When I hear an interview with someone who attended a “top-tier”, “elite”, or “Ivy League” university all the graduate ever seems to mention are the connections they obtained while attending the university.  Ivy League graduates also point out that there is no other place they could have made such connections.  The quality of the education goes unmentioned.  As I am creating a web startup based on connections, connection making institutions fascinate me, but I wonder about the educational value of these institutions.  The institutions select their graduates by exclusive criteria by an measure, but for fields that are not connection based (I am defining connection based fields as government, politics, American big business and the like) I can’t recall that many Ivy League graduates.

I’ve been trying to think of musicians, authors, comedians, software developers and bootstrapped entrepreneurs who attended elite American universities and I’m coming up with very few names.  Are these schools just self-selected connection factories?  Stressing connections over education may well be a more productive strategy for our networked society.  Do Ivy League universities spend much time on teaching the fundamentals of their degrees?  My brushes with Ivy League graduates in the business world (this is quite a small sample mind you) have generated the following observations:

• The Ivy Leaguer will always tell you where he or she attended college with no prompting.
• The Ivy Leaguer will always be young for the position he or she is in
• The Ivy Leaguer will not seem particularly competent at the position
• The Ivy Leaguer will name drop like crazy
• The Ivy Leaguer will mangle the concepts of “Tactics” and “Strategy” to avoid specifics of their ideas

Perhaps creative people don’t need college at all (my thought), or if they do, they don’t mention it anywhere near as much.  The status given to Ivy League institutions could just be a magnifier of that fact.

Just random thoughts on a Thursday morning.

photo credit: rawheadrex

• Owning Money – how much money do you have in the bank account, or can be converted to cash quickly.  Most people regard money wealth as the only wealth
• Owning Time – How much time do you have in the average week/month/year that is under your control?  Do you spend 90 hours a week working in a job you hate?   Do you spend 30 hours a week doing housework, maintaining electronic gear, smiling at people you don’t care about, or commuting?   If so, you possess little time, no matter how much money you can spend.  Tim Ferriss is the best explainer of this notion.  Read his blog (and book).  (I include  his book, The Four Hour Workweek on my all time top ten list of books.  I intend to write a time-wealth calculator at some point.)

Up until reading the Farmville article I limited my definitions of wealth to the above two categories.  Reading the article crystallized my notion of clan wealth.

Please note, I’m using the Southern American definition of Clan, which I define as a group of people related by blood, marriage, friendship, or history of friendship which has an intricate network of mutual obligations and debts and acts as one unit on divisive issues.  (Please also note, nothing in this post relates to the KKK).  In American pop history the Hatfield and the McCoy groups serve as the best example of clans.

I define Clan wealth as membership and position in the clan.    Clan Wealth is a product of relative position within the group times the overall strength of the clan as a whole.  Someone rich in clan wealth would be someone able to make decisions for a powerful group of people, much like Joseph Kennedy.  IIRC Tim Ferris writes about this in his book, but he defines clan membership as a means to the other forms of wealth, i.e. a tool, not wealth in and of itself.  The Farmville essay delves deeper into the inner workings of mutual obligations.  I do not intend to invest many resources into this version of wealth, but quiet millions of people are investing their time and money (the other two forms) into developing clan wealth right now.

More thoughts on this to come I’m sure.

Update: 4-27-2010 corrected link

photo credit: Jeff Belmonte

I realized this while at a client meeting; we were talking about problems with a botched sales program and the staff had a litany of complaints about the program (ed. note: it was created by a separate vendor years ago, and the fault lies with the now-departed project manager who designed something inappropriate.  It does a masterful job of integrating legacy systems from different vendors, languages, platforms, a mainframe and Europeans are involved somehow,  but the user interface is wanting.  But I digress…).  Then I remembered hearing the same litany of complaints a year ago.   Unlike last year,  I offered suggestions on how to make small improvements to the program. Everyone proceeded to ignore me and continued complaining.  At the end of the meeting everyone felt a lot better once they had talked about their problems.  No one made any plans to actually fix the problems.

Then I had the realization, (to me anyway) that, complaining makes you feel better and this is why you should never complain! Complaining cures the short term rage and anxiety caused by the problem while sapping your motivation to actually fix the problem.  The end result of complaining:  Much short-term anxiety, and then the problem either continues or recurs.  You never solve the problem.    Therefore never complain, and let the problem eat away at you until it hurts enough to be worth fixing permanently.  It is the only way you’ll have the motivation to arrive at a permanent fix for the problem.

Disclaimer, I have not read A Complaint Free World, though I’ve heard it is quite good.  And upon further reflection, part of this thought was inspired (yet again!) by Derek Sivers.

photo credit: uncafelitoalasonce

• Nootropics: their effects, their risks, and where to get them – I think I’ll be picking up some Thiamine and sticking with that, as the others seem a bit scary.  It is a fascinating bit of research though.  Nootropics are “Smart Drugs”
• How to get Smarter – these are all fairly basic, but I intend to find some way to test them as part of my measuring everything possible campaign of 2010.

The first link is far better than the first, but you should read them both.  Upgrade your wetware!

photo credit: Andrew Mason

We’re trying to pin down the name of the College Park recording studio. It’s at the 3200 Block of E. Main St. Can you help us?

and I started wondering if the future of news was as either a medium (like FaceBook) or as the medium + the lead collaborator.  I.E. the newspaper supplies the forum (in the form of a website, and the print service, whatever that winds up being) and serves as the lead collaborator.   To use a sports analogy, The future of newspapers is like a company that owns a baseball park, and provides a full time pitcher.

Just a random though.

photo credit: Keees

• Idealizes: caring, tolerance and balance
• Prone To: Hugging

The Right Wing Temperament -

• Idealizes: Cleanliness, organization and order
• Prone To: Personal space

There are many political overtones and exceptions to the above sweeping characterizations, but in terms of temperament they are true (just trust me on that).

You’ve probably noticed that vitamins, natural/organic foods, and homeopathy are marketed almost exclusively to the left wing temperament and almost never to the right wing temperament.  That neglect means that there is a market opportunity to seize the right leaning side of the population.  After all, if smut on the airwaves angers someone, why should preservatives in their steak get a free pass?   If the complexity of the tax code angers them, why would the jumbled supply chain of mega farms be any different?

How to create this new company?  Just take existing marketing material for organics and vitamins and:

• Replace the word “Balance” with “Order” in the marketing material
• Point out that this is the way people “used” to eat (in the case of natural foods)
• Point out that this is the best that can be done the best that can be done to replicate the way people used to eat (in the case of vitamins) and the product (whatever that is) follows established scientific rules
• Re-shoot all of the marketing stock photography to show smiling, healthy people standing 2-3 feet away from each other

and presto!  You will dominate a large market!

Thoughts anyone?

photo credit: bansidhe

Last February I purchased a Triton Woodworking 3.5 Horsepower router, the only “elite” tool I have for my woodworking hobby.  About 4 months ago I managed to get a 1″ radius round-over bit stuck (“Frozen” in woodworking jargon) into the router.  I tried everything I could think of to remove the frozen router bit.  I pulled so hard I bent the factory wrench (really, I did), I tried using micro lubrication, I let it run long enough for everything to heat up, I consulted the woodworking elders at Highland Woodworking, all to no avail.  As Triton is an Australian company, they do not have a local service center.

Then I ran into the good people at Sommerfeld Tools at the woodworking convention and I asked the person doing their demo what he would do.  (We now go to our normal “How To Fix” format)

The Problem – A bit is stuck in the router, and will not come out, no matter what you try.

The Cause – The bit is most likely bottomed out in the router, as well as either a small wood shaving or clump of dust is jammed in there as well.  The shaving or the dust buildup accumulates moisture and swells, which makes it impossible to remove.

The Solution – Use a nail set and hit the steel (not the carbide) of the shaft of the router bit about 20 times or so from several side.  Then try again with a wrench.  This causes (or seems to cause anyway) the clump of dust or wood shaving to dissipate and the bit can be removed.

A huge thank you to the people at Sommerfeld Tools for telling me that trick.

Please use all relevant safety precaution, the most important protection is safety glasses, your mileage may vary, etc.

photo credit: Let Ideas Compete