Well, in my last post I mentioned the revamped Whitehouse.gov.

Well, with today’s signing of the Stimulus package, Recovery.gov is now live (I checked late last week and there was only a placeholder saying it will become live once President Obama signs the bill).

Whether or not you agree with the bill, what’s most impressive is the purpose of the site and its regard towards all the monies that will be spent:

This is your money. You have a right to know where it’s going and how it’s being spent. Learn what steps we’re taking to ensure you can track our progress every step of the way.

To me, that’s speaks volume: the government is respectful of those being governed.

Thoughts on Obama’s Inauguration

I must say that yesterday was the first time I ever watched a Presidential Inauguration, and if that’s the case for me, then I must assume that’s true for millions of other people.

Being Asian, and in San Francisco, I’ve only experienced a little bit of bigotry growing up — nothing I’d write home about, so to speak. So I could never write about knowing what it feels to be African American, only that I’m a minority.

But just as I grew up watching re-runs of Star Trek (TOS), I finally saw the day where being what color didn’t matter — we live in a country where “anyone” can be president (well, you have to be a natural citizen).

I’m hopeful that President Obama will do a good job.

Yesterday was the first time I felt proud to be an American.

It’s been a long time since I’ve had that feeling.

Check out Whitehouse.gov

One other interesting thing about yesterday was that the Presidential website officially switched over to the new Obama Administration version.

Gone is the old 90’s style website.

In its place is a new Web 2.0 version, if you will.

There’s even an RSS subscription for the Whitehouse blog.

Check it out: www.whitehouse.gov

The Role of the Web in our President-Elect

I must say that when I wrote my Locke and Demosthenes post, I would never have thought that Barack Obama was actually ahead of the curve — just shows how in touch I am, eh?

Here’s one of the recent articles on the use of Web 2.0 and the 2008 elections:

Social Networking used in the 2008 Presidential Campaign

The fact that the 2008 Presidential Election had one of the larger voter turnout in a while suggests:

• the state of the economy got people out of their seats to vote
• the majority of voters wanted change
• the Obama campaign made better use of Web 2.0 social networking tools

I also read that Obama made great use of Facebook, and used Twitter, and his campaign warchest was in no small part due to small, but numerous, donations made be everyday people.

Obama’s website

Obama even has his own Flickr photostream

Post Election

Witness, already one immediate result from the President-Elect:

www.change.gov – a website that allows us to see the transition from the Bush administration to the Obama administration

Apparently, Obama (along with Republican Tom Coburn) pushed for government transparency in its spending back in 2005, and the result is this:

www.usaspending.gov

There seems to be a lot of excitement in the air regarding our new President-Elect. While Obama was not the first politician to make use of the web, the general consensus is that he’s the first to make good use of it, to know how to take advantage of the new medium, similar to how JFK knew how to use network television to his advantage when he was campaigning against Richard Nixon.

Anyway, I do have hopes that Obama will affect positive changes. It will be interesting to see how things play out, and what kind of role the web will play in the new administration.

How is it that gas companies can charge nine-tenths of a cent?

Does it really make that much of a difference?

Take a look at the sample pricing from last week (outrageously high pricing notwithstanding):

• $4.17 and 9/10 for Regular
• $4.29 and 9/10 for Plus
• and $4.41 and 9/10 for “V-Power”

Why can’t they say $4.18, $4.30, and $4.42, respectively? What if I buy exactly 1 gallon — shouldn’t I get one-tenth of a cent back? I don’t. So I end up paying $4.18. Multiply that by hundreds of millions and those one-tenths add up, don’t they?

Be Honest with Your Pricing

We should be more honest in our pricing, and I’m not just talking about gas stations, but everything in general. In fact, I propose a simple way to present more “honest” pricing — something along the lines of:

• Under $15, round to the nearest dollar, e.g. $1.00 per song on iTunes, not $0.99
• $20 to $100 – round to the nearest 5 or 10, e.g. $25, $90, $100
• $110 to $990 – round to the nearest 10, e.g. $240, $680
• $1000 – $9,900 – round to the nearest 100, e.g. $1400, $8,900
• $10,000 – 99,000 – round to the nearest 1000
• $100,000 – $500,000 – round to the nearest 5000
• $505,000 and up – oh, who cares at this point? You can go back to pennies, e.g. $99,999,999.99

Don’t you think that would help?

Have a great weekend!

Jonathan Field’s recent post, Is Your High Powered Job Setting Your Kids Up To Fail, got me thinking about my own kids. He points out studies and experiments that show kids whose parents were more “present” in their lives during their formative years did better in school, and stayed out of trouble.

This post expands on my earlier post about the 7 Principles I’m Teaching My Kids.

Troubled Kids

When I hear about troubled kids, I think of any recent number of murders (or massacres) committed by a young males, and the inevitable follow up report that the perpetrators’ parents usually “had no idea”.

They had no idea.

Why is that?

Parents Must Be Responsible Parents

It’s obvious to me that what was missing was open communication between the parents and the child. A parent needs to know what’s going on in their kids’ lives out of the home. When you think about it, a young child spends approximately two-thirds of their lives at home eating, playing, doing homework, etc., and sleeping, and the remaining third at school. So, during their formative years, two-thirds of their lives are spent exposed to anything and everything they see and hear in school, on the TV, in the classroom, on the playground and on the internet under their parents’ care.

So obviously, the most influential person your people kids can (or should) ever see, talk to, and listen is you, the parent.

Open Communication is Key

This communication has to start at a very young age, and continue throughout the teen years — since I guess if you’d made it that far, communications should remain optimum during the child’s adult years.

I want that with my kids.

So what am I doing about it?

I certainly do not have a “high powered job”, but I do run my own business, and can easily (and often do) spend upwards of 70 hours per week on it.

I realize that low-income households may have (a) parent(s) who work all day, just to make ends meet. Even high-income households will have parents work all day as well, leaving their kids under the care of nannies. Both situations often means the parents are unavailable.

Attend their School Activities

For me, luckily, one of the perks I that I DO have is the ability to take a little time off to attend my children’s school activities: Halloween Costume Parades, music concerts, field trips, school plays and the like.

To see their smiles and their waving when they see me in the audience really brings a warm feeling to my heart.

I’m certain that just my presence boosts their self-esteem, validates their importance to me, and at the dinner table that particular night, the child will proudly describe what transpired. I also bring along my little point and shoot camera to take few shots or a short video. And after the dinner, we sit in front of the computer to relive their memories.

The kid is happy for the rest of the evening. And beyond.

This simple activity will form the basis for the child’s future nostalgia.

Discipline, Discussion and Decisions

I’ve also found that dinner time is a great time to go over important lessons — and the kids’ various teachers have mentioned that “what’s practiced at home is what’s practiced at school”, and of course, in life.

• Paying Attention – during dinner, the TV is OFF. I know it’s so tempting to want to be entertained while eating, and for a few years we did that since we were eating with relatives who did the cooking. But recently, we’ve started cooking for ourselves in order to eat earlier, and now that the TV off, the difference is so much more noticeable. We can talk about various topics without the kids eyes wandering off. The kids actually look at their food, and at whomever is talking.
• Discussion – the quiet also allows us to bring up topics that may have been brought up in the car ride home. Oh, a “friend” snitched about a secret you told him? How does that make you feel? Is that person trustworthy? Conversations like that allows us to broach on more abstract topics that we feel are crucial to their emotional growth.
• Decisions – the last thing that I want to mention is we can use the dinner time to make announcements, such as what we’re going to do on the weekend, or how much more attention should the kids pay to their schoolwork, etc.

I know my kids are still young yet (5th and 1st graders), but both their mom and I feel that it is SOOOO important, especially in our oh-so-complicated society, that we make sure we connect with our children at an early age. We want them to feel comfortable and that it’s safe to talk to us.

Hopefully, they’ll continue down a fruitful path, with a nudge or two from us from time to time.

My name’s Nez. And I’m a blogger.

Today I woke up early. It was something folks like me did often, especially when we’re on a case.

The calm of the early morning is the best time to think. And this case required a lot of thought.

But first, duty called.

I fired up my Quad, the familiar bong of the Mac OS interrupting the silence. Faster than any one-armed bandit, I went through my usual routine.

My agents brought me the usual suspects, mail goons who had too much askey to drink the night before. I recognized a few characters from the local RSS. A few were new, defiant, even emboldened.

I picked out the ones I wanted from the line-up, leaving the rest for processing by the disposal team. I don’t envy those guys — the cyber-sanitation engineers — dealing with the everyday deluge of bogus deals on meds and warez, get-rich-quick schemes, flesh-peddlers and spammy low-lifes. It’s a thankless job.

Anyway, the minutes flew by, and before I knew it, they arrived.

My morning visitors.

I knew it would happen — it was inevitable, living in the Pa Rent ‘hood. Their footsteps got closer, and I wheeled around, expecting the worse. Clad in colorful, polyester outfits, the two made quite a pair. One had hair that was in all directions, as if he’d just gotten out of bed. Clearly, grooming was not high on this guy’s priority list. Of course, in their line of work, it rarely was.

In a high, squeaky voice, the other one said, “Daddy, can we have the Honey Nut Cheerios today?”

“Sure, kids.” I told them.

Two minutes later, the two brothers were contently munching away on the cereal, momentarily distracted. It won’t be long before they’ll be back, though. But by that time, I’ll be ready for them.

Returning to the job at hand, I continued working on tracking down my elusive target. She had given me the slip for a couple of days, but today I was determined to find her.

It had been a long, hard chase. For a while there, it was like I was always one step behind her. But I was close. I could feel it, for she was careless. There were clues left strewn about at each crime scene: a smooth and polished comment, a snippet of idea clearly cut by a sharp wit, and several incriminating photos to boot.

But she was good, and she knew it, and she knew that I knew.

Perhaps being careless was just her way of taunting me.

But I vowed it won’t be long before I found her again.

Just then, though, in walked a pair of the finest smooth-skinned legs any bipedal organism of the female persuasion would want for locomotion. And there were other uses as well, I can assure you.

But today, any stocking-covered, stiletto-heel bearing gam-gandering was precluded by the dark cotton-blend covering of a loose-fitting pair of sweatpants. The luscious lips that belonged to the rest of the warmly dressed body parted. What followed was to the point, a point I had no trouble getting.

“Honey, I’m off to class.”

“Okay, honey. Good luck on the exam today.” I replied. I gave the wife a kiss, and she went out through the garage side door. Such a cutie.

And then, another hour passed before I could get back on the case — you know, kids. School. ‘Nuff said.

I dug out my dog-eared notebook — great for keeping track of clues — and again worked on the case, going over and over all the pieces of information I had, somehow knowing that I needed to form a puzzle without the picture on the box. That puzzle could turn out to be highly valued, revered, maybe even talked about. But I wouldn’t know until the job was done.

I agonized and thought some more. I went to the john to pay my respects and thought there, too. Then I made a cup of tea and quaffed it down like there was no tomorrow. Decaffeinated, if you must know. And green, too.

And then I found her.

She appeared right where she was the other day, when everyone was out of the pad. When I was alone.

She stood right there in all her splendid glory, dressed in some sort of ethereal, swirling, wispy thing of excuse for a dress.

This was no ordinary dame.

Unlike a cornered animal, she would not fight back. Now caught, she would willingly relinquish herself. There would be no more games.

So without a word, she drifted up to me and peered over my shoulder at the screen.

“Oh, Nez, that looks like a great post!” Muse said. “Why don’t you fix that typo…”

To be continued…?

photo credit: borderhacker

During this time of year, sports fans are usually glued to their TV’s to watch the NCAA basketball championship tourney — also called March Madness. And basically right after that comes the professional NBA Playoffs. It’s the best time to be a basketball fan.

And while I’m pleased that our local professional team (the Golden State Warriors) is in the hunt for a playoff spot, I’m writing this to talk about dealing with pressure situations, in which during this time there will be plenty.

Clutch Performers

For athletes, we often praise the ones who are “clutch”, who, with the game on the line, are able to score the winning basket from the field, be it a lay-up against the “trees” clogging the lanes to the basket, a long-ranged jump shot over the outstretched arms of two defenders, or the successful free throws amidst the howling and hooting of thousands upon thousands of rabid fans, all with only seconds left on the game clock.

Real Life Pressure Situations

But for the rest of us mere mortals, let me ask you have you ever:

• Put in an all-nighter for a term paper, and wound up getting an A?
• Made a presentation in front of investors, and aced all the hard questions, landing the big contract?
• Received the proverbial client’s curve ball — something you never expected — but kept your cool and proceeded (and succeeded) as if you expected it all along?

Those are all pressure situations where the expectation to perform and deliver is high — and it feels GREAT when you do.

People often get paid big bucks for that kind of performance, and deservedly so.

Reason for Failure

However, many people do buckle under the stress.

And the stress comes from getting into a state of mind where uncertainty, doubt and/or fear reigns:

• What if I mess up?
• I’m not prepared!!
• What’s the next step?

These and any number of other questions and thoughts run through the mind, and the subsequent failure to perform is often summarized as paralysis by analysis.

Qualities of Clutch Performers

Clutch performers, on the other hand, have these qualities:

• Confidence from Practice – no one is born perfect, and neither does intense practice make one perfect, despite the popular saying. However, what practice DOES do is train your muscles, honing their “muscle memory”, and perfect practice instills the confidence to perform perfectly, so when the time comes, the person who has practiced a lot appears to perform effortlessly. When you know you’ve done it (successfully) before (in practice), you can be confident you’ll do it again (in real game situations). That’s the reason why Michael Jordan, Jerry Rice, Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly were notorious for their intense practices/rehearsals.
• Being Prepared – basically, this is the same as confidence from practice, but it bears explaining that the best performers are always prepared. For the job seeker, it’s as simple as doing the basic research of a company at which you want to work. For the self-employed, it’s keeping apprised of what the competition in your market is doing. For the lone woman traveling at night, it’s being aware of your surroundings. Preparation also comes from real practical experience — both successes and failures. Everything you do (or choose to do) prepares you for new challenges.
• Stay in the moment and let the chips fall where they may – the confidence from practice and preparation also allows the clutch performer to stay focused in the present, allowing their minds or bodies to perform without distraction. Sometimes we hear of athletes getting into “the zone”, in which the action seems to be flowing in slow motion. My theory is that when someone is in “the zone”, that person’s mind must be operating at peak efficiency and thus is able to process all the incoming sensory stimuli, making necessary calculations, adjustments, recollections and reactions at lightning speed. The effect would seem like the outside world has suddenly slowed down.
• Know that failures are inevitable, but see them as minor setbacks on the road to their goal(s) - Michael Jordan did not always make the game-winning shot, but that never stopped him from continuously honing his game, working on eliminating his weaknesses, and maintaining confidence in himself. His sheer force of will would not allow wallowing in defeat. Clutch performers know that failure does not mean the end of the world, and in doing so, is able to move on after the occasional lapses. That awareness and acceptance also allow them to stay in the moment, and drives them to persevere.

How about you? Got any tips or stories on dealing with pressure situations?

photo credit: *tom*

A couple of years ago, a friend bought one of my kids a toy bowling set. They took to it immediately and played and played with it. However, it wasn’t long before we noticed cracks developing in some of the pins.

Sure enough, at one point, one of the pins broke into several pieces after a particularly “intense” frame. I could only surmise that cheap, brittle plastic was used in the set’s construction. No doubt the toy was bought at one of those “5 and dime” stores (inflation has turned them into dollar stores).

Looking for Bargains

I’m not against being frugal — it used to be that I was always on the look-out for bargains. But, especially after that experience, and being self-employed for the last few years, I am more acutely aware that there is a lot behind the final product or service we see in ads or stores.

To Get Products to the Stores

Now, whenever I see a product — whether it’s a toy, or a piece of furniture, or even a car — I also see it as something that has undergone a production and distribution cycle that include things like conceptualization, resource acquisition, creation, distribution, marketing and customer service. (I apply the same evaluation for services: painting, roofing, landscaping, etc.)

Costs are Incurred at Every Step

I then think about the price in terms of the wholesale costs for each of these steps:

• conceptualization – paying designers, engineers, inventors, research and development, etc.
• resource acquisition – paying for, and growing and harvesting raw materials, digging them out of the ground, refinining etc.
• creation – the actual process of construction, through labor and/or machines, all of which must be paid for
• distribution – packaging, shipping, trucking, etc.
• customer service – retail services, warranties, repairs and replacements, etc.
• support infrastructure – all the buildings, administrative staff, insurance, etc., needed to run each of the above “components”

Economies of Scale

I also take into account whether the item is mass produced, or whether the service is provided by a local small business — since materials or services do not come cheap on a single unit basis — in order to see if product is (seemingly) affordable, or worth what is being charged.

When a Bargain is Not Really a Bargain

However, when I see a product that is too cheap, then I have to assume one or more of the following must be true:

1. Outsourced manufacturing – The product is produced overseas, where wages are much lower, and worker treatment may be substandard or abusive, such as sweat shops
2. Remainders – the product is being dumped, sold at a loss because it couldn’t be sold otherwise. No one really wants it because it’s a piece of junk
3. Product Sold at a Loss – a strategy to gain market share, stifle competition, etc., like what Microsoft is doing with the Xbox 360
4. Short-sighted Management – product is manufactured with profit as the only motive — people and resources are unduly exploited for short term gain, perhaps a disregard for health and environment, etc.
5. Product is made of shoddy material, or with materials that might be unsafe – lower grade ore, cheaper plastics carcinogenic paints, leaded materials, less robust circuits, etc.
6. Product is unreliable – poorly designed components, mediorcre workmanship, and such can result in an inferior product like a cheap PC, or a car that’s a “lemon”

If it’s a service, then I have to consider whether or not the person offering the service is executing sound business practices. If the price is too low, he or she may be subsidizing the service with income from a full-time job. If there is no other job, then I would wonder whether this particular small business will be around in a year or two.

Cheapest May Not be the Best Option

So as you can see, sometimes purchasing a product or service based on the cheapest price will not turn out all that beneficial.

The product may be unsafe or it may break sooner than later — such that you need to junk it, contributing to our landfills, and need to go out and buy a replacement. Or returning it or getting it serviced may be more trouble than it’s worth due to poor customer service.

The service may turn out to be a one-time thing, with little or no recourse if you are unsatisfied.

A lot of times, we don’t think or even consider any of these things — we’re happy to simply buy, buy, buy.

photo credit: *tdl*

Even before I started this blog, I’ve been gleaning the various tips and tricks that abound in the Blogosphere, so much like a baleen whale, taking them in huge volumes, trying to filter out the best ones. Here’s what I have thus far — I’m calling it the ABC’s of Blogging. Enjoy.

• Attract readers with compelling headlines
• Books – read them to help improve your writing
• Creative, insightful, or timely Content is what will keep your readers Coming back — Crappy Content will torpedo Clever titles
• Dedicate time researching for and thinking about your posts, Do spend more than ten minutes writing
• Edit, Edit, Edit — good writing comes from rewriting
• Find your niche, if you want
• Get into a habit of writing regularly
• Have a conversational tone in your posts and comments to build a welcome Haven for your readers
• Inspiration and Ideas for posts comes from everywhere — news, conversations, comments, so pay attention
• Jot down ideas in a little notebook that you keep close by
• Keep a regular schedule of posting to train your audience — consider an editorial calendar
• Leverage the power of a blog in your business
• Monetize your blog if you’d like, but Moderation is key — no one likes to be bombarded by ads
• Never spam — follow the golden rule
• Offer true value in your posts, Offer an e-book, Offer an RSS feed and Offer full feeds
• Profanity should checked at the door — your blog is Public and little People will find it
• Queen. Content can be Queen, too — blogging is equal opportunity, and many of my favorite bloggers are women
• Reassess your blog Regularly to see if you’re on the Right track, or if you need to Re-adjust your direction
• Stumbleupon and other Social networking tools can help people find you, but may not be necessary if you have good, clear content and some SEO
• Try to keep your stat-gazing to a minimum — Too much attention means you’re wasting Time
• Use humor if you’ve got the skillz
• Visit other blogs you like and comment meaningfully on posts when you have something to say
• Wordpress is your friend
• “X-it” the online world on a regular basis — go out, take a walk, talk to real live people, have a life
• Zee truth once again is that Content is King!

UPDATE:

• Yes, um…I deliberately left “Y” out to see if people actually read the entire thing, Yeah, that’s it, that’s my storY and I’m sticking with it!

Jame’s post on PLR articles yesterday got me thinking. What’s wrong with the PLR articles?

Too Much Run-of-the-Mill Content

PLR articles or Private Label Rights articles, if you don’t already know (I didn’t), are pre-written content that a subscriber can use for his or her own blog. Ideally, the blogger using the article will dress up the content, add his or her own twist to it to avoid having the exact same content as someone else who might have signed up (read: paid) for the same batch of PLR articles.

According to James, though, the proliferation of these cheap, repackaged material that is sold to thousands, if not tens of thousands of bloggers looking for content (with “low” prices, so volume must be high to gain profits) to fill their blogs will overwhelm the internet as we know it, burying us in a flood of recycled content that is old, stale and regurgitated.

The Microstock Business Model

What James is describing sounds similar to what professional photographers are experiencing in recent years as well, specifically with stock photography.

With free photo sites like Flickr (which is great!) and multitudes of “penny” stock — or microstock — image companies, the past work of photographers sitting in the vaults of the giant stock image companies become less valuable. Certain new work undoubtedly is worth less as well due to increased competition. (Wikipedia entry on microstock photography)

Professional photographer John Harrington, in his Photo Business Blog, describes it best: who needs to license a picture of the White House when you can find (a free) one on Flickr that is just as good?

Just as James sees PLR articles as a bad business practice, Harrington also finds the microstock model lacking as well. The once almighty Getty Images bought one of the larger microstock companies, iStockPhoto, and consequently shot themselves in the foot, according to Harrington. Why pay $200 when you can pay $1 for the “same” image? (Getty was recently sold to a private company, so we will see if doing so will mean a shift in focus back to doing what’s beneficial to their content providers — the photographers instead of what shareholders want — the bottom line.)

What’s Wrong with the Microstock Business Model?

I bet in the beginning, the early adopter photographers who put up their images on sites like Shutterstock, which currently pays 25 cents per download, made off pretty well. On this particular stock site, it pays 25 cents to the photographer for each of his/her image that is downloaded, so it states if your image gets downloaded 2000 times, you get $500. Sounds good, right?

Well, it is if you, the image-creator, were on a roster of only several hundred photographers, and you had at least a few dozen top-selling images: $500 x 20 images per month = pretty good money!

However, the site mentions these stats as of today:

• 3,141,584 royalty-free stock photos
• 36,756 new stock photos added this week
• 91,940 photographers

Over 90 thousand photographers. And over 3 million images. Seems like a lot of great choices for the end users: tons of high-quality, royalty-free photos at low, low prices. But how is it for the content creator — the photographer? Of 3 million images, how many are “top-selling”? One must realize that if the supply far, far outweighs demand, the likelihood of anyone having a top-selling images becomes marginally better than winning the lottery.

How many images does the photographer need to have that sell? Would they get enough payment to make a decent living? If not, they’ll have to do something else instead of creative great images, wouldn’t they?

Who actually makes the money here? Hint: the middle-man (remember it’s a numbers game.)

PLR Articles is the Microstock of Professional Writing

I believe Jame’s sentiments about PLR articles is the same as what I’ve described about the microstock business model. The people that truly profit from PLR articlers are the ones selling them — the middle men/women who promise writers hefty pay-out for their well-researched, well-written content. Those content-providing writers who got into the game first are sure to do well, just like those early-entry stock photographers, but as more and more dive in, the result will most likely mirror what’s happened with stock photography — writers would have to write more and more content to generate the same income, most likely resulting in poorer work, and devaluing the overall web experience.

What Will Happen?

While James may be going for the dramatic flare when he says the influx of run-of-the-mill, repeated content will CRASH the internet, I have to think that while the internet will most likely survive, the writing landscape will undoubtedly change.

According to Technorati’s State of the Live Web report (April 2007),

• approximately 120,000 new blogs are create each day, or 1.4 per second
• bloggers write 1.5 million posts per day, or 17 posts per second

Mind-boggling, er…rather, mind-bloggling when you think about it.

What will happen in the end, I think, will be up to us, the bloggers who care about what we want to say, and ultimately who care about our readers.

Already, I see some hints of things to come, but I’ll save that for a future post. Thanks for reading!