Your Own Worst Critic

In Tim Ferriss' provocative book, 4 Hour Workweek, he redefines what it means to be an expert and sets the threshold very low. He contends that if you have read 3 more books on the subject than the average person on the street, you can consider yourself an expert. The more you are asked for your opinion, the more people will ask for your opinion and so your celebrity (and implied expertise) grows.

So, although I don't agree with Mr. Ferriss about many things, it did make me think about what I knew better than the average person. The first thing that came to mind: air travel (probably because I was reading the book in the SFO terminal). Not just air travel in general, but business travel. Not just business travel, but how to travel for business when you are early in your career (some of the things that I have learned the hard way, but wished someone would have told me when I was just out of college). Perhaps, I will write a book (or a whole seminar series on CD with a workbook, as Tim recommends, that I will sell for $89).

In this book, I will have a whole chapter dedicated to the principle of "Never Pack More Than You Can Lift."

ThisSite.MuchLoved

I was told about a great service the other day that combines so many things that I love (internet technologies, personalization) while allowing you to pay tribute to people you love. The site is called MuchLoved and on it you can create and post tribute websites to loved ones who have passed away. They can include photos, life stories, timelines, journals, and ways that the grieving can share their thoughts and pictures, as well as donate to relevant causes. The sites can either be public or you can invite a selected audience. MuchLoved is a registered charity and they accept donations. There are for-profit companies doing similar things, like VirtualMemorials.com or PartingWishes.com, but I like the interface and feeling of MuchLoved much better. I could see how this service would be great for those extended networks of family and friends who are not physically about to participate in memorial services.

Shifting gears a bit, as I often do, I wonder if a similar set-up would work for other occassions.

• Weddings (TheKnot.com features some features like this and it would be a great addition to the services provided by Bella Pictures).


• Retirement roasts (a completely underserved market, it would seem).


• Milestone birthdays.


• Baby dedication/blessings.

As a parent to young children, I could see setting up a website to commemorate a baby's one year old birthday, allowing people to leave their well-wishes, photographs, and the like. It could live on in the form of a website, and perhaps the template could also feed a print-on-demand scrapbook to help commemorate the day!

In fact, the book could become part of the event it is commemorating, in the case of a wedding. The guest comments, stories, and advice submitted before the wedding, engagement photos, and the like could be combined with a guest book for the big day!

AdWords in the Real World

As everyone knows, Google is taking over the world. They run the biggest search engine and are buying up companies and extending their brand further and further each week. That said, there is a combination that I'd love to see that I call "AdWords in the Real World." As people know, AdWords is Googles way to insert advertising onto search results pages, onto blogs, websites, and the like triggered by the content of the page. Advertisers pay per click. Presumably, people browsing websites get relevant content and ads delivered to them (that is better than non-relevant ads, if you have to have ads). These AdWords enable a whole economy where people's websites can make money (or at least get supplemented) and advertisers reach those truly interested in their products or services.

So, this leads to my idea. As I have written about in the past, the book publishing industry is becoming frictionless. Anyone can write and publish a book. (Now, that isn't to say that everyone SHOULD write a book, but that is another tangent for another day). But for those who want to write, there actually is some friction to it. It still isn't free to publish and there isn't any truly revenue-share models that are aren't at least a little front loaded. So, what if advertisers sponsored "AdWords" in digitally printed, self-published books, the same way they sponsor links on a website.

An author would write a book about a particular topic, let's say about the history of musical instruments. They would prepare the book using one of the online services like Xlibris, BookSurge, cafepress, or iUniverse. They would select the "AdWord" option and their book would be made available for sale for free. Then, each time the book was printed on demand, trigged by an actual order, a dynamic list of current AdWords advertisers would be listed on a special sponsors page (with easy to type URLs). In its actual implementation, there could be a page of AdWords for every so many actual pages (ie, either in the back like the sponsors section of a high school yearbook or in the chapter breaks allowing the sponsor list to be even more targeted to the content of every chapter).

As long as the price paid for the book at check out covers all hard printing costs and royalties and the online book set-up was easy and "frictionless," I see that this could be an interesting opportunity to extend the Google AdWords to the real world.

The first advertisers I would solicit for this service would be the booksellers and authors themselves ("Readers who purchased this book, also loved this one, and this one"). I am sure there are many aspiring authors that would rather put their money into advertising their book, than paying set-up fees.

So, You Want to Be an Author?

"After being Turned Down by numerous Publishers, he had decided to write for Posterity." - George Ade

Writing books are all the craze now-a-days. I've heard that 75,000 books are published each year and it is easier than ever to do it yourself. There are now a host of companies that will allow you to self-publish and print on demand. Some popular ones include Xlibris (owned by Random House), BookSurge, cafepress, or iUniverse. To read on how to approach a project like this, see Seth Godin's Advice to Authors.

I have a friend, Jerry Dawson, who a few year's back published his own book, Sales 101: Princples in Action. I recently asked him about the process and I thought I would share his insights here.

What made you want to write a book?
My sales experiences were varied enough and I thought what I had learned was worth sharing.

How did you go about writing and publishing the book?
The self-publishing process is the same as going through a traditional publisher, except I had total control over the content, length, and organization of the book. I worked with BookSurge, which was purchased by Amazon, which provided great exposure for the book right out of the gate. That said, it is left to me to market ths book. I have been marketing the book mostly by giving copies to friends and associates. The response to the book has been very positive. I spent under $1,000 to publish the book and get the first 100 copies. Although I have yet to turn a profit, the book is selling.

What was the most surprising thing about the process?
Just how hard it was to write the book. I spent over two years collecting my thoughts and writing up small snippets and then hours and hours of editing and re-writing to complete the book.

What advice would you have for other would-be authors?
Only to focus completely on what you are writing about – get a good editor so you don’t waste words – solicit the opinions of others when appropriate – keep it simple.

One of these days I will write and publish a book or two. For now, the ideas go into folders and I blog on. If you are like me, but don't want to wait, you might check out Andy Wibbel's program entitled "Write a Book in 45 Days and Other Ways to Blow Your Own Mind." As he so aptly put it: "shut up and write" and sometimes a little structure is what we need to get us going.

So, that is my advice to would-be-authors. Start already!

Crowdsourcing and New Ways to Make Product

I loved the article on crowdsourcing in a recent Wired article. It was sent to me by a friend and colleage, Todd Hudson of the Maverick Institute.

Technology has enabled methods of production that are new. Digital content products (like the iStockPhoto example) are naturals for this, but imagine it applied to other products.

Digital printing is enabling the same sort of business model for a variety of printed items. You no longer have to rely on Hallmark to create the perfect card. You can order your own custom designed postcard and have the post office mail it for you (www.premiumpostcard.com). You don't have to rely on Old Navy to create a t-shirt for you, you can go out to www.threadless.com and buy one that your friend (or a clever stranger) designed. You don't have to rely on Uncle Sam to design a commemorative postage stamp, you can create your own at Zazzle. Furthermore, on many sites (including the last two I mentioned) you can leave designs for others to buy and make a commission for all sales. You don't have to wait for Random House to give you an advance for your mystery novel. You can publish it yourself through www.booksurge.com or www.xlibris.com and see it on Amazon tomorrow, with orders fulfilled through print-on-demand without inventory. All of this makes me wish I could draw or had the time to write!

I really liked the Procter and Gamble experiment called reflect.com that used to let you design your own cosmetics. I think it was just ahead of its time when they shut it down. With a new web 2.0 business model applied, this could have been a way for individuals to create their own branded line of cosmetics and resell them on their blog, in their self-published beauty book, or to their own friends and family through a custom designed mailer printed at PSPrint. Modern technology allows the emphasis to be on brand building, not product building.

So, what about other products that are relatively easy to produce consistently, have a high creative content, and can be easily distributed? I could see whole cottage industries being enabled by this technology.

Online jewelry sites where individual artists pool their talents or take custom orders. Online copy editing services where people post copy and pay a fee and professional editors give critique and get paid by the read. What if you could get your MRI read by a group of radiology students, in addition to your radiologist. You could help fund someone's residency while getting a valuable second opinion. You don't have to wait for a concert promoter to bring your favorite artist to town. You could book an act, rent a venue, and sell your own tickets using www.MollyGuard.com. Could these technologies be applied to give more economic opportunities to women and children in impoverished countries (who currently have to make unspeakable and unfathomable choices for survival)?

What other business ideas could be enabled in this way?

I read recently about a company in Business 2.0 magazine called Ocean Tomo that plans to broker intellectual property. You have invention and you give them a cut of the royalties if they find you a licensee. Like eBay for IP, perhaps. I wonder if they will take it as far as some of these other sites giving you the tools to do the patent filings, previous art searches, and the like? Man, I would love and use that, as would a lot of other people with great ideas, but without the time or resources to pursue monitizing them all. (Don't believe me? Check out my Invention Recycling site at www.inventionrecycling.blogspot.com).

Thanks, Todd, for getting my creative juices flowing!