Sep
28
Why Amazon will Win with the Kindle Fire – Customer Service
Filed Under Business Ideas, Resources, Principles, etc., Technology | Leave a Comment
I lost my kindle during the summer and found it a few weeks back in my couch. I had sat on it and I’m sure that the pressure is what damaged it.
Today, after hearing all the Kindle announcements, I thought to call Amazon and see if I was still on warranty. I called them at 12:59pm and by 1:02pm I was off the phone with a tracking number, my replacement Kindle on the way.
With that kind of customer service, I’m reminded of friends who’ve tried to replace their iPhone screen with Apple (same service with iPad). Nothing but complaints.
Now that people weigh Kindle Fire against the Apple iPad, customer service will increasingly become part of the war. And right now, Amazon is definitely winning that battle.
Jul
8
Web’s Best Guide for Entrepreneurs
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From Harvard Professor, a compilation of the best resources for entrepreneurs.
May
30
Principles of a Successful Startup
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This new genome project is worth following: Startup Genome.
Aug
13
ScanDrop and Google Docs
Filed Under Business Ideas, Resources, Principles, etc., Technology | 1 Comment
While trying to archive some corporate governance documents a few weeks back, I thought to myself, surely some enterprising company or individual will create a way to scan directly to Google Docs.
I love programmers. To my joy, OfficeDrop has a solution. They’ve integrated shared folders so that you can choose where the documents are filed as you’re scanning. You can also rename them. Apparently, they OCR them and make them into searchable pdfs, but Google Docs doesn’t yet add that information to the Google Docs index.
Unfortunately, it’s not scanning my lettersized page properly on our Canon MF5750. I’ve submitted a support request and I’m hopeful that between this post and my support request, I’ll come to a solution quickly.
May
7
Collaborative Offices – the d.school and IDEO
Filed Under Business Ideas, Resources, Principles, etc., Education and Love for Learning, Entrepreneurship, Ideas and Thoughts | 2 Comments
Great article from fast company on the Standford d.school – ditching the cubicles and going for project based work spaces. The d.school’s grand opening was today. Thanks to Mike Levinthal’s help on Orabrush, Jeffrey and I met William Burnett in their open conference room a few weeks ago and Professor Bernard Roth gave us a tour of their building. The kinds of projects they’re working on were fascinating (pumps for under $20 to change a community for example).
The students we interviewed to help us with product design were all extremely high caliber people and product designers. Very difficult choice.
Dave Kelly, who’s a schoolmate of Mike’s, also gave us a tour of IDEO. The culture of those organizations really opened our eyes to an incredible way to set up offices. I loved how they hung their bicycles from the ceilings (sounds like the tree houses we built as kids). Thanks to Kathleen (Dave’s assistant) for helping set the interviews up for us!
We’d like to recreate something similar at the Provo Town Square or some other place with character for Orabrush. If you know of any places in the area that we could do something creative with, we’d love to know.
Apr
4
Surrounded by Debts – Declo, Oakley, Burley High Schools
Filed Under Business Ideas, Resources, Principles, etc., Freedom, Government, Politics, etc. | Leave a Comment
Last week when I was on my way back from a game of pickup ball at Declo High School, I noticed the stark contrast between the fancy new school versus the Junior High and Elementary School buildings beside it. They appeared to come from entirely different worlds. The old schools had been pieced together, one building at a time (each probably a decade apart), as the student body and needs grew. There were four unique sections to the old high school that also served the junior high.
Old Declo High School Main Entrance
Old Declo High School Gymn and View of Building
It was striking to see the uncoordinated sections of the buildings next to that modern high school. Strangely, during a time when I think a lot about living within ones means, the old schools, which represented self-control and restraint in spending, had a disciplined beauty to them, while the new school carried the baggage of America’s current pain and burden of high debt.
New Declo High School Building Funded by Multi-million Dollar Municipal Bond
I remember when I was a teenager the months of debate over the multi-million dollar school bonds to rebuild the area’s schools that were way out of date. As I had participated in alternative schools (home school and AHA) in my later years rather than public schools, I argued against the debts (and taxes) that would be placed on all of our properties, regardless of whether we use the state-of-the-art, expensive new buildings.
This morning I read an article about municipalities and cities going bankrupt due to too much debt. Others are borrowing against the future to keep up with payments, trying to avoid bankruptcy. It seems that American credit card habits spilled over into municipal governance and now it’s time to pay the price. I wonder how well my community is bearing the weight of the school bonds. Feeling the weight today, would we have chosen to take on the debt 15 years ago? Or would we have chosen a more conservative approach like that of past generations’ school expansion?
I have asked students how the schools are doing and apparently there has been enough growth in the community to easily fill the new schools. I hope that this growth is offsetting any losses in tax revenues due to unemployment rates for our community.
I know I have some regrets about the way I handled debts in my own businesses. What’s done is done. Hopefully we’ll all learn to be more wise the next time around.
Nov
11
What is your favorite child entrepreneur hero story?
Filed Under Business Ideas, Resources, Principles, etc., Education and Love for Learning, Entrepreneurship, Favorite Books, Ideas and Thoughts | 1 Comment
My son has become interested in business at a very young age (he’s 6 right now) and I would like to introduce him to inspiring stories of young entrepreneurs to give him ideas.
A little background. My son, of his own accord, has successfully sold his jokes by giving 1 for free and charging a $1 for more. He set up a toy sale out by the driveway at 5. He asks questions about the difference between Walmart’s and Apple’s margins. He hires his sisters (with his Halloween candy) to do work for him to make more money. This is a greater level of interest than his Dad for his age.
I want to encourage his interests in business and need some help.
We recently read of James C. Penny (founder of J.C. Penny) who set up a watermelon stand near the fairgrounds (his Dad scolded him for taking advantage of those within the fairgrounds who paid for selling permits). We read of Orville Wright and when he partnered with his 8-year-old sister to collect scrap iron from the neighbors and sell it to the junk yard (they had a bully attach them when they took the metal to the yard). Great stories.
This morning it occurred to me that if we could read together inspiring stories of young entrepreneurs, then it would give us both ideas.
Particularly, he wants to sell something this year for a project and has discovered from his toy sale (that only earned him $0.25 because he did it on a country road with little traffic) that he needs to find something he can sell and a place with more people to sell it. He needs ideas.
So, what are your favorite child entrepreneurial stories that my son and I can share together?
- Something a famous entrepreneur did when s/he was a child (famous examples).
- Something someone close to you has done that was interesting (non-famous examples).
- Stories you’ve heard as alternatives to the lemonade or toy stand (perhaps ideas that could work for a boy who lives in the country).
- Any children who’ve created very successful enterprises.
Please answer on LinkedIn, via a trackback from a post on your blog or in the comments. We’ll both be grateful!
Sep
16
Kindle Hint – FREE Mp3 Audiobooks that use the audible player
Filed Under Business Ideas, Resources, Principles, etc., Home, Family and Church, Ideas and Thoughts, Technology | Leave a Comment
Thank you Robin for letting me know that the Audible folder supports Mp3 files. Thank you Paul for the great place to find FREE Mp3 audio books.
I dream of the day when Kindle is opened up for developers and someone creates an application that combines text-to-speech, Audio books and the actual text. What a killer application for teaching my children to read. I know the technical difficulties of syncing the actor’s voice with the actual text. But one can dream 
Sep
11
Digital Content Markets Set on Fire
Filed Under Business Ideas, Resources, Principles, etc., Entrepreneurship, Ideas and Thoughts | Leave a Comment
Mark Cuban’s recent post is extremely thought provoking and, as an avid Kindle fan/user since its launch, I believe he’s onto something for the content business. I’m saving the link here for future reference.
Sep
2
Pogopalooza Professional Big Air and Extreme Sport Awareness
Filed Under Business Ideas, Resources, Principles, etc., Entrepreneurship, Ideas and Thoughts | 1 Comment
A friend of mine from my very own Burley, Idaho, Biff Hutchison, just won the Professional Big Air competition at the Pogopalooza in Pittsburg. I’m thrilled for him.
When Paul Allen offerred to let the first 10 entrepreneurs who contact him to run a survey on his 50 million users, I took him up on it and decided to gauge the publics awareness of pogo as a sport.
Here are the results (I’m thinking these stats will look very different over the next year as I see this sport taking off).
I’ll post the final after all 1000 responses come in…
What do you know about pogo as an extreme sport? (1215 responses) September 2nd, 2009
| I want a FlyBar or other stunt pogo stick | 1% |
| I’ve heard of Pogopalooza | 4% |
| I know some punk kids who do tricks on pogo sticks | 4% |
| I don’t know anything about pogo as a sport | 90% |
| I have a family member who wants or has a pogo stick for stunts | 2% |
Here’s a plug for FamilyLink (thanks for the survey Paul!)…
If your business would like to run a targeted survey with our 50 million users, please contact info@admazing.com. We can provide hundreds of thousands of responses in a very short time period with demographic targeting.keep looking »