate for Senate in Massachusetts:
I hear all this, you know, ‘Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever. No. There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own — nobody.
You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police-forces and fire-forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory — and hire someone to protect against this — because of the work the rest of us did.
Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea. God bless — keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is, you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.
Amen.
Slow Food
When I saw this today, at PCC in Issaquah, I was reminded that I want to learn more about the Slow Food Movement. Suggestions?
StartupDay 2011 – Building The Product
The slides from my presentation on product development from Seattle Startup Day 2011.
- Make a Prediction
- Build the simplest thing that could possibly work.
- Ship it!
- Measure the result.
Enjoy!
September 17 Protests??
Has anyone heard of the Sept. 17 protests called Occupy Wall Street ? (See https://occupywallst.org/ and http://occupywallstreet.com/)
Also, check out http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/.
This was all news to me today.
Could revolution happen in the US?
ASU “Digital Media Entrepreneurship” Notes
I had the pleasure today of presenting on Product Development and Functional Specs Notes to students at the Arizona State University “Digital Media Entrepreneurship” program.
If you’re interested, here are my notes.
