Today I stumbled across something that absolutely fascinated me. I was doing a research for the Belmonster on those little images that you see on forms that verify that you're a person (incidentally, they're called "CAPTCHAs"), and learned about a service started by Amazon.com called the Mechanical Turk.
This service lets you post simple tasks that you need done that can't be automated, such as tagging GIS maps or transcribing podcasts, along with "rewards" that range from $.01 to $2.00. Random people perform the tasks, and earn the rewards. The rewards are collected in an Amazon.com account, which can then be transferred into a bank account or converted into Amazon gift certificates.
The service is billed as "artificial artificial intelligence". There have even been businesses created using the service for cheap labor. CastingWords is a podcast transcription service which charges $.42 per minute, and pays out about $.14 to "Turks" who actually do the work.
So in essence, what we have here is a way to pay far less than minimum wage for annoying tasks that can't be automated. You can even work up a business model to take advantage of the near-slave wages. Amazing!
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Been a while...
Okay, okay, so it has been a while. But I've been busy! Exactly a week ago at this time, my wife and I were sitting in a hospital room, and I was putting on paper scrubs. About an hour later, our third child, Tessmer Kathryn Belmont was born. As you can see, she doesn't like being woken up any more than I do.
So I spent the weeks leading up to the birth trying to get her room ready. Once we pulled down the cheap sheet paneling with the numerous coats of paint on it (courtesy of our home's previous owners), I saw that the walls were in no condition to paint. My options were to demo and re-drywall (my choice), or to cover it back up again (Nancy's choice). After numerous people weighed in, I relented and installed tongue-and-groove paneling. It was actually a nice choice. It's floor-to-ceiling, 3/4" pine paneling, so it looks great and I don't feel like I took the easy way out. Of course, I still have about four panels to install, and there's no paint on the walls, but they came home from the hospital before I could finish. Oh well. I wouldn't be me if I finished a project completely within four months of starting!
So momma and Tessmer are home now, and both are doing great. Nancy seems to be healing up faster than the past two times, and the boys are adjusting well to their new baby sister. Jack (the dog) isn't feeling overly neglected because grandma's here, so that's good too. I went to work yesterday, but last night the baby kept Nan and I up all night, so I'm still sitting on the couch in my pajamas.
I think I'll take a nap now.
Wednesday, January 3, 2007
I'm Not Nancy-Bashing
When my wife read my post about goals, she said that it made her sound like "a meany." I assured her that my intention was not to make her out to be the bad guy, as reality checks are part of "her job." In all honesty, that is one of the things that I rely on her for – we often tell people that I have my head in the clouds, and she has her feet on the ground, and that's what makes us so successful.
I think that every company needs that kind of balance to be healthy. There are all sorts of personalities in the world, and only when the best is drawn from each of those personalities and combined do we see true excellence. If you look, there is a lot of literature on this.
My wife calls it "Button Soup", referring to the children's book in which a town full of people who have nothing combine their meager ingredients to create a very tasty broth that they all enjoy.
In The E-Myth Revisited, Michael Gerber says that it takes three roles to effectively run a company: the entrepreneur, who comes up with ideas and keeps the company moving forward; the manager, who keeps the trains running on time; and the technician, who actually does the production work. A successful business owner recognizes which of these roles she excels at, and finds help with the others. If not, she'll often burn out.
A dear friend of ours, Jan Day-Gravel, conducts testing and workshops introducing a concept called Emergenetics. Emergenetics begins with a test that categorizes the way we think into four specific areas: conceptual, structural, analytical, and social. An individual's scoring in these categories represent the amount of energy that he must to expend to think in that area. (For example, I scored 53% in conceptual thinking, meaning that it comes very naturally to me, versus 3% in structural thinking, which exhausts me.) Most people are dominant in two modes of thought.
Part of the workshop training discusses identifying ways to draw on others' strengths to supplement our own. If a team is too heavy on, say, conceptual/social thought, they're not likely to collect on the invoices (or even send them out for that matter). In contrast, a team that's heavier on the structural/analytical side will have trouble connecting with their customers, and may even end up alienating them.
All of this considered, Nancy and I make a great team. She helps me consider the real-world, playing devil's advocate to my crazy ideas; and forces us to slow down and follow through methodically. Without her, nothing would get done.
My role is to help her conquer her risk aversion, challenging her to step out of her comfort zone and face the unknown. I often play a supporting role to her, helping her flesh out her ideas and plan out implementation strategies.
In short, we complete each other.
Our team at Belmont, Inc. extends our capabilities even further. Each individual puts their own talents and strengths into the "soup", and the resulting collaborative efforts are extraordinary.
My advice to anyone who's asking would be to find the yin to your yang, whether it be in your personal or professional life. The result is infinitely greater than anything we can do on our own.
I think that every company needs that kind of balance to be healthy. There are all sorts of personalities in the world, and only when the best is drawn from each of those personalities and combined do we see true excellence. If you look, there is a lot of literature on this.
My wife calls it "Button Soup", referring to the children's book in which a town full of people who have nothing combine their meager ingredients to create a very tasty broth that they all enjoy.
In The E-Myth Revisited, Michael Gerber says that it takes three roles to effectively run a company: the entrepreneur, who comes up with ideas and keeps the company moving forward; the manager, who keeps the trains running on time; and the technician, who actually does the production work. A successful business owner recognizes which of these roles she excels at, and finds help with the others. If not, she'll often burn out.
A dear friend of ours, Jan Day-Gravel, conducts testing and workshops introducing a concept called Emergenetics. Emergenetics begins with a test that categorizes the way we think into four specific areas: conceptual, structural, analytical, and social. An individual's scoring in these categories represent the amount of energy that he must to expend to think in that area. (For example, I scored 53% in conceptual thinking, meaning that it comes very naturally to me, versus 3% in structural thinking, which exhausts me.) Most people are dominant in two modes of thought.
Part of the workshop training discusses identifying ways to draw on others' strengths to supplement our own. If a team is too heavy on, say, conceptual/social thought, they're not likely to collect on the invoices (or even send them out for that matter). In contrast, a team that's heavier on the structural/analytical side will have trouble connecting with their customers, and may even end up alienating them.
All of this considered, Nancy and I make a great team. She helps me consider the real-world, playing devil's advocate to my crazy ideas; and forces us to slow down and follow through methodically. Without her, nothing would get done.
My role is to help her conquer her risk aversion, challenging her to step out of her comfort zone and face the unknown. I often play a supporting role to her, helping her flesh out her ideas and plan out implementation strategies.
In short, we complete each other.
Our team at Belmont, Inc. extends our capabilities even further. Each individual puts their own talents and strengths into the "soup", and the resulting collaborative efforts are extraordinary.
My advice to anyone who's asking would be to find the yin to your yang, whether it be in your personal or professional life. The result is infinitely greater than anything we can do on our own.
Monday, January 1, 2007
What's up with all these introspectives?
Okay, so 2006 is over, and what a wonderful year it was. But why does that mean that every blogger and their mother has to re-cap all of their own work from the past year? Is there really nothing new in the world, giving us nothing to write about? I mean, this is only my second post, so I'm still new to this and all, but come this time next year, will there really be so little going on that I'll be reduced to talking about the things I've talked about over the year? I hope not. So heading in, since I obviously couldn't do an introspective if I wanted to, I'll instead look forward and talk about goals.
Goals are a tricky thing for me. Being an entrepreneur, I get big ideas all the time. Some are better than others, so oftentimes I'll let them percolate for a while. I used to talk about them to people, mostly as a way of reviewing them in my own mind and thinking them through. Sometimes I realize that I'm not able to implement the idea, or it's already being done, or that I just don't want to bother. Some (mostly my wife) started seeing me as flighty when I didn't follow through. I started getting wary of talking about my ideas (and by extension, my goals), so that people wouldn't think I have no follow-through when those ideas don't come to anything.
I've sort of gotten over that now. I've incorporated one of Covey's Habits, that being "begin with the end in mind," into my overall plans for the future. I also took a Strategic Coach workshop, and learned that it's not uncommon for entrepreneurs to be seen as flighty, because by our nature we do have a lot of ideas, and not all of them come to fruition. As they say, if you don't know where you're going, you'll never get there.
So now I do set goals, but I sort of take a "baby steps" approach to them. I'll take something I want to accomplish and break it down into tasks, which I can then benchmark or schedule out. If it's on the schedule, I'm a lot more likely to get it done; and if it's broken down into smaller tasks, the whole project seems a lot less overwhelming.
Strategic Coach also helped me find a way to deal with issues that come up. When I talk about an idea to my wife, she always tells me the ten different reasons why my idea wouldn't work. (More often than not, I've already identified those items - I tend to be an extremely conceptual thinker, so it's easy for me to see all sides of a problem.) Strategic Coach teaches that you should identify those reasons, then plan out ways to combat them. Once you've done that, you've already created a plan for reaching your goal.
Another thing I've learned is to measure your success based on how far you've come, rather than how much further you have to go. If you think about it, it's our nature to keep extending our goals; pushing ourselves further and further. It's like being in a ship and sailing towards the horizon. You never get there, because it moves further out. That can be depressing if that's what you're focusing on. Instead, if you look behind you; identify where you started from and acknowledge everything that you've already accomplished, you feel refreshed and rejuvenated!
I never make "New Year's Resolutions". Our society pretty much agrees that those are made to be broken. Then there's guilt and remorse. Why even bother? Why set yourself up for failure? Goals, on the other hand, are made to be achieved! So make your New Years Goals, share them with somebody that will keep you accountable, and enjoy 2007.
Goals are a tricky thing for me. Being an entrepreneur, I get big ideas all the time. Some are better than others, so oftentimes I'll let them percolate for a while. I used to talk about them to people, mostly as a way of reviewing them in my own mind and thinking them through. Sometimes I realize that I'm not able to implement the idea, or it's already being done, or that I just don't want to bother. Some (mostly my wife) started seeing me as flighty when I didn't follow through. I started getting wary of talking about my ideas (and by extension, my goals), so that people wouldn't think I have no follow-through when those ideas don't come to anything.
I've sort of gotten over that now. I've incorporated one of Covey's Habits, that being "begin with the end in mind," into my overall plans for the future. I also took a Strategic Coach workshop, and learned that it's not uncommon for entrepreneurs to be seen as flighty, because by our nature we do have a lot of ideas, and not all of them come to fruition. As they say, if you don't know where you're going, you'll never get there.
So now I do set goals, but I sort of take a "baby steps" approach to them. I'll take something I want to accomplish and break it down into tasks, which I can then benchmark or schedule out. If it's on the schedule, I'm a lot more likely to get it done; and if it's broken down into smaller tasks, the whole project seems a lot less overwhelming.
Strategic Coach also helped me find a way to deal with issues that come up. When I talk about an idea to my wife, she always tells me the ten different reasons why my idea wouldn't work. (More often than not, I've already identified those items - I tend to be an extremely conceptual thinker, so it's easy for me to see all sides of a problem.) Strategic Coach teaches that you should identify those reasons, then plan out ways to combat them. Once you've done that, you've already created a plan for reaching your goal.
Another thing I've learned is to measure your success based on how far you've come, rather than how much further you have to go. If you think about it, it's our nature to keep extending our goals; pushing ourselves further and further. It's like being in a ship and sailing towards the horizon. You never get there, because it moves further out. That can be depressing if that's what you're focusing on. Instead, if you look behind you; identify where you started from and acknowledge everything that you've already accomplished, you feel refreshed and rejuvenated!
I never make "New Year's Resolutions". Our society pretty much agrees that those are made to be broken. Then there's guilt and remorse. Why even bother? Why set yourself up for failure? Goals, on the other hand, are made to be achieved! So make your New Years Goals, share them with somebody that will keep you accountable, and enjoy 2007.
New Year, New Blog.
Happy New Year!
As we roll into 2007, I've decided to start making use of the time between when I wake up and when I leave for the gym. Why not blog? Do I have something to say? Well, that remains to be seen.
As we roll into 2007, I've decided to start making use of the time between when I wake up and when I leave for the gym. Why not blog? Do I have something to say? Well, that remains to be seen.
So last night, we rang in 2007. Well, some people rang it in. I was sleeping. I volunteered for a shift at First Night, then hit a couple of the venues with my family. The baby was tired, so we came home. Then the wife and I debated going to another venue, where some friends were. I decided against it - if I had gone, I would have gone to the after-party, then instead of sitting up blogging right now, I'd be in bed with a pillow on my head, dreading the coming of 7am when the kids get up. Besides, alcohol doesn't go well with the Zoloft.
What's up for the new year? I think that our cms company, Belmonster, will take off this year. The product is good, and we're starting to gain traction with the sales efforts. We've got some big plans for it this year, including a free build-your-own-website community. After all, what better way to get the name out there than giving the product away?
We've also got some great projects in the works in our branding company, Belmont, Inc. The Chief of Staff for the U.S. Army just renewed their contract, so we'll be working on a number of exhibits and displays for the Pentagon. Sales efforts there are starting to bring new projects in as well, which is good because my wife will be taking maternity leave soon.
So what am I going to talk about in my blog? Well, it will be a mixture of branding, website subjects (interface/interaction design, information architecture, technologies, marketing and strategy), leadership/business-related topics, reviews of other blogs that I read, and perhaps the occasional picture of my kids. These are all things that I am interested in and do an enormous amount of reading about.
So happy new year, and I hope I don't bore you too much!
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