ChaosScenario

The College Degree Myth

Educational institutions have it all wrong. 

If you go to college, you will earn more money than if you did not. College admissions departments send collateral that show increases in income levels for those who earn degrees. Teachers, undoubtedly with the best intentions, hoping to find something that will motivate their students to learn the material they're being taught, repeat the same chorus: "If you don't pay attention now, you will not be able to go to college. If you don't go to college, you won't be successful."

They ask you to look the other way when they teach you about people from this august list.

• Benjamin Franklin
• George Washington
• Abe Lincoln
• Frederick Douglass
• Thomas Edison
• The Wright Brothers
• Steve Jobs
• Bill Gates
• Michael Dell

None of them earned college degrees. All were brilliant. All were succesful. And in case it's not clear from the list, several in the group had to overcome modest -- even oppressive -- circumstances of their youth to achieve great things.

There may be an explanation for this. In his classic book, How to Lie with Statistics, Darrell Huff suggessts that the premise of the statement is the child of a post-hoc fallacy, that presumes that because many people who have degrees are successful, the degree must have caused it.

"Actually we don't know but that these people are the people who would have made more money even if they had not gone to college. There are a couple of things that indicate rather strongly that this is so. College get a disproportionate number of two groups of kids: the bright and the rich. The bright show good earning power without college knowledge. And as for the rich one... well, money breeds money in several number of ways. Few sons of rich men are found in low-income brackets whether they go to college or not." 

People like Lincoln, the Wright Brothers, Douglass, etc., weren't stupid on account of their lack of a degree, and they weren't self-made men. They were "Open-Source Learners" -- people who tapped into the resources of their age to improve their understanding about how some part of the universe works.

How much more should we in the 21st century, who can write and talk with and see people halfway around the world in an instant -- for next to nothing -- be able to improve our understanding of how some useful part of the universe works, and with the tools at our disposal, put it to good use?

A little background

My brother Gannon ran into a motivation wall when we were kids. Convinced by the world that he needed to go to college to be successful, once he got it into his head that he could neither afford college nor earn a scholarship, he lost hope, checked out mentally, did as little as he thought he needed to in order to stay eligible for sports and bided his time until he could graduate and join the Marines.

And he was smart. One semester in high school, he dedicated himself and got straight As. Just to prove that he could. After having accomplished that, not believing the effort was worth it, he fell back to Bs, Cs and Ds.

Since then, I've watched his very intentional transformation from a amatuer hobbiest illustrator to a master craftsman. (You can follow some of his work on his blog). His skill can't be chalked up to superior genetics or fancy schooling. It is a product of reading, collaboration, and 5 years or 10,000 hours of practice.

How to Pursue a Degree Without Going to College

In his book, Schoolless (Available on Amazon in paperback and for the Kindle), Gannon doesn't argue that college isn't useful repository of excellent learning tools, or that people should eschew a college degree... Rather, it is a celebration of alternative learning strategies that don't cost $27,000 (the average cost of a 4-year college degree in 2005).  

Wondering how you're going to possibly send your kids to college? Lost hope in ever getting a degree without a mountain of debt? The good news is that you have options. There's still time to get this book for Christmas! Do it today. - Cam Beck

 

3 Ways to Use Mobile Effectively

Since my last post, we've had a few major events in the mobile space.

1. The iPhone 4s was released to the general public, and people who have been able to overlook the new phone's battery issues (apparently a software issue that will be resolved in a few weeks), they've been so enthralled by its semantic-web (or Subservient Chicken) inspired Siri that they even launched a website that highlights both its ability to recognize complex speech and its personality while doing so. 
2. A little while later, Google announced its new new Android mobile OS, Ice Cream Sandwich, and the sound of geeks drooling could be heard around the world.
3. Now Amazon said that it is launching a book-lending service to go along with its Prime membership (as long as they own a Kindle). It's sort of like Netflix, but in addition to movies, it also provides books. Oh, and free 2-day shipping on most of the items you can order on Amazon. Gizmodo calls it "Officially the Greatest Deal in Tech." Certainly Amazon just became more of a digital content juggernaut than it already was.

I'll have more to say on these developments later, but for now, let it suffice to say that this confirms that mobile is reaching the critical tipping point I mentioned before.

(As an aside, I can always tell when some technology reaches the tipping point when my parents start using it. RIght after they joined Facebook, the rest of the world did, even though I had been on it for about two years by the time they joined. True to form, my dad started texting me recently.)

What does this mean? It means that the best computer is the one you have on you. It means if you need to reach people, they need to be able to access you wherever they have a need for whatever it is that you sell. Finally, it means that not having a mobile strategy at this point may well be, competitively speaking, like one of those dreams where you accidentally show up to school without your clothes on ("Shoot! I KNEW I forgot something...")

So what do you do? You get your butt moving, that's what! As I'm sure I heard Seth Godin say at some point, the best time to start is a year ago. The second-best time is right now.

And it's not enough to produce any old thing. Says Jakob Nielsen, "Last year, it might have been cool simply to have an app. Now, that app better be good. Requirements have gone up."

Here are three strategies to get your brain going. By no means is this list exhaustive.

Duplication

This is when you take everything that is on your website and cram it into your mobile website, but optimize it for the smaller screen sizes. Everything can be reformatted to fit the screen, of course, but for all intents and purposes, they are carbon copies of one another.

Replacement

This is when you design a mobile experience instead and in exclusion of a desktop website. I can't think of any effective examples for this. Maybe some independent developers looking to create a killer app -- but even most (all?) realize the importance of having a website to support it. Plus, being developers, they also know how easy it is to get something credible up quickly.

Displacement

A displacement strategy is when the experience designed for each device is married to its respective strengths and divorced from its weaknesses. For instance, desktop devices have a bigger screen area that can be used to enhance navigation or display more information, but you won't have it on you when you're out with your friends wondering what is happening in the city today. Mobile phones, on the other hand, are instantly available when you need quick information, they can identify what's around you due to enormous (and growing) infrastructure support, but doing certain things, like typing, can be murder.  

Conclusion

To successfully pull off any strategy, you really need to put yourself in your audience's' shoes. Which is great if you are your own audience. If not, you're going to need to do some research. Don't skimp on this! If you don't have a much of a budget, start with some guerilla stuff. Take your small wins and build on them.

Be strategic.

Be intentional.

Be mobile.

And be quick about it, will you?

What are some of your favorite strategies for mobile implementation?

- Cam Beck

Call Your Game. Play to Win.

At the recent AFC Championship game between the New York Jets and the Pittsburgh Steelers, near the end of the game, the Steelers clung to a narrow lead and faced 3rd down with 6 yards to go. The Jets were out of timeouts, but there were 2 minutes left in the game. Should the Steelers not convert in that situation, the Jets would be hard-pressed to march down the field on the NFL's best defense to score the touchdown they would need to win and advance to the Super Bowl. Conventional wisdom (as articulated by the announcers of the game) was to run the ball, eat as much time off the clock as possible, punt and let the Jets try its hand against that stout defense with just over a minute left to play.

It was a pretty good bet, all things considered, but a risk either way. Their punter had a kick nearly blocked earlier in the game, and quite frankly, he hadn't exactly been booming his kicks since he joined the team earlier in the season when their original punter was injured. A long punt return -- even for a score (which was the ruin of several Steelers games last season) -- wasn't out of the question.

A first down, on the other hand, would enable the Steelers to safely kneel down on the ball, and the Jets would be powerless to stop the clock. A first down meant the game would be over, but it was unlikely that the Steelers could get a first down by running the ball, since the Jets were stacking up to stop the run. An incomplete pass would stop the clock. For all intents and purposes, it would have been a free time out for the Jets. 

The Steelers quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger, was not having a picture-perfect game, having barely completed half of his passes on the evening. It was no sure thing that he'd complete a pass or have the presence of mind to take a sack instead of making a risky throw against a very good defense. 

But when it came time to decide what to do at that critical moment, Steelers coach Mike Tomlin didn't hesitate. He did not vacillate. "Call your game, BA," he said to his offensive coordinator, Bruce Arians, who called a pass play that, in conjunction with some improvisation by the offense on the field, picked up a first down that sealed the game for the Steelers.

Had the pass been intercepted, or left enough time on the clock for the Jets to run down the field and score, Steelers fans around the world may still be calling for the head of Tomlin. Had the Steelers run the ball, punted and left the game to the defense, no matter what the outcome was, sports pundits would openly wonder if Tomlin lacked the guts to risk losing in order to put the game away.

Now, we have a tendency to measure success based on outcomes, and as such, it's easy to look at that game in hindsight, knowing full well the Steelers are going to their 3rd Super Bowl in 6 years and say that it was a smart move. Gutsy, even. But there's something the certainty of hindsight that makes us forget the loneliness of leadership.

Having observed Tomlin in action, I feel like I know enough to say that, had they let that 24-point lead they once had slip away to defeat, he would have simply said, "That was my decision. If you want to blame someone, blame me. I don't apologize for it. I'd do it again in the same situation." And he'd have plenty of evidence from his team's capabilities to supply such confidence, regardless of the outcome. But evidence doesn't necessarily stop the critics. That's what makes them critics.

A fond farewell

I bring this up today because I've recently decided to say goodbye to my friends and colleagues at Click Here and The Richards Group, with whom I've been fortunate to work with for nearly 7 years, to offer my user experience (UX) skills to the bright folks at Slingshot.

Though sad to leave the place I've spent so many days and nights and leave the good friends and good people who've toiled with me in rain, sleet, snow and sunshine at Click Here, I'm very excited about the opportunity that lies before me -- an opportunity to go for the win, not just for myself, but for my family, my new employer, their clients and their customers related to the projects I'll be working on with my new friends and colleagues at Slingshot.

How do you save the world? One project at a time.

In a recent conversation with a friend and project manager, Joe Wilson (this one, not that one) I expressed my philosophy on business and user experience that frames everything I do, and why I care and take my job very seriously.

In short, I enjoy helping good people and good businesses succeed for the right reasons, for their wealth brings higher employment and individual prosperity, and with that, a better opportunity to not only reduce poverty, but also help those who need assistance, voluntarily. 

"You're trying to save the world," Joe exclaimed.

"Yeah," I told him, "I am," without really reflecting on just how silly it sounded.

Because for man, this is impossible. I know this. Only God has that kind of power. However, that knowledge does not aleive us of our responsibility to our part. To make strides to his purpose, sometimes you need to pass when conventional wisdom says you should run. You have to take risks. You have to play to win, even if it means stepping away from the environment to which you've been accustomed to venture out onto a new playing field and a new strategy that you hadn't originally envisioned.

For one reason or another, that time has come for me.

I extend sincerest best wishes to the entire Click Here organization and everyone I've been blessed to work with over the last 7 years. I cannot express enough gratitude for what you all mean to me.

But I also look forward to the future with great hope and anticipation. Fasten your safety belts, folks. No matter what happens, we're in for a fun ride. - Cam Beck

 

Love Thy Customers: Advice for the Next Decade

"You know what the first rule of flying is? ... Love. You can learn all the math in the 'Verse, but you take a boat in the air that you don't love, she'll shake you off just as sure as a turn of the worlds. Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down, tells you she's hurtin' before she keels. Makes her a home." - Malcom Reynolds, Serenity (2005)

There's a scene in the sci-fi classic movie, Serenity, where, after a successful heist perpetrated against the evil Alliance, the crew's captain Mal takes the booty back to the job's sponsors, Fanty and Mingo, to give them their 25% commission and (hopefully) get another job. 

"Well our end is forty, precious," says Fanty. One gets the sense that there was soon going to be a major fight when the dueling parties were distracted by an even more entertaining brawl.

Can you imagine a world without trust?

You're at the checkout counter of the grocery store. You need some ingredients for apple crisp. The clerk, who has been eyeballing you for your entire visit, refuses to put the groceries in the bag until he's seen the money. You refuse to show the money until you're sure he'll let you out of the store with them.

But back up. Because before you get to the checkout, you have to inspect all of the fruit. You want to make sure they're not old, rotten mush. You also need to inspect the bags of sugar to make sure they aren't filled with sawdust. The grocer doesn't want you to open the bags, out of fear that you'll replace his sugar with sawdust. So you'd leave without buying, because you don't trust that beady-eyed grocer.

But back up. Because you can't leave your house anyway to go to the grocery store out of fear that you'll get mugged by the ruffians that patrol the neighborhood. You've never seen them, but you're sure they're there. Anyway, the grocer could never have opened a store in the first place, because no one would trust him with a loan. You get your groceries from a garden out back, which is decimated with insects, because you don't have anyone to sell you pesticides.

Successful, sustained commerce depends on a lot of things. We talk a lot about them in the course of our work. Some of them have value, some of them are hogwash. ROI. CPM. Engagement. Usability engineering. Experience. Product, Price, Place, Promotion. Branding. Income statements, balance sheets, cash flow. Social Media. Customers service.

We go to school, conferences and seminars to understand or execute them better. We send wads of cash to Amazon and Barnes and Noble to gobble up Seth Godin's books. And there's nothing wrong with ANY of that. Why would I begrudge anyone from getting better at the technical aspects of their jobs?

But what if we need something more elemental than all of that?

What if our deepest problem isn't whether we know how to calculate return on investment and successfully predict the future. Specifically, what if our deepest problem is that we don't love our neighbors well? And if that is true, what can we do about it?

What's more, how do we encourage each other to love others better? It seems a little self-serving. For when we say to our neighbors, "Love your neighbor," we're including ourselves in that group. We're saying to them, "Love us better." But as a man in the business of talking to others in business, my advice to all those who wish to be successful is this:

Love your customers better.

Thinking over the last decade, we've seen the likes of Enron, WorldCom, Bernie Madoff, Lehman Brothers -- the entire banking and investment industry -- industries run by "the best and the brightest," who went to the "best" schools run multi-billion dollar businesses into the ground as they sought to enrich themselves. It isn't a question of whether they knew how to do math. It was that they loved themselves more than they loved their neighbors.

Why is love so important to commerce?

• You don't rob someone you love.
• You don't try to swindle someone you love.
• You don't overcharge someone you love.
• You keep your promises to someone you love.

The apostle Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 13 what love is and just how important it is. Let's look at what he says, particularly about knowledge or the ability to tell the future:

"And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing."

He continues.

"Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away… So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love."

When you look at the last decade through the lens of improving technologies and products that change the way we communicate, it superficially appears to be a much different environment than in decades past. Could you have imagined Facebook and Twitter a decade ago? Could you have predicted its adoption?

What's more, people who are so inclined have more sophisticated methods to take advantage of/steal from others -- through economics or politics -- and that fosters an abiding suspicion of business, whether the suspicion is well founded in any particular instance or not.

But sometimes you have to take a step back from the pounding you're taking and get back to the basics. None of the things we do in business and marketing makes a difference if we have not love. What's most important to you? What do you want to accomplish? You want to see economic recovery? Then love thy customers. When you do that purely, the circumstances that follow apart from that don't even matter.

- Cam Beck

Googlevision: Coming to a Best Buy Near You

A "who's who" partnership of innovation, Google, Sony and Intel is launching a new television platform that promises to change the way we watch TV by allowing people to access the rich utility of the Internet through their television screens.

"Google was able to conduct a series of Internet searches in a drop-down box that appears at the top of television programs. The search results pointed to Internet videos and other content related to the television program on the screen."

"A telecast of a sporting event can be shrunk into a small "picture-in-picture" box so a viewer can look at statistics or other material about the game on TV."

"Viewers can also make search requests by speaking into a remote that runs on Google's Android operating system."

"Google CEO Eric Schmidt described the potential of the Internet TVs as mind-boggling, although he acknowledged it might be difficult for some consumers to grasp at first. That's one reason he said Google decided to team up with Best Buy, which offers a "geek squad" to deal with complex technology."

It reminded me of an article I wrote back in 2007, "How to Save TV":

"This isn't a competition between TV and the Internet. The Internet is richer because of TV, and it's becoming increasingly clear that programs are richer because of the utility of the Internet. That interdependence needs to be embraced -- even harvested."

"As such, the way to save television is to discard the interruption advertising model on which is based -- that is, to make it more like what is good about the Internet. Rich interactive programs (Choose Your Own Adventure, anyone?), on-demand content that remains free and non-intrusive, and effective, accountable advertising."

"The Internet, simply, needs more bandwidth to support better quality content, higher adoption rates, and better usability. I know Cuban doesn't think much of this can be done, but I'm staking my future on the idea that it can."

"What will we call this integrated system? It's hard to predict. I suppose it depends on the primary path the innovation takes -- whether we're getting the combination of TV and Internet through AppleTV 10.0 or if we're getting it through Comcast Cable. If it's the former, perhaps our children will be asking if we can watch the Internet tonight. If it's the latter, maybe they'll ask if they can play on the TV."

First of all, you're welcome, Google. Your bill is in the mail.

Second, I have to raise an objection to this gross simplification used by the AP in their article:

"Google wants to turn televisions into giant monitors for Web surfing so it can make more money selling ads."

I'm not a fan in all the ways they want to do it, but Google wants to change the world. Selling ads is simply how they are able to fund new adventures, but it's also how they provide these paradigm changes for free.

The utilities they've developed in their relatively short life as a company have already changed the way we communicate, the way we travel, the way we do research, the way we invest, the way we advertise and the way we build websites,

Not everything they've developed is exclusively (or even remotely) their idea, but any way you look at it, they've fostered widespread adoption of many of their useful technologies because they've developed a sustainable business model that allows them to offer it at no cost to the user.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting Google, Schmidt, or any other Google employee doesn't care about the money. As Ronald Reagan said, it can't buy happiness, but it certainly can buy a better class of memories.

But money is a means as well as an end. Google could have been anything. They chose the type of business they would be, the applications they would develop and the work they would do.

I'm sure the money is nice. But you cannot sell a product like they're proposing to sell unless it has value to the buyer commensurate with the amount they will pay for it. If Google started out with the question, "How do I sell more advertising," they would have folded long ago. - Cam Beck

Why this iPad Won't Kill the Kindle Platform (and how it could)

Many have already voiced glowing praise or strong disapproval of Apple's recently announced iPad.  Some proponents, such as Leo Laporte, call it a "Kindle Killer." Skeptics and haters call it "The next Apple Cube."

These judgments are premature, however. Whatever "magic" Apple has in store for the future, there's nothing in the first generation iPad that changes the market dynamics so completely that it will disrupt Amazon's economics with the Kindle solely as an eReader.

People who buy eReaders are typically going to take reading seriously. The advantages that they bring are best realized by certain types of people:

• Heavy readers who want to enjoy the improved economics that eBooks bring
• Heavy readers who want to conserve physical space
• Anyone who travels frequently and likes to read on trips

With these audiences, the iPad falls short for a number of reasons:

1. Nearly twice the cost of entry
The starting price for the iPad is $499. For the Kindle, it's $259. By way of example, assume the average eBook price is $10, with its hard-copy counterparts costing twice that. A Kindle owner must purchase 26 books before breaking even. An iPad owner would need to purchase 50. 

So for the heavy reader, the economics are hard to justify. For the casual or occasional reader, they are nearly impossible -- if they're going to use the iPad over the Kindle simply as an eReader.

2. Back-lit display
The e-Ink technology that drives most eReaders today has some limitations, but it minimizes eye strain compared to back-lit displays, such as what the iPad has. For heavy readers, this is a significant drawback. It means they can't read as much without their eyes getting tired. It may still be viable for those who are not heavy readers, but in that case, the economics make even less sense solely as an eReader, and except by virtue of wide market distribution, Apple's bookstore cannot promise much revenue to publishers, making the marketplace less attractive (especially as a closed system, as it likely will be).

At least the format is open-source anyway, so they don't have to reformat their books specifically for the iPad.

3. Shorter battery Life
10 hours is a lot of time to be reading. And the standby time the iPad promises is remarkable, but a back-lit display capable of showing full-color images, videos and applications comes at a price. With wireless off, the Kindle can go at least two weeks without a charge, so there's no reason to be tethered to a power source for travelers.

Marketing Differences

Because the iPad does a lot of things, it's hard to describe it using terms that are clear and understandable by a lot of people. The tagline for the iPad is "A magical and revolutionary product at an unbelievable price."

What's the frame of reference? It's a "product?" So is a refrigerator. And oatmeal. And manure. 

It's almost as if Apple believes an entire category can be created by adding abstract and glowing adjectives.

Plus, because the iPad does a lot of things, making promises about how many books it holds would undermine its uses as something other than just an eReader. And it is much more than just an eReader. It's a "product" that CAN be used as an eReader. Among other things.

The Kindle, by contrast, says it's a "reading device" and promises simply that it will hold 1,500 books. In other words, more than you'll read over the next five years.

That's much more concrete than "16GB," which is how much storage the entry-level iPad promises.

So, as an eReader, Amazon's Kindle enjoys the advantage of being able to be explicitly sold as an eReader.

Apple Raises the Bar for User Experience

Apple has done some things well. Even as an eReader iPad works in some important respects. The prevailing question is whether it works sufficiently for the consumer at their prices.

1. Intimacy
Though not flawless, the experience of reading a book on the iPad looks to be more intimate than with the Kindle. The page-turning metaphor is direct and closely resembles the experience of actually turning a page of a book. Along with the ability to deliver deeper content through color and multimedia (which is impossible with either the Kindle or a physical book), motivated publishers have the capability to engage consumers like never before possible.

2. Usability
The touch-screen interface allows Apple to dispense with the metaphors that drag down the Kindle. That makes interactions more direct and gives publishers and app developers more flexibility on how they choose to deliver their content. As such, students can hope that Apple's platform makes it easier to consume nonlinear books than the Kindle does. And since anyone with an iPod or iPhone is already familiar with the iTunes interface, assuming the experience of purchasing a book rises at least to that level of usability, there's very little reason to believe the experience would be any more difficult on the iPad than the Kindle.

3. Flexibility
The iPad does a lot of little things well, and it looks like it can be used to specialize or converge however its owner intends. It can be a personal assistant. It can be a gaming device. It can be used to stream music or movies (with the right app and know-how) from a media server. It can be used as a netbook computer (especially with the optional keyboard). It can be used as a home automation control pad. Or it can be used as all of these things.

The beauty and the curse is that the consumer controls what it will be used for.

The problem is that convincing the masses that something that CAN be used in such ways SHOULD be used in such ways relies on heavy, repetitive marketing, positive word-of-mouth, or consumers themselves having the imagination for its divergent possible uses. Oh, plus they must be willing to risk at least $500 on the prospects -- with no guarantee of success.

Here's where it gets exciting

I don't know how the mass marketplace will respond, or how much Apple is willing to reduce its margin to gain a wide penetration for the iPad if at first it does not take off.

But even if it doesn't, if Amazon is smart, they won't take this lying down. Nor will Sony or any other manufacturers of either popular eReaders or tablets. If it's successful, the iPad may either drive down the costs of pure eReaders and/or inspire the development of better interactions.

If that happens, people will be more willing to adopt the platform, the cost of reading will decrease, and publishers will be forced to participate in this space and -- hopefully -- embrace the efficiencies it represents for their entire industry.

Whether the iPad brings Apple financial success or not, Amazon will need to improve its interface (which is already very good for linear reading) and technology. The iPad (and -- perhaps more importantly -- the responses it will engender from rival tablet makers) will likely change users' expectation about how they should interact with books.

Even if Apple doesn't sell as many as they hope, I would still count the iPad a success if it resulted in widespread adoption and use of electronic readers in general. - Cam Beck

10 Advanced Features I Want from Apple Tablet

To hear some commentators tell it, Steve Jobs is going to single-handedly save the newspaper industry with Apple's new tablet, which is rumored to be announced next week (Read Newsweek's Article: Five Ways Apple's Tablet May Change the World).

 I wish him, the newspaper industry, and the world the best of luck.

But while we're pontificating about what the Tablet might do, here's hoping its rumored crowdsourcing need aggregation and fulfillment app (codename: iGenie) will pull in my wish list and make it a reality.

Besides the basics -- Music, Internet, eReader, etc., here are some things I'd like to see in the new Tablet. In the interest of time, I'll stick to the higher points.

1. A magic pixie dust dispenser (Credit Joe "YOU LIE" Wilson)
2. Unlimited battery life
3. If not indestructible (wouldn't be "green"), it would be at least highly durable.
4. A 20 Megapixel camera with 1600x optical zoom, nightvision, flash, and macro and panoramic views.
5. Free 4G connection running on a viable unloaded network.
6. Video conferencing that makes it look like you're looking at the person and not the camera.
7. Autotuning.
8. Wireless Enhanced Neurological Projection (I made that term up. Think of Neo's ability to learn Kung Fu in "The Matrix," but without the holes in our heads).
9. A Step-by-Step Guide to Kung Fu eBook (See previous wish).
10. Can be used as a flotation device and re-breather in the event of a water landing.

There's much more, but you get the point. What are some of the features you want to see? - Cam Beck

Reason: The impotent antidote for the arbitrary whims of powerful and selfish people

"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same." - Ronald Reagan

Have you ever had one of those dreams where you knew somebody you love was going to experience some major calamity, but you were unable to warn him or her about it, no matter how much you wanted to or how much you tried?

Usually it starts off innocuously enough, with only a minor sense that something is wrong. But as the dream progresses, your heart rate elevates as the events unfold, and by the end you're yelling and screaming but unable to touch or convince your loved one that they're in danger. You wake up, breathing heavily for a few minutes before your heart and breathing calm down, grateful that the dream is over, and go back to sleep.

I feel like I've been living that dream for the past decade or so. Only recently have I gotten to the part of the dream where my heart rate begins to elevate.

The problem has been two types of events that we should have predicted:

1. Past events with consequences we should have seen coming
2. Current events with consequences we should see coming

What's got me so worried? Let's take a look at some recent stories.

IRS Revenue Down 34%

The U.S. gets a good portion of its revenue by taxing a percentage of income and wealth. When income and wealth decrease, there is less to take. Therefore, tax revenues decrease.

x% of y-1 < x% of y, where x and y are real numbers.

In order for government to be able to collect revenue, it must have wealth and income to tax. The way to increase wealth is only to invest it. If they have less to invest, they cannot increase wealth. If they cannot increase wealth, the government has less to take.

x% of y+1 > x% of y

When people or companies have money to invest, they typically, in some form or fashion, transfer it to another, in the hopes (but not the promise) that they will be better off for what they get in return. They are free to succeed and they are free to fail.

They will have decreased, on their own accord, how much money they have at any given moment, and someone else will have taken possession of it.

With safeguards against fraud and the protection of private property, that process increases wealth, generates jobs, and is completely consistent with the free choices of the entities who earned it.

Rather than encouraging this sort of behavior that tends to increase wealth, our government has deemed it necessary to use a different equation. Instead of increasing wealth, they are working toward a mechanism to increase the percentage of the income they take from the people who are increasing it through a form of national sales tax called a VAT on TOP of all other sources of revenue.

The thinking goes that this will increase tax receipts.

x+2% of y > x% of y

However, this fails to account for the fact that people will have less to invest on their own, thereby hampering their ability to generate wealth. Initially, tax receipts will increase, but at the expense of the system's efficiency.

x+2% of y-1 ~ x% of y

The government gives very little consideration to the idea that they should spend less during these times, in spite of massive debt they accrue, which increases the interest their posterity will need to account for in the future, as demonstrated by its recent bailout of just-about-everything, including the U.S. automobile industry, which has been languishing for decades because of problems the government helped to create.

Government Will Now Own 72.5% of 'New GM'

Back in December 2008, GM's president Fritz Henderson claimed that GM was too big to be allowed to fail. Showing a remarkable amount of chutzpa, Henderson went as far to say that bankruptcy was not an option and that the government had a moral imperative to inject GM with a ton of taxpayer money to keep it from filing bankruptcy.

What could he possibly have meant by that? Because now it looks like bankruptcy is indeed on the table.

Constitutional issues aside (and there are many of them), the problem with nationalization of enterprise is that it creates a monopoly, drags down innovation borne of market necessity, does not rely on profits or losses to determine its fate (see the Post Office vs UPS or FedEx for an example), which further decreases the efficiency of the system.

(Though I'm not addressing the constitutional issues here, that is not to suggest they are less important than the economic ones. In fact, the two are so intertwined that it's very difficult to leave one aside to talk about the other.)

What's more, since the government doesn't have the money to make the purchase, it must either borrow or print the money to do it. An excess of either tends to cause inflation, which requires the government collect more revenue to both:

1. Service the increased debt
2. Buy products and services

Even still, if the increased debt lowers the country's credit rating, it increases the interest rate the taxpayers must pay on that increased debt.

Faber: Inflation to 'Approach Zimbabwe Level'

Inflation under these conditions is unavoidable. Whether we will reach hyperinflation seems likely, but I don't know if investor Mark Faber is correct when he says it is a 100% certainty (If you don't know what hyperinflation is, or if you need a reminder, click the link above, but only if you don't mind that it will scare the Hell out of you). I hope he's wrong, but I'm not smart enough to know for certain.

In either event, inflation decreases the value of money generally. It destroys wealth, which decreases the amount that individuals are able to freely invest on their own accord.

As we've already shown, when wealth decreases, so does the value of what the the government is able to collect, even further exacerbating the problem.

This is true whether we get hyperinflation, garden-variety inflation, or something in between. One of them is certain.

What is the consequence of all of this? And what does it have to do with marketing?

With a growing appetite and fewer resources to satisfy it, there is little that is out of our government's reach. Rather than curbing its diet, to satisfy this appetite, the it takes more from you and your clients.

• This means you have less work.
• This means you collect less revenue.
• This leads to being able to hire fewer people.
• This leads to higher unemployment rates.
• This leads to diminishing tax receipts and, in the current environment, more government spending.

If you think a government can control everything and you can remain free, I'd like to know what you're smoking.

We've already seen that, with respect to the functional nationalization of the auto industry, the government can now determine who is allowed to run the company, how much they're allowed to pay their executive employees, and how much they're allowed to advertise.

If you're a marketer -- if you're human -- showing how this applies to you is as easy as drawing a short, straight line between A and B.

And unless we act, the worst is still ahead.

"Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other." - Ronald Reagan

What do you do when you see that a building is on fire? Do you sit back and watch it happen? Do you call 911? Or do you rush in to save anyone who might be trapped inside?

If you're stuck inside a burning building, do you resent the one who comes in to rescue you? The one who shouts from the ground to warn you to get out?

Nothing would please me more than to not feel this way, to go about my life as if nothing is wrong.

But the fire is burning. The effects are as predictable as the sunrise. And before I accept this fate as inevitable, I feel a growing sense of responsibility to at least say something. To convince one person.

Powerful and selfish people will tell you differently, and many people will believe them because either they have something to gain from what they say being true (after all, the consequent sure does seem painful) or they're just easily influenced by powerful people. No amount of logic or reasoning will dissuade them. They resent the bell ringer who warns them that their building is on fire.

But the fire does not depend on one's belief. It either is or it isn't.

Let's just keep our eyes open and not  be afraid to see what we see. As long as we do, assuming we catch it early enough, we can correct the problem.

But first we have to be willing. - Cam Beck

The Root of All Failure

A funny thing happened to Jim Collins (Author of Good to Great & Built to Last) on his way to write his next book on companies that survive economic turbulence. A bunch of great companies he profiled in his previous two books started going belly-up or experiencing major problems, and he had to write another book just to address the crisis. Collins remarks in his preface, "I considered setting this piece aside until we'd finished the turbulence book, but then the mighty began to fall, like giant dominoes crashing around us." Take a look at the material he had to work with.

Circuit City. Bankrupt. Liquidated. The brand name and web domain was recently bought by the parent company for CompUSA at a reported $14 million price.

Fannie Mae. The harbinger of a major lending crisis so severe that it sent shockwaves throughout the entire global economy.

Hewlett-Packard. Experienced considerable difficulty trying to keep up with the dot-com bubble and lurched about for a bit before (as of this moment) recovering.

In his new book, How the Mighty Fall, Collins set out to identify the qualities that characterize a once-great company that fails. Although he doesn't claim causality, he wonders if a fall can be predicted and avoided if the company recognizes it's in one of the first four stages of decline.

Stage 1: Hubris born of success
Stage 2: Undisciplined pursuit of more
Stage 3: Denial of risk and peril
Stage 4: Grasping for salvation

Some companies realize they're in stage 4 and are able to recover. Others proceed to Stage 5: Capitulation to irrelevance or death.

But how do you know it's coming? And more importantly, how do you turn things around? If you thought, like I did, that great companies fail because they become complacent and lazy, you'd be just as wrong as I was.

"I've come to see institutional decline like a staged disease: harder to detect but easier to cure in the early stages, easier to detect but harder to cure in the later stages. An institution can look strong on the outside but already be sick on the inside, dangerously on the cusp of a precipitous fall."- Jim Collins

As is probably true with most failures, the companies analyzed here failed because they were arrogant. They were arrogant because they were successful and they remained arrogant because they had been successful in the past. (See related post: The Marketing of Conceit)

The good news is all is not lost. And Collins discusses how and why some companies recovered.

There is a lot to appreciate about this work.

The first thing I noticed is that Collins doesn't claim that any one thing causes a fall and he explains why he is unable to do so. Also, Collins doesn't claim to be unbiased. He's human, he says, and it's difficult to erase any preconceived notions he had about companies.

However, unlike some other brilliant and popular authors, he takes great pains to explain the methodology he used to minimize bias and to identify the characteristics that precipitated the fall of great companies. This way, there is no magic box. The reader can judge the work and analysis on its merits.

Even so, like his other books, this work is supremely readable and informative. It's relatively short, so a motivated student can read it in a single sitting. I read it in two.

Whether you're a big company wondering what you can do to stay relevant or a small company wondering what principles characterize great, lasting enterprises, you can't buy and read this book quickly enough. I highly recommend it. Buy it today. - Cam Beck

Don't Panic. Just Lead.

At MPDailyFix, Beth Harte related a story about how a friend of hers, who is a senior-level marketer, was offered employment with junior-level pay. She goes on to explain some of the reasons this is happening and why she believes it will become more commonplace if marketers don't show their value. She's right. But if I can add my own perspective here, the problem Beth identifies can be understood economically and solved in the same terms.

Unemployment means there are too many people for too few jobs. In other words, there is a surplus of labor.

Surpluses tend to drive down prices.

The price of labor is measured in wages. Thus, when there is a labor surplus in any industry (like marketing), it tends to depress the wages of the people in that industry.

This is especially true when the hiring manager believes it doesn't matter from which part of the labor pool he chooses. One person is just as good as another -- or in Beth's words -- a commodity.

Being good -- being great -- these things don't matter unless we distinguish ourselves from the rest of the pack. It is the perception of our expertise and effectiveness that will enable us to demand higher wages.

Actual expertise can help drive perceived expertise, but it does not guarantee it. Now, more than ever, a marketer must be both good and an excellent self-promoter.

Doing this effectively is about all the things Beth mentioned. Among them:

• Be a leader.
• Measure.
• Document.
• Foster and nurture relationships.
• Continuously improve.

However, this effort shouldn't resemble a campaign -- which is temporary and smacks of insincerity. In order to assure others of our value, we must first strive to be valuable. We must both improve the product and promote the improvement.

Luckily, in our cases, the act of successfully promoting the improvement, in some ways, actually helps to improve the product -- especially when we're willing to make mistakes and learn from them.

Instead of curse the conditions that led to this difficulty, we must embrace it as an opportunity to revolutionize the way we practice marketing. And we can apply to our clients the wisdom we gained from the experience of practicing it on ourselves.

I'm afraid that this won't guarantee a happy ending for everyone -- even a lot of the good ones. However, being a jack of all trades (and more importantly, being the sort of person who can adapt to changing circumstances) all but promises that we'll find someplace to be of use. - Cam Beck