Jason Drohn's Scrapbook

Thank You and Happy New Year!

Saturday, December 30th, 2006

As we start getting ready for the New Year festivities (a lot of food, friends, and good conversations), I wanted to do two things..

Wish everyone a Very Happy New Year!  And thank you for making 2006 as enjoyable and rewarding as it has been.  Some big things are planned for 2007, and I am looking forward to your successes as well!  I encourage you to get a hold of me!

Secondly, I wanted to give you a quick tour of some great information I have been getting into (otherwise known as JDsLinks):

  • Is the web really that social? Get out and network! A real nice critique of social networking in the internet and real world.  Nothing beats traditional networking events and just plain old making friends.  That is where your business and ideas will come from.
  • Web 2.0 Bubble? A Debate What it comes down to is this: Liquidity.  Web 2.0 companies are playing a musical chairs game in which there are far too many players and too few chairs.
  • 5 Ways to Get More Abundant in 2007 Basically, a good article about leaving your comfort zone and realizing your true worth;  Market yourself, learn new skills, add value.
  • Blake Ross on How is your family relationship A great story about his family experiences and fostering an entrepreneurial mindset.  In a microcosm sense, this is what every great entrepreneurial community needs to do!

That’s it for now.  Have a great holiday and I will see you Tuesday (at the latest..)!

30.12.2006 quirky Comments

The Implicit Web

Friday, December 29th, 2006

Fred at A VC wrote an excellent article the other day about the future of the Internet.  One of his friends, Josh Kopelman, said, “web 2.0 is the explicit web and web 3.0 is the implicit web.”

He goes on to say that “web 2.0 requires action; tagging, posting, digging, embedding, contributing, etc.”  But therein lies the problem – actually doing something!  We don’t have time to do anything.  That being the case, web 2.0 is no different then going to Starbucks everyday.  It is fun and the coffee is amazing, but things happen and you get out of the habit..

Enter implicit web.  What if a RSS feed reader could examine the feeds you enjoy and recommend others based on what people like you read.  Or if Amazon could recognize the last month’s worth of purchases you made online, and recommend additional purchases.  So if you bought a laptop from Bestbuy.com, Amazon could suggest the matching carrying case..

You can take this concept and apply it to most any activity you can do on the web. The idea has been around for a while but privacy concerns have held everyone back. But people are starting to get used to profiling themselves and using it to add value to their Internet experience. They are starting to trust certain web services and let them profile them. That change in user behavior is a big deal. And as a result, the implicit web is going to start taking off in 2007.

I am excited to see where the implicit web will lead us.  It might sound lazy to say, but clicking is getting boring.  I want a web service that will tell me what I like or what I want.  Information discovery will be accomplished in a fraction of the time it takes now, and I think overall user experiences will become infinitely better.

29.12.2006 technology Comments

Cinemark and Cingular’s Brilliant Marketing Strategy

Friday, December 29th, 2006

I really wish I was a movie pirate because I just saw the single best marketing technique in a long, long time.

I went to see Eragon tonight, the movie about the dragon rider.  I like that stuff..  Give me a break.  Anyway, rather than the traditional ‘Be courteous and silence your cell phones,’ there was a 30 second commercial of a guy apologizing to his girlfriend with a person annoying the hell out of him.

After the commercial, the Cingular logo popped up with a message informing the audience to turn off their phones.  Talk about turning dead advertising space into a potential goldmine!

Now if only Cingular was offered in my area!  They haven’t keyed in on that yet.

 - If anyone sees the video on YouTube or anything, let me know.  I can’t find it.  I found the press release though –  

29.12.2006 business Comments

Watch Your Outsourcing

Thursday, December 28th, 2006

Outsourcing..  That is a rough topic.  But I want you to learn from my mistake.

One of my New Year’s Resolutions is to stop being overly gracious about the things I write about.  I usually approach a blog entry as if it is constructive criticism; the drawbacks are lost somewhere between the fifth paragraph and the conclusion.  Not so anymore…

An extremely good way to get software development done, especially if you are on a budget, is to outsource.  But I have to say, “BE CAREFUL.“  Websites like Elance and RentACoder work real well for posting a project and getting bids.  They have great escrow services and the work is typically top notch.

I used a site called Lanceboard.com for a while.  The reason I don’t use them anymore – they went under.. taking almost $2,000 worth of escrowed funds with them.  Actually, there were two projects that were underway when the site went down.  The developers never got paid, and I never saw the money again.  The escrow service won’t do anything about it.  Emails to the whois registrant go unanswered.  So I am stuck with whether or not I should call my lawyer and pursue the matter.

It is a good thing that both projects were personal initiatives, because I would hate going to a client and saying their money was lost.  That would definitely not leave a good impression and is not how I want someone remembering my name.

So, I urge you to use caution when looking for software development from a bid-type website.  Stay with the two I recommended above.  If anyone else knows of other reputable sites of has other stories, let us know in the comments.  They are great development tools, once you find one that is trustworthy, that is. 

28.12.2006 business building 101 Comments

Build Your Niche

Tuesday, December 26th, 2006

Is your News Year’s Resolution to be a millionaire?  Would you like it to be?  Think about this:

Bottom line: growth, if it’s growth you’re after, doesn’t come from acting like you are already the dominant force in the market, able to deliver average products for average customers. Growth always comes from the edges.

In Seth Godin’s post, he outlines how Walmart and Dell are great companies who don’t appear to be remarkable in any way.  They have remarkably efficient business models and a huge customer base, but in today’s marketplace they don’t do anything terribly special.  The reason: They WERE remarkable!  They were innovative.  Walmart and Dell each handled their critics incredibly well.  They became so successful that their business practices are part of our everyday culture.

So what can we do to build remarkable businesses?

Find an area, determine it’s problems, and that’s your new foundation.  Make the customer want to switch.  Build the culture.

 

26.12.2006 business building 101 Comments

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