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Thanks

Ralph

Going into IEM, I think I was most concerned about the Entrepreneurial series of all the scheduled classes. The whole entrepreneurial process seemed a mystery that certain gurus had discovered but us mere mortals would never really fully get. I knew that “real” entrepreneurs didn’t just build business plans and documents and file paper with the Gov. (though I figured they had to do some of that). There is a spark of something there that goes beyond the administration (like leadership – it’s something you know when you experience it, but it’s hard to put your finger on). I figured that spark would be difficult to teach so (based on past university / academia experience), I figured this class would be the admin stuff. Truly the heart of the series, as it has been run for us, is that it focused on the spark not the admin.

We are all graduate students … um clients… and without fail all successful in other studies and in life. I know I don’t always feel that way but if we step back everyone in class is a success story and darned smart too. I suspect the same thing could be said about anyone considering these classes. We have the capacity to figure out how to write a business plan or file Gov paper work. At the very least, we know how to find out who knows how to do that stuff.

I’m grateful that this series took the harder road – even when some of the assignments seemed ambiguous – by definition they have to be because each person is different and in effect this series is trying to pull out each person’s spark. It takes time to do that. It is a good move to start in the summer and continue over into the fall giving 6 months for us to focus on what we want out of life (and as any good coach does – force us to focus even when it is difficult). Sports’ training is really the same thing over and over each day and not always comfortable, but you get better inside and out each time you do it. Relationships are also built day by day. It is a fact of life – living is uncomfortable but vastly rewarding. Being an entrepreneur is not just building a new company but is having a different lens to look at life through. Regaining / discovering that lens is the greatest (unexpected) value I gained form this series.

As for specific tasks, the single hardest part and best part is developing a “business” plan for my personal situation in the ME INC project. After that, I really liked seeing examples like Patrick Cash showing that mortal humans can do it by just plugging away a little at a time. I also gained greatly from the funnel analysis as a way to organize the idea evaluation into product process. Finally, hearing about what you discovered during your business coaching experience really gives insight into the closed door world. Things like what CEOs really look for, how they think, what VC’s are really looking for, what really matters, social media and marketing, etc.

I really think the re-vamped series hit the mark.

Codex.wordpress.org – this is not a tool but a reference resource for doing anything with WP.

WP-sIFR – style your headlines using different fonts – SEO and print still see regular HTML but browser displays nice font. link resourse: sifrgenerator.com

ALL-IN-ONE-SEO; SEO SLUG; YARPP; SOCIABLE; GOOGLE XML SITEMAPS – Search Engine Optimazation tools

Analytics360 – analytic tool – duh

wp_query – add custom content to site

Flutter – the ultimate (a few of the presentations hit this one) custom content manager – add hooks to databases and custom fields and content.

My page order (also a my category order plug) – set pages to show on menu in your order as opposed to alpha.

Page sidebar – html on side bar

cformsII – contact manager – with email etc.

wp_shop == $50 but best shopping cart with links to payment etc.

FeedSmith – hook to Google’s feedburner which allows you to add subscribers and feed your posts to them via multiple channels (RSS, email, etc).

exec-php – code in posts, pages and text widget

Map-press – allows maps in your posts / sidebar

Artisteer.com – not a plug in but a full tools for creating themes for WP, Joomla, Drupal, Blogger, Dot Net Nuke, or static page.

Powerpress – PodCast ability to WP. Some tools for creating a pod cast would be a good mic and software like -griffinitalk; Audacity; garageBands; Adobe Soundbooth

For the record I did not find these on my own. These are all gleaned from the wonderful presentations by the experts at the WordCamp. As I learn more about WP, I will use these notes as a basis for further research. One other take away – if you are trying to do something in WP and it doesn’t seem easy to do – there is a good chance someone has written a plug in to handle it for you. If you find any good ones, please let us know.

The community:

Wow. I was impressed by the diverse and enthusiastic group of folks. There seemed to be about 120 (my guess) people floating around and this represented folks from every age group and every background. Like you would expect, I got to meet some “coming back” to IT, some poking around to see “what’s up”, and some folks right out of school. The thing that surprised me was the number of people that were not originally from a techie background but instead came from marketing or business backgrounds simply looking for easier ways to get their material online without having to get a programming degree. Some of these non-tech background folks are now even designing WP sites for others professionally. That alone speaks volumes for WP’s ease of use. I think  a big component of the excitement behind the WordCamp and WordPress community in general is that it elegantly solves a person’s biggest issues with getting a website going. It makes our life a little easier. Also, being open source, there is a mechanism for anyone to influence the direction the software heads, so you don’t have to worry as much that you’ll come to depend on WP and then the next release will head off in an odd direction leaving you looking for another solution.

The things you can do:

I expected a blogging tool. What I saw was a content management system that makes creating a dynamic, living website a snap. Obviously the more complicated the site you’re trying to produce, the more you have to get into the details, but you’re able to ease into it – like slowly getting into the pool instead of jumping into the deep end. I especially appreciated the fact that a web designer could easily redo an entire web site using WP easier than updating it (with a non-trivial update). For a client, you can assign roles so they can have control over the content of the site without accesses areas that would kill the site.

I plan on posting a listing of some of these tools in a future post.

Overall:

Obviously, I was very impressed. I know there are a bunch of other CMS tools out there and other blogging tools, but for me WP seems to have a better complete package when you add the community, features, and ease of use together. Throw in an active open source crew and I’m hooked.

For this person, let’s start with some information about their experience and hobbies. From there, we’ll examine some ideas for income. I will refer to this person using female pronouns to distinguish them from me. He or she may or may not actually be female.

Their experience:

This person works in IT as a project manager in health care. She is also responsible for survivability of services in event of emergency events. For example, even though the power may be down or the IT systems offline, patient care must continue at the same high standard as with support services up. When asked what is a big issue she has at work, she responded that she has issues getting data backed up and available as quickly as she would like in an emergency situation. She also enjoys gardening and the challenges of growing plants in her shady yard and has spent years researching this.

When asked what she really enjoys, she said the survivability work and gardening.

I’m sure you can easily see opportunities there. If she wanted to be entrepreneurial, she could consult for other companies on survivability; she could write a manual on how to be survivable and sell it; she could develop a system with metrics and teach / consult it; she could write a book on gardening in the shade; she could teach gardening; etc. For employment situations, she could work at a gardening center or she could look into transitioning more of her current job over to survivability efforts, which is what she actually chose to do.

Again, none of these are difficult to see for someone else. Did you catch the opportunity for you there? When asked, she said she had an issue with data storage and availability. If you enjoyed those sorts of things and could develop a solution, then an opportunity may be found there. Certainly, much more questions and thought would have to go into it, but solving a problem is the best way to begin a business.

Find a friend and see what you could do something similar for yourself. At the very least, you may clarify your current work situation. No one really accomplishes anything worthwhile by themselves. Once again, if you’re looking for direction in this area, I would like to shamelessly direct you to the link to AskDrCallahan mentioned earlier. I’m sure you can also find other programs similar in nature out there. I encourage you to look.

From the first post I talked about some of the things I’m passionate about – education, homeschooling, sharing experiences, and speaking to small groups. The original question was – what do you like doing – especially if money were no object? That list was longer, as I’m sure is yours. It contained things like sleeping (parents never get enough), traveling, sailing, etc. Once you boil off the items that amount to “catching up on life’s experiences”, you get to the things you really like.

From that list, write out ways to make money from them. Don’t throw anything out no matter how much or little money it could make or how difficult or crazy it may seem.

For me I had things like build a boat and sell it, write plans for a sailboat, go back to school and get an education degree …

Then we had to pick one to try. I chose 2 items. One was to create this blog. While this is not generating any income, it addresses my desire to share experiences to our mutual betterment. Due to my wife’s health and the higher than average public schools where we live, we’ve employed something of a hybrid homeschool system. The kids have both spent time at home and time in the public system. We have experience in both that others may find valuable. The second is to do something in the homeschool space. I feel strongly that the one on one mentorship homeshooling provides activates a student’s potential like nothing else. Our daughter is leaving the third grade at public school and returning next fall to home. One area she is weak in is basic math skills. My first challenge is going to be to bolster those. I will be looking for aids I’m able to develop that may help others and they are willing to purchase. Of course, that process will be talked about here.

That’s it. It doesn’t have to be earth shattering on the outside or for anyone else. I assure you for me on the inside – it is. I have so many thoughts about how to move forward with this project that sleeping at night is difficult. I don’t have the end of the story for you yet. Please stay tuned…

What about you – what are your ideas? If you’re looking for 4^th grade math or homeschooling, what would make your life easier?

Of course, the next questions are – Are you doing the things you love now? If not, why not? Hmmm. The instructor was not asking if you kind of like what you are doing or if you are good at it, but does it excite you to get up in the morning. More Hmmm. The answers to those questions sparked this blog.

I encourage you to consider these questions as well.  As a case study, over the first few posts, I’ll discuss my passion (which is what this blog will be about), discuss some ideas to turn my passion into a livelihood, and end the series with some cases from others in class showing opportunities buried in their experiences. From there, I’ll discuss topics as they come up on the journey from passion to vocation.

For me these questions seemed almost unfair because I like so much equally well.

Something I do really feel strongly about is education. Maybe this is bit melodramatic but I really think our Democratic Republic and the freedoms we enjoy are dependent on our ability to think clearly and teach our children the same. There are people who will happily take advantage of us financially and take our freedoms away from us for a number of reasons – personal gain, power, philosophy, or just cause they’re nasty people.  I’m not talking about a particular political party or beating the “everyone is out to get us” drum of fear.   We live in an information age and need the tools to process and discern good information from bad – faulty arguments from sound. We need to be able to see beyond the facade the media presents and see the underlying motivations and incentives. What does the presenter really mean? In fact, one of the tenets on which public education was promoted is that we need an educated mass to be in a successful democracy. Has public education succeeded as well as we first hoped?  Are there other / better ways? Even more Hmmm. Something to discuss later. A great example is the Offshore Check Fraud Scam going around. The presenter says it is safe and that I get something for nothing. Is that true? What are the possible consequences of going with the presenter’s proposal, regardless of what they are saying? Can I see the fallacy in his argument? Am I willing to live with the consequence if it occurs? Seems pretty obvious, but some very smart people (at least in other decisions) lose money each day with this thing. I enjoy examining the education process and trying to improve  it. I enjoy sharing things I’ve learned with others as well as gaining from their experiences. I also enjoy speaking to small groups.

As I write this, I do have the advantage  in that I’ve already pounded my head on my desk to get to the what do I really want to do with my life. Please consider some head pounding of your own. I truly believe that once the headache subsides, you’ll find it worthwhile. My hope, as this blog develops, is to accomplish a few things – add connections I’ve found to help this journey along for both of us, to start a discussion about education, homeschooling, and a bit of  personal entrepreneurship, and to document the bumps in my transition from wage earner to vocation holder.

In the interest of disclosure and to begin to make those connections, let me give credit to Dr. Dale Callahan. He is the instructor (more like mentor) in the IEM program above. If you are in the Birmingham AL area, check out the Information Engineering Mgt link. Dale is also developing a course which will walk you through the whole process of rethinking about what you can accomplish called “Discovering the Entrepreneur in You“. Check the Ask Dr. Callahan link on the side. I get no income from either of these resources, but, via the IEM program, greatly benefit from them.

So, I ask you, what is your passion? Hmmm.