Aug
13
ScanDrop and Google Docs
Filed Under Business Ideas, Resources, Principles, etc., Technology | Leave a 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.
Mar
5
New Facebook Homepage and Status Updates on Pages
Filed Under Business Ideas, Resources, Principles, etc., Genealogy to Family History to FamilyLearn, Technology | 3 Comments
If you’ve logged into Facebook recently or have seen this webcast, you know a new Facebook home page design and status updates on Pages are coming this week. The new homepage is centered around sorting information from people important to you — family (I’d be nervous if I were We’re Related on this one as this level of integration might render them a lot less relevant), coworkers, friends and public figures (new home page tour). The new page design allows page owners to communicate to their fans via news feeds.
AllFacebook.com represents the new change with the following graphic.
You are at the center, viewing the information you want. We are already working on great ideas for integrating these features into our new Facebook application, Status King (as status updates are now more central to Facebook, there are real benefits for Status King) and our future application, MemoryPress. I want to mention a couple things on both here.
Immediate Status King Changes
Appropriately, the text prompting status updates is becoming “What’s on your mind?” rather than “What are you doing right now?” I suspect this is to reflect the way people are sharing links, information, insights, jokes and more via their status updates. Our hot new Status Tees will need to have an option to include the new phrase.
MemoryPress
MemoryPress fans know that we’re planning to bring MemoryPress to Facebook. Used for years for retirements, weddings, anniversaries, etc., we’re anticipating some great ways for MemoryPress to leverage the new segregation of friends, family, coworkers and public figures on the home page, because that’s the way our books have naturally organized themselves over the years.
We’re excited for how these changes will roll over into the API and what developers can do with the Facebook platform.
Feb
9
Status King Facebook Obama Bailout Ads – Costly
Filed Under Business Ideas, Resources, Principles, etc., Freedom, Government, Politics, etc. | 2 Comments
I’ve spent a lot of time on Facebook recently because my family and I launched an app that helps you find a funny Facebook status for your friend feed and then print the most clever Facebook statuses onto a T-Shirt.
Although some think social media is worthless for business, we opted to create a business that lives inside the culture of Facebook rather than try to capitalize on poor-performing ads I’m viewing constantly on the right side of Facebook. The visitor loyalty rates are astounding and the T-Shirt sales growing, and so it seems that you can make money with social media.
While spending this time on Facebook, I’ve noticed changes in the right ads that have made me sick about the state of our nation. Our debt, our “future money” disquised as government bailout money “from Obama” has crowded out all real innovation and commerce on the ads. This screenshot only captures two of the three ads on the page that were ALL take-advantage-of-the-bailout ads. It also sports a status about the bailout. Oh, Amerika…what has happened? Where is your honor, self-respect and personal responsibility for living beyond your means? (the “k” is intentional, think immigrant)
If we only understood how costly those Facebook ads will be to our country.
Oct
4
Opportunity Knocks and it’s not Paulson’s $700 Billion
Filed Under Business Ideas, Resources, Principles, etc., Entrepreneurship, Freedom, Government, Politics, etc., Ideas and Thoughts | 1 Comment
Last week, as my blood boiled when I thought of the freedoms we might loose as a result of the $700 billion transfer of power to the secretary of the treasury, I found myself reading articles, trying to understand what was happening, learning whether I could make a difference. It felt like a worthwhile thing to do, after all, the future of our country was on the line.
Then I read Seth Godin’s post on looking for an opportunity to do less, which hit home for me. I decided to write and call my senators and representatives and then forget about the housing crisis. Stop reading the articles. Stop wasting my time on something I had no power over.
Instead, I spend my time on our company and my family.
In a conversation with a good friend, he spoke of how wonderful a time this is to start a company. As the job market softens it will be easier to attract good talent to your team. He recently spoke with a technical leader in a large organization. Their research suggests that their ability to hire new programmers is going to surge in two months, not because they will have more resources, but because people will be looking for the work. He also commented that competition is so worried about their our cashflow problems and margin pressure that you have a chance to really grow if you dig in and work.
It’s a marvelous time to build a business, attract talent, stay lean and provide value to society.
So, the only reading I will be doing is studying the previous financial crashes historically to understand where is the best direction to steer our business. Did you know that the movie business thrived during the Great Depression? People needed an escape during difficult times…so they went to the movies. There are silver linings on the darkest of clouds. I thank Seth for reminding me to look at mine.
Hope.
That’s what President Uchtdorf called it today. Just saying that word makes me feel better.
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