Monthly Archives: April 2011

The Difference Between Liking and Respecting

Posted on by

I consider very few people “worthless.” Almost everyone has a redeeming quality. Many less-sociable acquaintances are quick to judge others and shut the door. I don’t think that’s fair or reasonable. No, I’m not saying you need to be friends with everyone. Hell no. But don’t throw out fools just because you can’t appreciate foreign personalities.

I make a casual mental effort to divide people into two groups:

People I like.

People I respect.

The “likes” tend to carry genuine personalities I can connect with. These individuals become friends.  The “respects” have notable skills or chapters of knowledge I admire. These individuals find a place in the business rolodex.

Most people I meet fall into one category or another. I respect a large number of professionals, but never plan to break bread with them. They sit on my contacts list anyway.

The true keepers fall into both lists. These are the people with whom you build projects, share ideas, explore the world, socialize, dine and spend the rest of your life.

Woe to those who fall on neither list.

Film Friday: What Goes Around Comes Around

Posted on by

Lauren Gabel

With Peter Thiel’s ugly forecast for the fate of higher education and the exponential rise of student loan debt, there’s more cynicism now than ever before towards four-year universities. It is definitely difficult to rationalize the financials, especially in the face of six-figure private school tuition. People have asked me whether I felt my degree was “worth it.” My response? Absolutely.

Today’s guest post is by friend and fellow USC classmate Lauren Gabel. Lauren currently coordinates talent for Alloy Digital and authors a great blog, Destination Hollywood, about navigating your early years in Hollywood. She beautifully paints the primary reason I have been able to actually embrace my degree:

Enter Lauren Gabel:

When you are young and in school, you hear over and over again how important networking is in the entertainment business. But I don’t think that ever really sunk in until I graduated and entered the real world. Personally, I loved USC film school. I learned so much about filmmaking—the process, the business, production, etc. But I think the best thing about going to a school like USC is the contacts you graduate with. Sure, I’ve found the occasional job on Craigslist or Mandy or the USC Job Board, but all the really great positions I’ve landed have been thru a personal connection. I met so many wonderful people while at school and I guess I made a good impression on them as well because I am continually called up and offered various gigs and positions. I am currently gainfully employed with a job that I love, which is due in part to a very good friend and the owner of this blog (you’re the best, Craig!).

I have been very fortunate, and in return, I always make sure to pass along as many opportunities as I can. When I hear about a job thru a connection, I’ll pass it along to my USC friends and people I have worked with before and can vouch for. I have gotten so many kind responses from people thanking me profusely just for sending along a job posting that only took like 5 seconds out of my day. I love seeing my friends land great jobs and helping to further the Trojan network. Maybe someday that girl that I recommended for an assistant gig at Disney will be running the studio and offer me a great job! It’s a definite possibility. We might be the assistants of today…but we will be the filmmakers and studio execs of tomorrow. After all, what goes around comes around. Right?

School Sucks?

Posted on by

School SucksPayPal co-founder Peter Thiel predicts that the next major bubble following the housing market crash will be not be in tech, but instead in higher education. Like web technology in the dot-com bubble, college education is nearing over-evaluation quelled only by hiking tuition. Despite higher application rates, higher attendance and higher tuition than ever before, colleges are feeling economic pressure and encumbered by spending freezes. More graduates are dropping out, drowning in student loan debt, failing to enter the job market, and moving in with their parents than ever before. The value of university education against the cost of attendance is questionably worth the capital investment risk. College cannot promise you a competitive job anymore.

How can universities prevent an inevitable devaluation and bubble burst of its own?

Change the promise. Or change the program.

“Learning” in and of itself is hardly an incentive for teenagers who just spent thirteen years in school. After taking all of those miserable standardized tests, the last thing they want to do is take more tests. Universities sell education to youngsters as a step toward employment. Changing the promise would mean being realistic about post-college probability, which would invariably scare applicants away. Bad for business. I do not think colleges can afford to revise their promise.

So that leaves only one alternative: change the program.

I am hardly an expert on educational reform, but education is very important to me. I was a professional student from 1992 to 2009 and will continue to be a student of life until the day I die. As I continue with this blog, I will try to propose suggestions to teachers and schools for “changing the program.” Maybe we can discover healthy alternatives together. Stay tuned!

Groupon and Living Social Just Lost a Customer

Posted on by

GrouponI’ve had enough. Fitness classes, yoga, waxing, Brazilian blowouts, facials, tattoos, beauty products, home & garden, apparel, too many hair cuts, too many massages, too many poorly yelped restaurants. I cannot delete these daily spam notes quick enough. I would never spend money on any of those things. I’ve been registered to both sites for over a year and only purchased five coupons. That means that I found only 0.7% of all available deals relevant and 99.3% mostly irrelevant. Terrible odds. I unsubscribed from both services this morning.

Not sure if you’ve ever checked, Groupon or Living Social, but I’m a 23-year-old male and not really that into blowouts or bikini waxing. A basic search and your own profile form would reveal at least that much. Connecting through Facebook or Foursquare could teach you even more.

The marketing prowess of daily emails and a clever coupon system has completely worn off. If these services made a little effort to market their offers by listing “best steak in town” or “highest yelped masseuse” in the subject line, I might pay more attention. Otherwise, the deal messages sit in my inbox like spam at the mercy of the delete button.

Groupon, Living Social, OpenTable, Facebook Deals, Google Offers and all of the other ripoffs coupon services need to start delivering relevant, targeted and meaningful deals. “Deal type” subscription checkboxes on signup pages are not sufficient. The delivery mechanism of email needs to be treated more delicately. And they all need to compete for poignant brevity (deal announcements should be no longer than a tweet).

I will stay registered to Yipit.com, which aggregates all of the major deal players into one daily email and does a far better job weeding out coupon categories I will never buy. But even Yipit could afford to target better and market the benefit of each deal.

Big Idea, Huh?

Posted on by

We all have great ideas. Wonderful. Can you communicate them? Albert Einstein once said, “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” Steven Spielberg tapped into this notion when he encouraged movie pitches to be 25 words or less. While Spielberg’s suggestion had a lot to do with the marketability of a film, the 25-word exercise forces you to boil your idea down to its core and communicate it. The exercise forces you to understand your idea more clearly.

Ideas do not need to be simple. In fact, they shouldn’t be. But they will get nowhere if they cannot be communicated simply enough to share with others.

The Story of Life in Three Acts

Posted on by

Every story has a beginning, middle and an end. We call it a “three-act” structure. Life also has a beginning, middle and an end. Life is your story. So how can you classify the three acts of your own life?

Act 1: Learn
We spend the first part of our lives learning to walk, talk and rock-n-roll. We study under the older and wiser in prep for phase two.

Act 2: Do
We spend the next part of our lives applying our education. We get our hands dirty, build things and wander the bumpy roads of adulthood.

Act 3: Teach
We spend the last part of our lives recovering and reflecting. We share our stories, our mistakes, our lessons. We chronicle our past and curate our biographies. We try to convert our story into meaningful text that can guide the future.

The activities of learning, doing and teaching are not exclusive to only one part of life, but they certainly anchor the growing, maturing and aging phases of natural development. What phase of life are you in? How have you deviated from or broken this structure?

Get off your computer and go live your story.

Will Facebook Rule the Future of Social?

Posted on by

Facebook KingFacebook is very powerful right now, pervading our everyday lives and businesses. And they have no intention of stopping. While not as acquisition-hungry as Google, which has a reputation for buying up every great small business in sight, Facebook is expanding scope like hotcakes. Places, Deals, Marketplace, Photo Recognition, Questions, Games, Groups, Mobile…the list of Facebook products grows everyday.

So my question stands:  Will Facebook rule the future of social?

No, I don’t think so. Facebook, while omnipresent, is not currently based in natural human exchange. Pokes, wall posts and events are digital abstractions of real dialog. The future of social will be…more social.

Facebook is a closed social graph. And by that, I mean it’s A) restricted to the people you “friend,” B) restricted to the people signed up on Facebook and C) restricted to active device users. This type of social network is limiting and far too much effort. Worse, it’s not human. In real life, we meet people and they become acquaintances. We spend more time with people and they become our friends (or enemies). There is no mutual contract, no “friend” button. Venture capitalist Fred Wilson touches on the unnatural effort involved in curating your various network lists when he forecasts the Implicit Social Graph.

Social technology will evolve. I predict that a platform with the most open, implicit social graph and a passive user experience that promotes true human interaction by keeping your phone in your pocket will take the cake as social media king. Facebook is not situated, nor was it founded, to promote such an organic vision.

What do you predict? Do you think Facebook is an unstoppable behemoth or will the value of real life ultimately take it down?

—-

Imperial Crown (Heraldry) vector art via Wikimedia Commons.

The Path of Greatest Resistance

Posted on by

Everyone has fear, but no one needs to be afraid. Fear is a powerful tool if used wisely, one that can guide you to great discovery. We fear obstacles, the bumps in the road on the way to accomplishing our goals. But don’t be afraid. Use that fear to measure and appreciate the value of your potential success. The greater the fear, the greater the obstacles, the greater the feat, the greater the reward. Avoid the path of least resistance – it is deceptive and will get you nowhere. Choose the path of greatest resistance – it will guide you to your dreams.

Film Friday: Production Value Can Go To Hell

Posted on by

I talk to a lot of filmmakers, artists and business people who dissuade themselves from a venture or project simply because they lack the resources necessary to create a product with “high production value.” I cannot tell you how many films have not been made because producers and directors could not secure the equipment or style they wanted. “It wouldn’t be professional enough!” “It wouldn’t look like a real movie!”

Well, let me tell you something – who gives a damn? Do you think YouTube has become the entertainment monstrosity it has because of high Hollywood-class production value? Hell no. YouTube has exploded because it highlights genuine, human entertainment. Raw, real, honest. Not polished, impersonal shlock.

Pick up a camera (any camera, your cell phone counts) and go tell a personal human story. If you can’t do that, it doesn’t matter how much money or production value you have because NO ONE WILL CARE. Production value is just a cover-up for fear or undeserved elitism. Sure, quality can be important. But story is more important. Get off your ass and go tell your story.

Do not let production value get in the way of your creative expression.

Home

Posted on by

On a flight to Denver this morning to see family and friends for a long weekend. Home.

How do you define “home?” A residence? Memories? Family? Friends? Your job?

Home is where the heart is. Love and cherish it.

The family you choose, the passions you follow, the place you always long to return to. But if the place you reside does not allow your dearest relationships to be near, enable the pursuit of your dreams, or warm your heart upon return, then can you truly call it home? Why are you living there? Go home. Or find another.

To complicate matters, you can never truly appreciate home until you leave it.