The Occupiers and Capitalism

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On Sunday I had the chance to check out the Occupy Wall Street protest in New York.  It was a pretty amazing scene.  Check out this blog that’s posting updated photos.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what the protest means and if these people are really onto something, or if this is just the latest rant that will go away when cold weather finally hits the east coast.  

Last night I came across Thomas Friedman’s column titled, There’s Something Happening Here.  In it, Friedman proposes that these protests could be a signal that we’ve reached a tipping point in capitalism, he points out this argument:

…these demonstrations are a sign that the current growth-obsessed capitalist system is reaching its financial and ecological limits. 

Yes, the rich are getting richer and the corporations are making profits — with their executives richly rewarded. But, meanwhile, the people are getting worse off — drowning in housing debt and/or tuition debt — many who worked hard are unemployed; many who studied hard are unable to get good work; the environment is getting more and more damaged; and people are realizing their kids will be even worse off than they are.  

On the other hand, he looks at it  more optimistically: 

Yes, corporations now have access to more cheap software, robots, automation, labor and genius than ever. So holding a job takes more talent. But the flip side is that individuals —individuals — anywhere can now access the flow to take online courses at Stanford from a village in Africa, to start a new company with customers everywhere or to collaborate with people anywhere. We have more big problems than ever and more problem-solvers than ever.

As we consider these arguments, I think it’s critical to keep in mind economies are cyclical -- we have good times and we have bad times.  And occasionally, economies go through revolutions; in recent history, the U.S. economy has been through the agricultural, industrial and information revolutions – and we’re still in the thick of the last one, and we’re feeling the pain.  

In this most recent revolution, when most pessimists point to the bad news, they point to the unemployment rate.  But here’s an important statistic that often doesn't get talked about: the U.S. unemployment rate is 9%; for those with grad degrees it's 2%, college grads 4.5%, HS grads 9.7%, non-HS grads 15%. 

This data shows us that our economy is going through the painful transition that we’ve experienced in every economic revolution: a mismatch between our growing job sectors and our citizen’s talent (this particular gap is amplified by the housing crash that viciously eliminated scores of jobs for less educated American workers).  

In time, as it always does, the economy will naturally close this gap.  But we can and should do a lot to speed up the process: skilled worker training programs, changes in high school curriculums to include skills the economy needs, increased student loans for growth sectors, increased investment in growth sectors, to name a few solutions.

The “Occupiers” passion is inspiring and it underscores the important problems and real pain our nation is facing.  They have a good message and I’m glad their voices are being heard.  But as the conversation evolves into solutions, I hope it moves away from theoretical discussions on the merits of capitalism and the principles of taxation.  And towards more practical, easy to implement, solutions that get people back to work  in sustainable jobs that keep America competitive now and into the next revolution.

Brown M&Ms

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I've always loved the story of the brown M&Ms and Van Halen.  Chris Dixon posted it on his blog this morning and I thought I would do the same.

The background is that in every contract with every venue they would play in they required the venue to have a bowl of M&M's backstage with all of the brown ones removed.  From Chris' blog. 

That way, the band could simply enter the arena and look for a bowl of M&Ms in the backstage area. No brown M&Ms? Someone read the contract fully, so there were probably no major mistakes with the equipment. A bowl of M&Ms with the brown candies? No bowl of M&Ms at all? Stop everyone and check every single thing, because someone didn’t bother to read the contract. Roth himself said:

“So, when I would walk backstage, if I saw a brown M&M in that bowl . . . well, line-check the entire production. Guaranteed you’re going to arrive at a technical error. They didn’t read the contract. Guaranteed you’d run into a problem. Sometimes it would threaten to just destroy the whole show. Something like, literally, life-threatening."

What We Don't Know

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Donald Rumsfeld, former Secretary of Defense, said this back in 2002 when responding a to a reporter’s question about links between Saddam Hussein and terrorists seeking weapons of mass destruction.  It came up again Monday in a column in the Wall Street Journal. “As we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say, we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns: the ones we don't know we don't know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tends to be the difficult one."

I’ve always loved this quote; it’s very humbling and so true in business and life (and of course politics and war).

In short, there are things we don’t know that we don’t know we don’t know.

What Makes a Good Tweet

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I've been using Twitter for two years. I check it almost everyday and follow about 150 people. It's a unique social graph for me in that I follow almost no friends or colleagues. I don't use it to interact, I use it to be informed and to learn. By the way, Fred Wilson has been writing some interesting stuff on the different social graphs we use and what he calls "implicit social graphs" -- social graphs that get built for us rather than by us -- definitely worth reading.

Anyway, so much of what I see each day on Twitter is wasteful: boring personal messages, links to sites I'm not going to click on, self promotion, etc. But I keep checking it reguarly because every few days I find a gem -- a piece of information or an insight that makes me laugh out loud, makes me more informed or smarter or causes me to look at things differently. I love when that happens.

I realize different people use Twitter for different reasons so they're free to Tweet whatever they feel like Tweeting.  But over the last two years I've noticed that the best Tweets, the Tweets that are really valuable, seem to have these  four things in common:

  1. No web links; all of the information is communicated in less than 140 characters
  2. No hashtags (#), they're annoying, unless they're added to make the Tweet funny, which can work sometimes -- see @bronxzoocobra
  3. No @s, unless it's a Retweet; generally conversations on Twitter are lame
  4. They aren't a simple statement of what someone is doing or where someone is; e.g. "mowing the lawn" or "at the movies"

To do this well you actually have to think pretty hard, you have to initiate, you have to create. That's why these kinds of Tweets are the best, and probably why they're so rare.

Apple Earphone

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Apple_earphones_with_remote_and_micOver the past six months I've cycled through at least six pairs of earphones; I lost one or two, most of them broke. Most were pretty inexpensive but I did spend about $80 on the Bose in ear headphones. The sound was awesome but they're very delicate and terrible for exercise.

I just picked up a pair of Apple's earphones that include volume control and a microphone that can be used with your cell phone. These earphones are by FAR the best out there:

Sound is awesome

  • They feel sturdy and seem less likely to break
  • The microphone is really convenient
  • Very comfortable and they don't fall out of my ears no matter how fast I run
  • They don't have rubber buds that are easy to lose and never seem to fit right

They're only $30 Once again, Apple wins with a great product.

Textbooks

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Not including a two-year stint in preschool, I have attended school for 20 years -- kindergarten through graduate school. In that time, the content and tempo of the majority of my classes had been driven by big, expensive, boring textbooks. I really noticed this when I was in graduate school and paying for the classes and books myself. What value was the professor adding I thought? Why couldn't I just buy a bunch of business textbooks, force myself to complete the problems, save myself $80,000 and call myself an M.B.A.? For this reason, I was thrilled to read an energetic rant by Seth Godin yesterday on why he believes assigning a textbook to a college class is the equivalent of academic malpractice.

I agree.

Let's consider the value that the institution is adding to a student's education when a class is dictated by a textbook.

  1. A schedule (usually the chapters in the textbook are spread out over the course of the semester and matched to individual weeks in some logical order; occasionally this order isn't the same as the order of the chapters, so there's some thinking going on there...)
  2. Motivation (in a classroom environment a student might be reluctant to disappoint his or her classmates/professor)
  3. Classroom discussion (debate, real world examples, etc.)

Am I missing anything?

The schedule is worthless and the classroom discussion can be replaced for free by discussion forums on thousands of different blogs. So all the institution is really providing is an environment where a student feels some pressure to keep up.

Not much different than kindergarten.

Note: What I've described here represents a majority of the classes I took in college and graduate school. There were several classes where the professor ditched the textbook and brought remarkable value to the class through a combination of his or her own published work, passion, real world experience and highly engaging discussion. I hope Seth's post inspires more educators to do the same.

Overpaid or Underpaid

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Something to think about... Are you overpaid or underpaid for the work that you do?

If you're overpaid, be careful. It's likely a matter of time before your employer and/or clients make an adjustment. How can you prevent this from happening?

If you're underpaid, how are you going to get more for the work that you do?

If you think your pay is just right, think again. And see above.

Fake Followers

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I read the other day that some 'Tweeters' are buying followers (e.g. $100 for 5,000 followers.) Some are even creating phony Twitter accounts to fraudulently increase the number of followers they have.

While this may sound kind of silly, if you're trying to spread something, it makes a lot of sense as it will likely have the result of increasing your number of real followers; as we know, people like to follow people that other people are following, just because they're being followed.

I'm watching Twitter's progress pretty closely these days because I think it's so fascinating to watch this little startup evolve into what could be the most powerful communication tool ever conceived.

Diversify Your Job

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There are all kinds of books, blogs and articles telling people that they should get out of their boring jobs, start their own business and go to work for themselves. While I fully agree with the spirit of this advice, the fact is that we all already work for ourselves.

The problem is that we only have one customer -- our employer.If that “customer” goes out of business or decides it doesn’t want to work with you anymore (lays you off/fires you), then you’re completely screwed. This describes most people’s current lot in life, i.e. most people only have one job. Does anybody else think this is crazy?

The advice shouldn’t be to go off on your own and start a new business, the real advice should be to diversify. Find a way that you can have income coming from several different employers and/or clients.

A smart investor would never put all of their money into one company. A smart company would never put all of their resources into one client. That would be stupid. Because if that company or client disappears, then so do you.

Why is this different for workers? Why is it acceptable for a worker put all of their time and energy into one company?

Monday through Friday

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Monday through Friday contains 120 hours and makes up 71% of our lives.  I've been thinking a lot about what I do during these hours and whether or not I'm using them as effectively as possible. 

Here's the breakdown for me:

  • 54% - Work (65 hours)
  • 33% - Sleep (40 hours)
  • 4% - Exercise (5 hours)
  • 4% - Spending time with friends and family -- in person or over the phone (5 hours)
  • 4% - Chilling out -- reading, watching TV, internet, research, paying bills, etc. (5 hours)

Because a reasonable amount of sleep, or at least rest, is a requirement for me, I'm spending 77% of my Monday through Friday doing something that is more or less involuntary.

If you're anything like me it's crucial that you're getting a BIG return on the effort you're putting into your work. 

'Sully' Sullenberger

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image002.jpg 'Sully' Sullenberger, the pilot that successfully landed a plane in the Hudson River, is making the rounds through all of the popular media channels this week -- starting tonight with 60 Minutes.

I'm really looking forward to hearing from this guy. Because I live only a few blocks from the Hudson and I flew into LaGuardia on the day of the "water landing", I've been paying pretty close attention to the developments.

So much has been written about this so I really don't have all that much to add. But after hearing the calmness in the voices of the pilot and the air traffic controllers, the next time I fly I'll be a bit more comfortable. Twice, Sullenberger said that he was going to try to land the plane in the Hudson. I kept waiting for the air traffic controller to say, "YOU'RE GOING TO WHAT?!?"

Instead, showing zero emotion, he calmly suggested alternative runways.