So let me preface this a bit, I am a big fan of Jason Calacanis’ spinoff “This week in …” show called This Week in Startups, and it’s not for the obvious reason of humorous floating appendages (guests often wear black and the backdrop is black giving a floating appendages on screen feel), though I do genuinely enjoy a good floating head, but that’s not it.
The reason I love this show is because as you listen to the ideas that budding entrepreneurs come up with on the episodes, and add to that seeing Jason and the guest take that idea and tweak it just a bit to the point where they (and you) get excited for the entrepreneur, it serves as a personal catalyst for ideas. I often find myself mimicking the exercise Jason takes guests through with my own ideas and thoughts to get it to a point where it’s a bit more marketable or ‘pitch’ ready after watching a few episodes.
This is interesting to me because the creative process isn’t really something you can teach, but it is something you can learn. As you watch the methodology take shape, and the different questions asked you start to develop a sense for ideas, and a sense for identifying opportunity, and when you start to take notice, it’s pretty dang awesome. But in my experience, this only comes after being around creative people, or via the beauty of the interwebs, watching creative people work through the process time and time again. This is why this show is so valuable to me.
Which brings me to my next point, Jason does a shtick on the show called Shark Tank where entrepreneurs call in and pitch him their idea. A great section of the show that’s a parody of sorts of ABC’s show Shark Tank, but before every installment he does two things: first, he relives the painful memory of how he was not picked to be on Shark Tank which ends with a spirited assault on their (the show producers) mental capacity, and second, a comment on how bad the show ended up becoming and how glad he is that it’s canceled. After these are done, he moves into the pitch and we go on. So here’s my thing, I’ve watched every episode of TWiST (33 and counting) as well as every episode of ABC’s Shark Tank and the reason for doing so is because when you hear ideas people have, when you get the luxury of being walked through how they identified an opportunity and built a product or service around it, it rubs off on you a little bit, a priceless side effect.
Well after one season, ABC canned Shark Tank, never to be seen again, a fact that frustrates me just a skosh. Our country needs to be taken back to its roots of innovation and creativity, that’s where the ladder out of this economic mess we’re in resides, and the fact that we had a show around entrepreneurs and startups during prime time was a win for all things creative. Granted the entrepreneurs-in-residence that sat behind the huge desk on the show were a little ridiculous (Jason makes good points around their treatment of entrepreneurs), and to his point with the addition of Jason to the show, we would have at least been more entertained, the fact that America wasn’t interested enough in the creative process to support a single show through more than one season saddens me.
So to Jason, I say first, thanks for doing your show, I used to not see myself as an idea guy, I was the manual labor, but over the course of about a year of concerted effort in identifying opportunity and trying my ideas against the process I’ve picked up from different shows like this, now I’m totally the idea guy. But secondly, Jason quit disparaging efforts, no matter how meager they are, to invigorate creativity and ingenuity in America, cause right now any effort in that respect is much needed.
So honestly, I’ll miss the prime time venue, but if you’re interested in entrepreneurship I highly recommend you check out Mixergy, both great assets for ideas and, like I said, learning the process.
So I tried something new this year for Christmas. I have 20 some nieces and nephews and am the sole remaining single uncle, so there’s a bit of pressure on me to be the cool uncle each year. Traditionally, I’ve given nothing to these wee little kids during the holidays because a gift to one would require a gift to all, and I’m not made of money you know. But as I’ve been around the family a bit more the last year and a half, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend…. Nintendo DS.
As kids turn 7 it’s some kind of a rite of passage now in school, kids get a DS. Now we had gameboys back in my day, but it wasn’t anywhere near this bad. I swear these kids can sit with the head crooked at a certain angle staring at a 3×3 screen for days, and when they finish their game they are no better or more interesting than 3 days ago when they started. So as their uncle I decided I had to at least try something.
I invited the older kids on a date with the uncle, borrowed the sisters suburban and piled in 7 kids over the age of 8 with the oldest being 13. We stopped into Burger King for a dollar menu dinner and then went down to the KC plaza and we walked around to see the lights. That was pretty fun, but then we got into the Barnes & Noble on the plaza. This was actually a really fun experience, being 3 floors high, we worked through floor by floor with the kids seeing the most books in one place they’ve ever seen (excluding a library, well maybe not, this is Missouri) The rule, they had a cap of $20 to spend on their Christmas present and it had to be a book. I could have given them a gift card, but I wanted to ensure it got spent on a book, and not a game or a poster or whatever else they could find, I wanted them to read a real live book.
So? It mostly worked. The younger kids (8-10) ended up missing the point a bit. They saw it as a value game, ie what’s the most expensive book so I can get to get the most out of my $20 rather than what book do I want to read. Also, puppies on the cover were like kryptonite to the girls, and removed them from being able to follow my perfect logic of why they should get a nancy drew book. But the older kids (11-13) hit the nail on the head, they got excited about the books, the genres, Sam was wowed at the coffee table books about WWII, Annie found a collection of Jane Austen books in a collectors edition and ooogled at it, and on it went. As an uncle, I was in heaven watching the older kids pick out their books, I felt like santa.
By the end of the night, I was out maybe $150 bucks, but I got all the kids a present, and a present that would actually excite them about something worthwhile. The side benefit is with some of them I now have more to talk about as they read through some of my favorite books from my childhood. So the verdict is I’ve found a new tradition. They loved it, it was cheap, and anything to break that Nintendo DS stare is money well spent in my book. Thanks B&N, I’ll see you next year
The payout - kids reading after presents
Posted 2 months, 2 weeks ago at 4:09 am. 4 comments
Had an epic adventure, my good friend Geoff here wrote a masterful report, I encourage you all to read it and give him comment love. I hope you laugh a proportionate amount to how much we laughed through the experience.
This guy is brilliant, take a look at some of the examples? Same guy that came up with wii remote head tracking and honestly, he’s just does it for the advancement of the tech. I love that he just gives away his ideas so people can do more with it. Great approach imo.
So anyway, I’m making one, anyone else want in? Should be fun
Taken off of B-Diggs blog over at Blast Off, this is a guys actual resume. If I got this as an employer, I think I would hang it on my wall and dance a jig in my office. It’s audacity demands it.
Amazing Resume
Posted 8 months, 1 week ago at 12:46 pm. Add a comment
So I don’t know if ’s the fact that I’m watching this in my quiet office at 1:30am, or that I’ve been privy to much of the emotion portrayed in the shots below, but I really thought this was an interesting project. The guys over at slate (via bb) setup a flickr pool and asked their readers to send in photos of the economic recession. There’s quite a few photos in the pool already and makes for an interesting visualization of what we’re going through.
Check it out -
Posted 11 months, 3 weeks ago at 5:26 am. Add a comment
some pictures for you from the trip abroad over Christmas. I built a gallery tonight to host these on, give me some feedback if you please. The slideshow viewer is really pretty slick.
The pics from my camera are first in the galleries and then Mikale’s are in there as well, but will be at the end of the collections.
