Working Like Our Primitive Ancestors
December 28, 2006

It is generally believed that we live in an age of unprecedented leisure. And if you look back over a 100-year time span, there is ample evidence that things are indeed getting easier. In the 1800s, people spent about 50 percent of their lifetimes working. But today, according to Jesse Ausubel, director off the Program for the Human Environment at Rockefeller University, most of us devote only about 20 percent of our lifetimes to work.

These numbers are measurements of the total time we work out of the total time we are alive. They include the times when we don't work at all (infancy and infirmity) as well as the times when we are expected to work less (childhood and seniority).

If you look at mankind from a long-term perspective, working 50 percent of the time is an extreme anomaly. Most of the time, people work much less than that. In fact, throughout most of the hunter-gathering epoch, they worked only about 25 hours a week.

"Our primitive ancestors weren't so primitive," Ausubel says. "They were pretty efficient" at working - and if trends continue as they have been, we may one day enjoy the same amount of leisure they had.

One thing that is helping is the advent of the Internet and the computer, which are allowing people more flexibility in where they work, when they work, and how long they work.

Our ancestors worked till the job was done, and then they stopped and rested. Later on, when they needed to acquire/achieve something else, they worked again. This is becoming increasingly more possible with today's technology.

Freelance marketers, copywriters, and graphic-design professionals can already enjoy that kind of control over their schedules.

I've got to think about this. There is an appealing theme here: that the natural work week is not 50 or 60 hours but just 25, and the natural work schedule is not 8:00 to 4:00 or 9:00 to 5:00 but working and resting intermittently throughout the day.

I can understand how that could become more and more the norm. And I can see how it would make for a higher quality of life.

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posted by M. Masterson @ 8:34 PM, ,




The Big Apple Is Getting Bigger
December 24, 2006

When I was a kid, there were eight million stories in the Naked City, according to the narrator of the popular TV series featuring the NYPD. During the 70s, the population of New York - presumably along with the number of stories in it - was down to about seven million.

I'm happy to see that the city is getting more populous again.

According to a study by the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council, it currently has a population of 8.2 million, and that will grow to about 9.5 million over the next 25 years.

That's not growth by China's standards ... but it's nothing to sneeze at.

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posted by M. Masterson @ 9:48 AM, ,




Julie Roehm's Taboo Dinner at Nobu
December 21, 2006

Wal-Mart recently fired Julie Roehm, its senior vice president of marketing. And now they've fired the advertising company she was hiring to help the retail giant make its marketing more targeted. (In particular, they want to develop regionalized and even localized ad campaigns, since their clientele is so diverse.)

The reason for the firings, insiders speculate, was that Ms. Roehm broke one of Wal-Mart's sacred rules: Employees are not allowed to accept gifts from vendors.

The gift was a dinner at Nobu, the famous Manhattan restaurant. The evening was sponsored by Interpublic Group's Draft/FCB, the ad agency Roehm had hired.

The agency's dismissal was "the result of new information we have obtained over the past few weeks," a Wal-Mart spokesperson said. She declined to say what that new information was.

In response to questions about the possibility that the dinner might have been the cause of the firings, the spokesperson said, "Our policy is that our associates cannot accept anything from suppliers, not even a cup of coffee. I'm not saying if it's related to this or not."

She's not saying, but she's not denying it either. I see this as an internal-relations (as opposed to a public-relations) firing. Its purpose: to let Wal-Mart employees (that "associate" thing doesn't sit well with me) know that the company is very, very serious about this no-gifts-from-vendors policy.

And I can understand why. There is so much at stake.

I can imagine the following conversation at Wal-Mart's headquarters.

Human Resources Director (HRD): "Yes, sir. We've confirmed it. She had duck a
l'orange and let the Draft/FCB reps pay the tab."

Senior Vice President (SVP): "She didn't even pay the tip?"

HRD: "No, sir. We checked that too. The gratuity was included on the credit card
charge."

SVP: "Oy!"

HRD: "Be careful, sir. Such expressions violate our new policies regarding ethnic-neutral expressions during business hours."

SVP: "Fine. But this is a tough situation. Roehm is one sharp cookie. And these advertising people - they seemed to be doing a damn good job. Is there some way we can't slap their hands?"

HRD:
"I'm afraid the guidelines are unambiguous. They call for immediate termination
... of both parties."

SVP: "What? Are you saying I have to can both of them?"

HRD: "I'm afraid so, sir."



I'm having some fun with this, but I understand Wal-Mart's position. Several times in my career I've had this very same sort of conversation. In some cases - when the perpetrator was one of my superstars - I wanted to ignore the rules and save him. In other cases - when the gift-taker was nobody special, I was in favor of sending a message.

But, in general, I have favored a similarly strict no-gifts-from-vendors policy.

Since her firing, the papers have been reporting that Wal-Mart has not only been questioning Roehm about accepting gifts from the ad agency, but also about having a personal relationship with Sean Womack, a Wal-Mart employee she was mentoring. According to what I read, she has denied that she has done anything wrong.

Roehm was hired from Daimler Chrysler AG in January 2006 to "shake up Wal-Mart's marketing," The Wall Street Journal reported. Prior to her arrival, Wal-Mart's advertising was dull, safe, and old fashioned: "smiley faces and drab reminders about low prices."

Wal-Mart CEO H. Lee Scott Jr. had heard about Roehm's reputation for stirring things up at Daimler Chrysler, and he thought she could put some pizzazz in Wal-Mart's brand ... and maybe even attract a more affluent customer base.

At Daimler Chrysler, Roehm had rejuvenated the car manufacturer's stodgy image by introducing rock bands, video games, and online advertising into the marketing mix. She wasn't afraid to be daring. (One of her ads showed men at a urinal talking about the size of a car's trunk.) A public-relations event she planned (that was quashed) was a football game with lingerie-wearing models.

You can understand why H. Lee Scott Jr. hired Roehm. If she could boost the company's sales and renew its image, Wal-Mart executives might be able to get back to the business of growth and forget about all the negative publicity it's been getting lately.

So Roehm was hired, and she went to work right away. One of the first things she did was repaint her drab office in bright colors. She also produced new ads that made fun of competitors, sponsored football on ESPN, and hired Interpublic Group's Draft/FCB to manage Wal-Mart's $580 million account.

In trying to make things new, Roehm went back to the saucy stuff that had succeeded (and failed) at Daimler Chrysler. One notable example: To congratulate Wal-Mart for winning some industry award, Draft/FCB took out an ad in a trade publication that depicted a male lion mounting a lioness. The caption read: "It's good to be on top."

So why was Roehm fired? Because she broke the no-gift rule? Because she was fooling around with a fellow "associate" - a subordinate, no less? Were both company violations considered? Was it felt that she was a little out of control?

Or was something else involved - something that might be less titillating but more crucial to the future of the retail giant's profits? Could Roehm have been doing a bad job?

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posted by M. Masterson @ 1:25 AM, ,




How Sid Got a Free Ride in Vegas
December 20, 2006

Sid, my 87-year-old accountant, told me a great story yesterday.

About 30 years ago, he was in Las Vegas on vacation. He became friendly with some local guys he was playing craps with. They invited him to play golf the next day. At the third tee, they were joined by an older guy that Sid's new friends seemed to know. He suggested they play for money. Sid was reluctant but agreed. The stakes were something like $10 and $20 a hole.

The older guy and Sid were paired up. "We got along real good," Sid said. "We had a lot in common. One thing that was different, though, was our game. I was a pretty fair golfer at the time, but this guy - he had introduced himself as Carl - well, he was a klutz. By the end of the game, he owed me a hundred and fifty bucks."

After the game, Carl handed Sid the money he owed him. "I wouldn't take his money," Sid said. "I mean, it was no contest."

Turns out that Carl was Carl Cohen, the general manager of the Sands, one of the biggest casinos in Vegas at the time. "From now on," he told Sid, "whenever you come to Vegas, I want you to be a guest in my casino. All you have to do is mention my name and everything will be taken care of."

The next time Sid planned to go to Vegas, he phoned the Sands. The reservations manager told him that Mr. Cohen had given her his name, and that she would arrange accommodations for him.

"We had a suite overlooking the pool like you wouldn't believe," Sid said. "And until Carl died a few years ago, every time I went to Vegas I had a beautiful suite for free. Even when my daughter went with her family, Carl took care of everything."

I was really taken by this story and wanted to pass it along to my ETR readers. But first I wanted to come up with a practical lesson to draw from it. Nothing immediately came to mind - but maybe this is it ...

Sid had done a little thing. He'd made a small, impulsive gesture of kindness. It wasn't the money that was the issue (Carl Cohen certainly wouldn't have missed it, nor did Sid need it) but the acknowledgement by Sid that the good feelings that were kindled during the game had value to him.

Sid's gesture meant something like: "If you will let me, I'd like to treat you like the friend I'd like to be rather than the acquaintance I am right now."

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posted by M. Masterson @ 4:57 PM, ,




How Much Can You Legally "Borrow"?

Several years ago, Natasha Alden, a research student at Oxford, noticed similarities between an autobiography she was studying and a popular novel she had just read.

The memoir was No Time for Romance, written by Lucilla Andrews, a best-selling romance novelist. The novel was Ian McEwan's best-selling 2001 novel Atonement.

Now that Atonement the movie is about to come out, these similarities are in the news. Two prominent British newspapers, The Mail on Sunday and The Times of London, have published stories with excerpts of the questionable texts.

In response to the uproar, McEwan wrote a lengthy article in The Guardian, admitting he used No Time for Romance for details of nursing and hospital conditions in Britain at the time his story was set. "I have openly acknowledged my debt to her in the author's note at the end of Atonement and ever since on public platforms, where questions on research are almost as frequent as 'where do you get your ideas from?'"

In a phone interview with a New York Times reporter, McEwan vigorously denied that he copied any of Andrews' language. Yet the published excerpts show close similarities. For example ...

From Atonement: "In the way of medical treatments, she had already dabbed gentian violet on ringworm, aquaflavine emulsion on a cut, and painted lead lotion on a bruise."

From No Time for Romance: "Our 'nursing' seldom involved more than dabbing gentian violet on ringworm, aquaflavine emulsion on cuts and scratches, lead lotion on bruises and sprains."

What are we to think of this? What do the professionals say?

I'm going to ask Matt Turner, Agora's in-house counsel, to write something up about this for tomorrow's issue of ETR. Meanwhile, here's what I've got ...

Erica Wagner, the literary editor for the Times of London, told the NYT that the idea that this is copying "is not a valid complaint at all."

Andrews herself seemed to have a similar opinion. When the similarities were pointed out to her in 2004, a year before her death, she said, "I don't give a damn."

A spokesperson for the Romantic Novelists Association, which awarded Andrews a lifetime achievement award last summer, said: "Although I can say that the nature of the borrowings is a bit startling, the overall impact of McEwan's novel and Lucilla's autobiography is very different." She described the accusation of plagiarism as "nonsense."

So it looks like McEwan is innocent of the plagiarism charges, even as far as the potential victim was concerned. And yet he's had to fight for his reputation.

As a working writer, it is easy for me to understand how McEwan's language is so close to Andrews. When you are writing and reading pretty much simultaneously, it's not infrequent to have a phrase come into your head that you think is original but is, in fact, a product of memory.

If there is one thing memory studies show, it is how frequently we forget and how imperfectly we remember. It's easy for me to imagine that McEwan, in using Andrews' book for details, partially replicated phrasing while attempting to reword it entirely.

The lesson here, I suppose, is that you have to be very careful about how you integrate research material into your writing. Although the borrowing may be minor or even irrelevant, the accusation of copying carries with it a severe social penalty.

What McEwan did was nothing close to copying, yet the scandal still got him into hot water. In the world of non-fiction, as we've seen repeatedly in the past few years, getting nabbed for stealing copy can bring with it a literary death sentence.

The stakes are high, even for minor offenses. And the chances of being "caught" are exponentially greater now that everything is input into computers. It's only a matter of time until there will be groups out there in cyberspace, literary fan clubs or legal snoops, who will be digitally comparing texts for the specific purpose of identifying plagiarism and making news and/or money from it. In fact, with the Copyscape website, you can actually find out if pages on your website are being used elsewhere on the Web.

The moral here? It is probably worth it to put the extra time into your writing to keep your wording unique and make all the acknowledgments you need to.

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posted by M. Masterson @ 3:33 PM, ,




Real Estate Negotiations

Yesterday, my neighbor Brian and I argued over a little piece of oceanfront land he wants to sell. I'd made an offer of $1.4 million a week or so ago, which he'd accepted. But yesterday he decided he could sell it for a higher price - and when K and I wouldn't raise our offer, he backed out.

When I went outside this morning, Brian was seated on his porch.

"I have an offer now. A firm offer of $1.5 million," he informed me.

"Like hell you do," I thought. What I said was, "You know, Brian, when our offer fell through and you told me you wanted $1.8 million for the property - well, it upset me. Because I ran all the numbers, and I'm sure $1.4 million is right.

"If you build a 5,500-square-foot house on this property, even at $200 a square foot - which is very cheap for a beachfront house - you'd be at $2.5 million. Right now, I think that's more than the current market will bear. If things improve in a few years, it will be a good price. But it's not a good price now.

"1.4 million is the right price. It's good for me. And it's good for you."

"I think the market will go back up," he said.

"If we have another hurricane season like last year," I said, "you'll be lucky to get $600,000."

After a moment, I said, "My $1.4 million offer stands until Monday at 11:00 a.m. If you don't take my offer and your current bidder falls through, the next price you'll get from me will be $1.2 million."

He looked at me to see if I was kidding. I wasn't. He was probably thinking, "I should have taken the $1.9 million he offered last year or the $1.5 million he offered last month."

"We are talking about a difference of only $100,000," he said.

"Right now, that's right. Next week, it will be $300,000."

He looked slightly uncomfortable.

"There's one thing to keep in mind, Brian," I said. "My offer is cash. You can take $1.4 million to the bank on Monday or you can sign a contract for $1.5 million ... wait and see if the bidder has the financing ... and, if he does, whether he'll go through with his offer."

Five minutes later, we were in my living room, once again at $1.4 million. Brian wanted me to sign a contract that had a hefty penalty clause if I failed to close for any reason on Monday. I called Justin Ford (creator of ETR's real estate investment program Main Street Millionaire) for his advice. He told me not to accept the clause.

"The banks don't open until Monday anyway," Justin said. "You're willing to close then. That should be enough for him. Unless someone comes in today or tomorrow and offers him a lot more, he's better off closing for cash on Monday. I wouldn't sign anything that could penalize you for things beyond your control."

I took Justin's advice, but felt like I had to keep reassuring Brian that I was serious about the offer.

"I don't think there's a problem here," K said. "It seems to me that you have both agreed on the deal. You are going to have to wait until Monday to close, but you've made a deal."

Brian nodded. I nodded. We shook hands. The property was mine.

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posted by M. Masterson @ 9:12 AM, ,




Mel Gibson's Challenge
December 19, 2006

Mel Gibson gave us a dramatic, drunken tirade against Jews last summer. Following what some thought were anti-Semitic themes in The Passion of Christ, he was pegged as a Jew hater and persona non grata in Hollywood. But now he's made Apocalypto - an amazing movie that is, from what critics are saying, artistically powerful and dramatically engaging. This poses a dilemma for his critics: Do they nominate him for an Oscar?

Ezra Pound, one of the most influential poets of the 20th century, faced a similar problem when he was tagged for supporting Mussolini during World War II. In addition to his fascistic economic views, Pound was also accused of being anti-Semitic (and with reason - his poetry contained slurs.)

The Pound problem was resolved by declaring him insane, throwing him in St. Elizabeth's (a mental institution in Washington, D.C.), and then awarding him the first Bollingen Prize for his Pisan Cantos.

Maybe we can find a similar solution for Gibson. Then we can get to work on that guy from Seinfeld.


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posted by M. Masterson @ 10:30 AM, ,




Responding to Unhappy Readers
December 18, 2006

Some readers of Seven Years to Seven Figures: The Fast Track Plan to Becoming a Millionaire are unhappy because it does not give very specific, how-to advice. But that wasn't its purpose. It did give plenty of principles and rules and made plenty of specific observations ... but it wasn't a how-to book. That would have made it a textbook.

Still, I should find a way to respond to people who make that mistaken criticism about the book ... and to answer questions they might have.

If we had an active online forum for Seven Years (and my other books) - as we do for ETR - I could respond to readers of the book who have such comments or complaints. And those with questions about their personal financial situation could get answers to them - either from me or from other readers.

Of course, those answers might not be as specific as they would like.

If a person wants a complete, step-by-step plan for something as complicated as starting a business or becoming a real estate developer, they can't get it by reading a 259-page book. They would need to put in a lot of time to educate themselves. (For years, I've been saying that it takes about 1,000 hours of study and practice to become competent in any complex skill or field of knowledge.)

What you can accomplish by reading a good book on achieving a particular goal is to:

* understand the principles involved
* discover the key strategies
* learn the pitfalls, and
* be inspired.

Providing my readers with that information was my objective in writing Seven Years to Seven Figures - and I think I accomplished it.

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posted by M. Masterson @ 10:42 AM, ,




Publicity Events Come in All Sizes

"I got my undergrad degree from Stanford, but I got my Ph.D. in Newark, and some of my best professors were here in Brick Towers," Newark Mayor Cory A. Booker told a New York Times reporter recently. He was preparing to leave his "bachelor-pad" apartment in Brick Towers, one of Newark's worst - and certainly its most notorious - low-income buildings.

Booker became famous after he moved into the building to help convince the landlord and the city to rebuild the drug and violence-infested buildings with new ones. The new ones may not be any better than the old ones (the drugs and violence were the products of its tenants, not its construction materials), but I love the audacity of what he did. It had the publicity power of Joe Vitale's restaurant-lottery hoax - but with much greater credibility. (You can hear Joe's story on ETR's Info Marketing Bootcamp library of DVD recordings.)

It is interesting to think about how Booker made that decision and if, when he made it, he realized how it would change his life. It reminds me of what happened to Rosa Parks when she decided to stay seated that day in 1955 in Montgomery.

Booker's decision to move into a bad neighborhood and run his mayoral campaign from there was more calculating than Parks', to be sure, but it nevertheless yielded rewards that must have gone beyond his expectations. It helped get him elected - but it also put him on the path for even greater public prominence.

His story was documented in a film that garnered an Oscar nomination. I wouldn't be surprised to see something bigger come out of it in the next few years.

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posted by M. Masterson @ 9:05 AM, ,




Slow Down and Smell the Gingerbread
December 13, 2006

Some of my friends, Jewish and Christian alike, say they hate the holiday season because of all the stress it causes. Making those endless shopping lists ... looking for "perfect" presents ... writing poignant phrases on 116 cards. Who wants to do that?

Add to that the worries about forgetting and therefore insulting someone ... about what Uncle Harry will think if you don't invite him over ... about getting a gift from someone you didn't send one to ... about being caught "re-gifting." And so on.

No wonder so many people get stressed out, angry, and depressed.

I've been thinking about ways to overcome this. Here's what I've come up with so far ...

  1. Bake gingerbread cookies in amusing shapes and eat them without guilt.
  2. Give everyone you care about a present. (If you don't have a lot of time for shopping, find one wonderful thing you can give to everyone.)
  3. Take a family walk around the neighborhood to look at Christmas decorations.
  4. Leave work earlier and spend more time at home. Devote some of that extra time to watching sentimental movies (like Miracle on 34th Street).
  5. Read The Night Before Christmas and A Christmas Carol out loud.
  6. Play Christmas music until you can't take it any more.
  7. Put lights up. Everywhere.
  8. Invite your friends to stop by, and serve them mulled apple cider and/or eggnog.
  9. With family or friends, visit the gravesite of a loved one. Then gather together afterward for a big, comforting meal.

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posted by M. Masterson @ 10:26 AM, ,




Why I Don't Like Southwest Airlines' "Culture"
December 11, 2006

Colleen Barrett, the president of Southwest Airlines, knows something important about rewarding employees: that it pays to pay attention to small accomplishments as well as big ones. That was something her mentor, Herb Kelleher, taught her.

But how she implements that good idea is downright silly.

According to an article that originally appeared in Babson Insight and was picked up by Leadership Strategies, Barrett encourages Southwest employees to do little extra customer-service things, and rewards them for it. But I don't really like her idea of what good customer service is. First, I hate the uniforms. Second, I can't stand the corny jokes, the singing, etc. And I find Southwest's waiting system humiliating.

Barrett set up a "culture committee" first thing after taking power. That reminds me of communism. Then she created a "heroes of the heart" program to recognize outstanding customer service efforts. Heroes of the heart? Who wants to win an award by that name? The whole organization smacks of too much soft brain tissue.

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posted by M. Masterson @ 11:37 AM, ,




Protect Your Business Methods From Poachers
December 8, 2006

In 1998, a federal appeals court ruled that business methods can be patented. That seemed like a fairly innocuous decision, but it's made things very complicated for tax advisors. Since that decision, 49 tax-strategy methods have been patented, and now some tax advisors are being threatened with lawsuits for providing advice that someone else had claimed control over.

Knowing what I know about the creation and dissemination of business ideas, I can say with a good deal of confidence that there are very few new business ideas. Most ideas, formulas, and methods that sound new are merely repackaged from material that someone borrowed from someone else. This decision is going to cause all kinds of trouble and expense for tax advisors ... and I suspect it may also spill over into other business areas.

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posted by M. Masterson @ 2:36 PM, ,




Same Mistake, Same Bad Experience
December 6, 2006

I began my day yesterday by "knocking off a few e-mails." Big mistake.

I have talked about how draining and unproductive that can be at least a dozen times in Early to Rise. And yet, every month or so, feeling like I'm too far behind, I go at my overfilled e-mail basket first thing in the morning. And I get the same result: a rotten day.

Doing e-mail in the morning is bad for two reasons:

1. You immerse yourself in all sorts of trivial but annoying problems that can be (and probably will be) solved by someone else if you just leave them alone until much later in the day.

2. You rob yourself of the chance to do your most important work at a time when you have your best energy - first thing in the morning.

I could have written an article for ETR yesterday morning. I could have written a chapter for my next book. I could have edited a short story for my new collection. I could have done a lot of things.

What I did was get myself upset about stupid stuff that will mean nothing to me in five years. Gut-wrenching problems that don't need my intervention.

The day ended well, thanks to a great afternoon meeting with Whitney Information Network, Inc. And today, I came in and went right to work on writing this article for my blog.

I feel better already.

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posted by M. Masterson @ 9:28 AM, ,




Week 1 of My New Eating Program
December 5, 2006

I recently signed up for a new healthy eating plan with my new VIP physician. After doing blood work to determine what you're lacking, he recommends a combination of natural supplements, pharmaceuticals (if necessary), and a diet and exercise plan. Then he hands you off to his trainer/diet specialist to work with you as your eating coach.

To help me succeed, the eating coach put me on Calorie King, an Internet service that keeps tabs on your daily food consumption. It breaks everything down by key dietary considerations, such as fats, saturated fats, carbohydrates, proteins, and fiber. He told me that the worst mistake he sees in patients is eating too little fiber. That, as it turns out, is one of my worst eating problems. And it's something I would never have been aware of were it not for this new program and Calorie King.

Fiber is key for good digestion, avoiding cancer, and a hundred other things. I've been getting too little fiber for three reasons: I wasn't really aware of which foods provide a lot of fiber (which I now know include raw fruits and fresh vegetables), I don't particularly love fiber-laden foods, and I wasn't paying attention to my fiber intake anyway. Now I will.

The eating program I'm following recommends 35 grams of fiber every day. You should talk to your doctor about how much fiber you should be consuming on a daily basis - but if you know you're not getting enough, these are the foods that have been helping me eat a healthier diet:

* Apples - with three grams of fiber each

* High-fiber tortillas - with eight grams of fiber each and only 15 grams of carbohydrates

* One tablespoon of raw flaxseed - with about three grams of fiber

* One serving of lentils - with about 11 grams of fiber

* One serving of cauliflower - with three grams of fiber

* 12 almonds - with three grams of fiber

* One slice of organic, high-fiber bread - with five grams of fiber

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posted by M. Masterson @ 1:53 PM, ,




Keep it Young, Keep It Strong
December 4, 2006

"Dozens of the world's biggest media moguls and investment bankers, dressed in perfectly pressed suits, mingled in the lobby of the Pierre Hotel in Manhattan ... at the annual FourSquare conference."

They were there, The New York Times reported, to talk about the world's most exciting medium, the Web, and to bring together some of its biggest players.

Among those attending were grey-haired Howard Stringer (CEO of Sony), Barry Diller (CEO of IAC/InterActiveCorp), and Thomas Rogers (CEO of TiVo). But also Chad Hurley (the post-pubescent CEO of YouTube), Mark Zuckerberg (the 22-year-old CEO of Facebook), and Jerry Seinfeld. (Yes, that Jerry Seinfeld.)

What's going on here?

Nothing any passerby couldn't guess by looking at a publicity photo: Some of the biggest Internet windfalls are going to young people.

That isn't a new phenomenon. Think back to Microsoft, when college student Bill Gates started it up in 1975. Or Apple Computer, when 21-year-old Steve Jobs and 25-year-old Steve Wozniak put the company in the headlines.

Infrastructure and banking tend to be dominated by old men - but information, entertainment, fashion, and technology-oriented industries are the domain of young blood.

That shouldn't surprise us. It makes perfect sense that cutting-edge products need to be imagined by younger minds. But what is startling, at least to me, is how often this lesson is lost on middle-aged business owners.

Many of the successful CEOs of $100-million+ businesses that I know foolishly think they can grow their businesses on the brainwork of the same talent they used to launch them 20 and 30 years ago. (By "talent," I'm talking about copywriters, marketers, writers, editors, and product people.) That would be like a music industry executive expecting to produce gold records with 50- and 60-year-old singers.

One of the reasons my main client has had such success is the number of young people who are involved in the creative and marketing side of the business. I'm looking at a photo of the company's top brass at this summer's "Jamboree" in France. Of the 30-odd faces that are assembled, less than a half-dozen are wrinkled and grey. Most are in their late 30s and early 40s. Lots are younger than that.

I wonder if anyone has ever done a study comparing the average age of certain employees versus the success of a business ...

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posted by M. Masterson @ 4:16 PM, ,




New Internet Businesses - Bits and Pieces in the News
December 1, 2006

The Wall Street Journal reported on the fast rise of fantasy betting - a clever new business that offers gamblers a chance to play their favorite games in competition with other players for prizes.

In recent years, lots of these sorts of websites have sprung up, the WSJ said, including Faniq.com, NBX.com, Fanlete.com, Pickheads.com, and Wagerline.com. These sites "effectively allow U.S. consumers to engage in legal online gambling." The regular online gambling industry is said to be a $12 billion industry and growing.

Another interesting Internet "fantasy" phenomenon: Second Life, an online service that allows users to create a parallel world where their virtual selves can enjoy a better life. (This is pretty scary and exciting.)

And it's not just teenagers who are populating social networking sites (like YouTube and MySpace). Younger children are rushing to sites like Imbee.com and NeoPets.com, according to an article by Sue Shellenbarger.

"The under-16 sites pose few of the hazards linked to networking sites for older people," she said. "The activities range from chats and blogging to creating virtual pets or characters and acting out roles in virtual cities."

And I found all of these references to Internet-driven businesses in a single issue of The New York Times:

* A new Michael Connelly novel is being promoted with the use of a phone number (323-244-5631) that features a recorded message from Detective Harry Bosch, the hero, and a YouTube video that shows him enacting the opening scene from the book, Echo Park.

* A front-page piece on Movie Gallery, a big movie rental chain that is a billion dollars in debt because of tanking sales due to Netflix and Tivo-type technology.

* Online bartering is working for Peerflix, a DVD-trading service with 250,000 members who trade DVDs by using Peerflix as an intermediary. (Peerflix charges $1.50 per trade, of which 51 cents goes to cover shipping and postage.)

* A story about how mainstream advertisers are flocking to social networking sites like YouTube, Facebook, and MySpace, because that's where millions of young people are going.

* An essay by David Carr about how he prefers video-chatting with his children to watching Lost on television.

Read more!

posted by M. Masterson @ 10:48 AM, ,