Young Hustlers

A very savvy post on entrepreneurship as a young man. Worth a read.

Taking some initiative

Like these entrepreneurial kids and getting an enterprise going (again). The fact that black markets spring up at such a young age indicates how intuitively and simply economic behavior can be understood by anyone.

BlogNN

It's been a long time since we've had anything new up here. If no one reads this, this is more to serve as a reminder to myself. The blog explosion is going strong. It has been doing so for the past four years or so and today, is a leading source of news and information beating out top news sources in breaking stories such as the Kerry's Swiftboat turmoil.

What I propose is just a site similar to Matt Drudge's Drudge Report. THis site would focus on credible blog sites with a section for each of the main news headlines: News, Opinion, Sports, Politics, Humor, etc. We could cover an extensive list of subjects but more importantly, we would be responsible for quality control which would be the crux of making us the leading site in the blog compiling industry. The layout would be important, and would be organized in a manner similar to news sites such as CNN.com.

The main difficulty would be compiling a list of blogs that are top-notch. Given that, the rest of the structure would be easy to manage...Developing...

Consulting

The other day, I was thinking about what an ideal job might be, and I came to the conclusion that simply developing ideas (and saving some of the trouble of actually executing them), would be a sweet mix of entrepreneurship and laziness. Granted, the sort of job I'm dreaming up wouldn't be nearly as profitable when a good idea hits, but it would certainly have more job security. Simply working as an entreprenuerial consultant, helping entrepreneurs improve their ideas, figuring out logistics, and simply being creative seems like it is a job that already has a built-in market and function to play in the wider market.

Of course, such a job's success would rely entirely on one's reputation as such a consultant, and would probably be mostly artificial and phony, but it seems as though such a job is economically viable. It is a form of the market slowly eliminating the economic profit accrued from entrepreneurial ability, while adding more value to the overall product in the end.

Am I totally off base here? Anyone agree that such a job seems too viable to be impracticable?

Creativity Drain

Here we are at the beginning of a new year. Time flew this semester and spring will be no different. I have been constantly thinking about execution of ideas because quite frankly, that is the hardest part about any type of business idea no matter how good it is. Zafar and I have had problems executing in the past and we have had numerous excuses and reasons for these failures, mostly school taking up so much time. However, cmclab is another one of these dwindling efforts, or so it would seem. We have the minds here to do something pretty drastic and unique, but no leadership or initiative to take us to that next level. So far we have accumulated a great team of minds from Rick to Graham, and this entrepreneur named Kenny from Pomona. This isn't any type of motivational speech to get everyone pumped about this blog by any means, it is just a confession of our poor leadership thus far. I will not promise that things will change, but will tell you when they do. Until then, I will keep my mind open for new ideas, while at the same time, filling it with information from books, music, movies, lectures, newspapers, websites, other blogs, etc.

PS HAPPY NEW YEAR! I don't know when it will be that someone else posts here, but I would like to start a list of resolutions that people may have created for themselves. If you haven't, do so now, goals are important, esp personal goals.

For me, I have resolved to live in the present as much as possible. School requires us to live so much in the future (career, exams, hw, etc) and past loves are forcing me to live in the past when i am not involved in the future. I am going to try my hardest to live life for what is in front of me, assignment to assignment, person to person. I hope that you guys will help me to get this done and call me out when you see me focused on something that isn't relevant. (By relevant, i mean something directly in front of me).

Everyone involved in this blog to date is a close for friend of mine and zafar's. We care about you all, and respect you very much (i am positive that i can speak for z on this one).

Until school starts,
Sincerely,
Steven K.

Online Desktop

Here's an idea for you guys. Currently the computer is run by software that is installed to personal and business computers. Programs like MS Word, explorer, Outlook, Calculators, etc are all installed onto the computer and often, new programs face compatability issues. I know someone that just created an online version of photoshop. It has all of the basic functions, but the software is online and people can access it from any computer. This is how a lot of websites' content managers work. You can update your site from any computer with internet because all of the necessary files and programs are right in front of you.

What I think that we need to do is develop software that is primarily online. They have done this with a lot of email clients and organizers. Email is accessed from all over the world using servers like Yahoo and Gmail. If we could develop software that was just the same (People could pay a montly service fee for the software or even annually), we would cut back on pirating costs and compatibility would be solved because all users would need is a compatible web browser.

Imagine being able to access Word anywhere you are, or even getting to your work from anywhere. Sure, you can do this now by emailing your work to yourself, but this takes it to the next level by allowing users to store ALL of their work online as opposed to being limited to word files or even worse, TXT files.

I mean, we couldn't pull it off just yet, we would need quite a bit of capital, but it is definitely something that can be done. With more and more of the world getting internet access (and many parts of the world with highspeed connections) this could be the next phase of desktop computing.

Glimmer of Light at the End of the Tunnel?

Ok, so now that Bush is officially going to be President for 4 more years, let's take a look at one of his more intriguing campaign promises. Bush has claimed that in order to help urban development, he's going to push for the creation of what he calls, "Opportunity Zones." This basically entails giving businesses tax breaks in certain inner-city areas, with a few other benefits that might get thrown into the mix. It all fits in with Bush's bigger picture "Ownership Society," where everyone in America owns something in order to stimulate the economy. Ironically, the idea of an Opportunity Zone is the sort of thing I would have expected out of someone far more liberal than Bush. In fact, it's downright Rawlsian. Rawls' conception of social justice requires an equality of opportunity, but not any artificial supports or solutions of the sort that communism proposes. Rawls asserts that the disadvantaged simply need something like affirmative action to give them some momentum and allow themselves to motivate the rest of their own change. Therefore, the idea of an Opportunity Zone, which would give minorities and the socio-economically disadvantaged a little help in pulling themselves up seems like sound (at least philosophically) policy.

As a side note, while my inclinations are to be utterly depressed over Bush's reelection, I'm somewhat optimistic at the chances that Bush may follow in Reagan's footsteps: have an ideologically divisive first term, but concentrate on the good of the country for prosperity in the second. I can foolishly hope that his actions in his first were to guarantee reelection, not to permanently put the country down the road it has been heading. I can hope that bipartisanship will be as important as the concession and acceptance speeches have said they would. What can I say? I'm a pragmatist, and I don't really have any other choice but to hope.