Online Scheduling System

When I graduated with my undergraduate degree in English Literature with a minor in French, a friend of mine who graduated with a degree in International Political Affairs joked that we should print out unofficial bumper stickers for our class of 2007 that read: “Should have been a business major.” Despite the subversive intent and effect of this joke its sentiment  was wholly in accordance with our uneasy disposition at the time. Never having received any promising indications from within the discipline about what career paths we might be embarking on, we maintained not much more than a vaguely shimmering hope that we might get a job that excited us in any capacity and expected to be holding down a server position at a restaurant (which inevitably did happen, ultimately proving to be an enriching experience, teaching us a lot about the basic operating principles existing  in the business world from a foundational perspective.

I wish to discredit no educational institution’s Business Department or Science Department, but do believe it necessary for Western education to reconsider the value of the humanities when it comes to solving the problems of tomorrow and today. From my experience I believe the starkest differentiating point between the average graduate with a Humanities degree from the one with the Science degree would be the manner of approach–of vision. Whereas the science student learns to detect the problem and then to immediately set to work on formulating the solution (and in most cases these solutions are downright brilliant), the Humanities student learns how to question the problem itself before trying to solve it, viewing it from as many angles as possible, before wagering a solution that accounts for as much variance as possible. Here the poet John Keats’ understanding of Negative Capability seems apt: “[The] quality [that] went to form a Man of Achievement especially in literature & which Shakespeare possessed so enormously – I mean Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts without any irritable reaching after fact & reason”–a notion expounded and developed by the American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald to an extent that lends itself even more for a modern appropriation in the business world: “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.”

In no way do I believe that the dominant scientific Weltanschauung and business model should be undermined; but I believe it should be informed by ideas maybe appearing somewhat antithetical. Sometimes you have to think backwards to think forwards.

The Harvard Business review featured a blog post by Tony Golsby-Smith recently with a similar subjec matter: here .

Plato and Aristotle used to disagree about whether it was all about universals or about particulars and today we still argue about whether art is about the artist or the audience while we categorize ourselves as being either theist or atheist (though a few agnostics seem to be able to avoid the trench warfare taking place between the two camps). All decisions we make seem to be based on the polarity of two possible and opposed choices.  According to Paul Leinwand, the VP of Booz & Co. as well as a business analyst, corporations have been caught between letting their products determine what the market would look like (as in; make the greatest product possible and hope that it directs the market based on its merit), and letting the market determine what their products look like (meaning that the products manufactured depended on what other products existed on the market at that moment as well as on the whim of the public), as well.  Alongside laying out these positions, Leinwand has articulated his business strategy which seeks to find a middle ground between these two approaches, referring to it as the “Coherence Premium.”

Business strategies are trendier and more ubiquitous than Hot Yoga these days, and in all of the cases save a handful the same information is regurgitated in different sentence structures. For this reason Leinwand’s “big idea” did not seem terribly big or novel at first, primarily because he describes his idea in pragmatic terms, synthesizing all of the prevalent strategies into a uniform notion. The “Coherence Premium” entails aligning your business strategy, or your approach to doing business, with three to six unique business capabilities you have honed and which could range anywhere from data analytics, to logistics, to working-capital management, and then finally connect these to the quality of the products or services you sell. When Leinwand promises that all enterprises who have been able to align these qualities return excess profits I get same degree of  skeptical I get when I watch infomercials on Saturday mornings. Entertaining the “Coherence Premium’s” principles in a less sacrosanct manner, but more as guidelines to strive for, I believe would prove propitious. Particularly Leinwand’s distinction between external and internal capabilities is valuable being that one tends to either rely too much on one’s own internal chemistry and losing sight of how the marketed goods are being received, or by retaining a blind faith in those goods, believing that their transcendence will carry the whole operation. As in art, you have to be skilled enough to craft your work according to your audience.

Ever since the bailout of 2007 and the technological developments of the last several years it has been no secret that we need to reevaluate our economic system which is a fusion of the New Deal and of Ronald Reagan’s fully de-regulated free market approach. While many primary economists such as Milton Friedman and Merton Miller preached the free market religion, animating the masses to climb through the glass ceiling toward the sky by making net profit the driving mantra of  their respective enterprises–whether it was financial advisors, bankers, investors, CEOs, etc. However, as Justin Fox has craftily demonstrated, our financial structures are deeply embedded in the federal regulations of the 1930′s, allowing for the bipolar nature of our financial system that ushered in the subprime mortgage crisis. As Fox maintains, the precautions that initially been installed as offices and means of limiting the suspect methods by which people made money in the financial sector metamorphosed into moneymaking avenues. People turned the precautions intended to limit not wholly licit profit into unsanctioned devices to return obscene margins.

But where do we go from here? For the last half-century our economy has been teetering  between As it stands at the moment no one is allowed to be brazen enough to make something out of nothing and drive the market out of control, but these attitudes will come to pass once the normalizing situation returns and some financiers realize they possess the power to drive market prices sky high to their profit. How to conduct a financial environment where growth and investment is encouraged to the betterment and shared profit of all without restricting the market to stasis?

On a certain level the fiscal structures and strictures in place will neither positively or negatively influence American economic direction; American interest will. The values of the zeitgeist will either blaze the trail toward the next recession or a greater shared prosperity. In the early half of the century family and a conservative sense of security was the American dream which quickly disintegrated into a nightmare from Vietnam, encouraging anti-authoritarian ideals. The sense of good that one could strive toward had to be defined against the ever elusive system, a contrarian spirit  which Reagan then co-opted by pitting Americans against the Soviet Union. Greed then became the bond holding Americans together in the same narrative as Gordon Gekko so infamously maintained in Oliver Stone’s epic “Wall Street”: ”

“Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures, the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge, has marked the upward surge of mankind and greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the U.S.A.”

We can only hope that some of the motivations of corporations such as Starbucks to donate some of their proceeds to humanitarian and ecological efforts do not find their primary incentive in being more profitable that way because then we will have not learned anything. What would a truly original business model look like?

With the happy discovery of clinical psychology, we have all benefited from advancements made in better understanding and addressing post-traumatic stress. As with most things in life we usually think in terms of how to avoid a negative and not as to how to achieve a positive. This week in the Harvard Business Review, Martin Seligman, the director of the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania, discusses his findings in Post-traumatic resilience—the efforts to constructively manage one’s perspective after experiencing a nervous or other breakdown. Currently being implemented by the US Army as a means of buttressing the serving young men and women’s mental health and fortitude, Seligman’s inquiries are a suggested study for business owners and entrepreneurs who face, endure, and are devastated by, tumultuous and trying circumstances regularly, though they should not be compared to combat out of respect.

Seligman’s big idea holds that when most people encounter some serious adversity—be it a lay-off, divorce, a failed class, yet another quarterly negative—their aptitude for imagining a positive outcome is severely limited if not completely absent. One becomes convinced that the prior goals one held are untenable, normalizing one’s expectations and adopting a survivalist mode of stasis. The depression takes a form of paralysis, inhibiting the individual from taking the opportunities that become available; often these states are only exacerbated by the diagnosis and prognosis of PTSD which allows the affected victim to think that their condition has become irreversible and is only fated to continue on a decline. However, with an awareness of the symptoms of PTSD one can quite easily take steps toward improving one’s situation, recognizing the debilitating effects of PTSD on one’s own thinking and countering them by actively choosing a path for one’s life. Interpretive ingenuity also factors significantly into Seligman’s PT resilience. If one has the ability to imagine oneself transcending the confronting existential crisis, the act of doing so will become easier.

Although I do not dispute Mr. Seligman’s methods, I felt that the interview did not necessarily leave me all that much wiser in a practical sense. A lot of the positive thinking models seem to borrow from each other without having any fundamental bone structure to them, though Dr. Seligman’s point about retaining a cognizance of PTSD’s symptoms while suffering through it remains convincing, although maybe not the most novel idea either; every mother learns to tell their child that their sadness will go away.

A test has been made available for the workplace to attempt to quantify one’s own or one’s workers resilience, in attempts to better understand how one approaches adversity and whether or not those are positive models (http://www.optimistica.com/test.php).

I’ve been unable to resist the urge to write about a recent discovery that has me buzzing with a healthy level of excitement. From my earliest memory of the personal computer which dates back to 1990 when my father set one up in our attic, my conditioning has been steadily fueled and conditioned by word processors ascribing to a corporate aesthetic that didn’t offer much in the way of creative freedoms that facilitated the writing process. Over twenty years later, having endured a forced marriage to MS Word Version 1 and Version 2, onto Windows Version 6, and then Word 95, 97, 2000, and finally 2003 and 2007, I decided to test the word processing waters for other applications that might better suit the particular nature of my approach to writing after a frustrated night of editing in MS Word 2007. Only being able to open one Word doc at a time, I had been comparing two versions of the same draft by maximizing and minimizing screens, eventually losing any oversight and making changes to the wrong draft.

My research led me to Scrivener that has been available to Mac Users for several years, but released a Linux and Windows version in beta last November. Intended for “writers of all kinds — novelists, journalists, academics, screenwriters, playwrights — who need to refer to various research documents and have access to different organizational tools whilst aiming to create a finished piece of text.” In a laudatory and amusing review in the NY Times, Virginia Heffernan extols: “As its name makes plain, Scrivener takes our side; it roots for the writer and not for the final product — the stubborn Word (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/magazine/06wwln-medium-t.html?Ex=1357275600&en=e0f04d9791fe6b3a&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all).” I suggest you participate in the Beta program which could earn you a free version of the software once it officially hits the market, or if your a Mac user to go ahead and get your own full version of Scrivener.

Here are a few scenarios that will convince you to do so:

• Multiple screens that you can either line up horizontally or vertically allow you to either cross-reference to edit or keep an image or a text you are studying open for you to reference without having to constantly maximize and minimize screens.
• The research function which you deposit webpages, images, or other digital content that is instantly accessible and can remain open right next to your writing.

• Facile segmentation of your work by allowing you to create chapters/units with the click of a mouse that you can then in turn keep track of by notating a summary or any other helpful information in the corresponding notecard on the corkboard Full screen writing.

These are only several of the simplest features—the clean layout, the intuitive functions, and its slimness among a host of other features all make it worth trying your hand at scrivening.

SEO, Hashtags, Geotags,  Metadata, Triple Tags, tag clouds–the linguistics of the search has developed a nuanced and complex syntax of its own–that can either elevate data to a universal platform that would make Shakespeare jealous or will damn you do the depths of the www. Google recently delivered several public announcements regarding their updated search functions that will relegate content farms (web sites whose main ambition is to succeed at the Google algorithm by either copying content from other sites or creating their own content engineered to surface in searches–though not always a good qualitative match for the search) in the rankings below  high quality sites that feature original content and in-depth analysis.

One such content farm, Demand Media, which relies on a  significant corps of freelance writer to manufacture content which will pop up in Google, saw its stock value plummet as soon as this announcement was made. Personally, I applaud a “clean up” of the web that appears to exponentially deteriorate as far as the value of information goes. AOL and other big time players on the web have re-conceived their image as information synthesizers, pinpointing the valuable stories existing amongst  the cornucopia of mediocrity involving Justin Bieber’s haircut. However, with the amount of influence that Google wields, many enterprises have decided to live or die by Google because it is the quickest way to get noticed–but if you don’t play your cards right like Demand Media, it can be an easy way to slip off the grid.

What is a successful Google strategy? How to feature prominently within Google’s algorithms but never having to suffer the consequences of their change–do any universal and immutable SEO precepts or principles exist? I’m afraid not. However, I do believe there is a secret that differentiates those down for the long-haul from those who are here today, gone tomorrow. By implementing a deeply rooted vision predicated on a general need or desire you’re set and only have to stay the course, finding new ways to connect your idea to the people. What enterprises such as Demand Media suffer from is a lack of investment; they don’t seize the moment, they merely strangle it until it has no more breath of life in it.

Looking back on my blog entries for the last couple of months it’s no secret that Google has been an absolute game changer in the last ten plus years. Virtual estate has as much value as real estate and the abyss separating the first page of search results from the second page will make or break an enterprise. Google’s search algorithms are mostly a secret. It has been disclosed that you can boost your search rankings and Google profile for a specific search—let’s say french pastries—when sites dedicated to french pastries link to your site. They refer to this method as “white hat” optimization, whereas “black hat” optimization involves paying these secondary sites to link to you. Over the autumn quarter JC Penney started owning the number one search slot for a plethora of  searches ranging from the broad; “furniture,” to the popular; “skinny jeans,” to the obscure; “grommet top curtains” “area rug,” tipping Google off that an outlaw had gotten loose again to unleash chaos and disorder on the web’s range. The Google sheriff, Matt Cutts, recognized foul play when his team uncovered 2,015 mostly defunct web pages with phrases such as “casual dresses,” and “evening dresses” that would send you directly to JC Penney’s assortment of dresses when you clicked on them. Within a matter of hours Google undertook punitive action, relegating JC Penney to search result 68 for “living room furniture.”
For the sake of continuity and bromidic tropes, the web is less Classical Western, and more Spaghetti Western; less John Wayne, and more Clint Eastwood. In other words, a morass of ambiguous means separates appropriate SEO from illicit SEO.  The difference between Google Ads and Google Search have been maintained to be divorced from one another, yet there remains doubt as to whether this is true and in France inquiries are underway as to whether Google has been promising its biggest clients that their search results would be improved by taking part in Google Ads. Google heavily denies any such type of activity.

What intrigues me are the rubrics Google uses to differentiate an illegitimate site on which black hat links exist and a white hat site where the links have been authenticated. As it appears it might be possible that Google never would have caught on to JC Penney’s fraudulent activity hadn’t they consistently and suddenly appeared in the number one slot for a grip of articles. The NY Times tried to follow up with some of the black hat sites, to little avail, but were able to ascertain that these practices are becoming more and more commonplace with one operator claiming that JC Penney shouldn’t have been so greedy about their rise to the top of the rankings—slow and steady wins the race and can avoid Big Brother Google. What to make of the Google Western?

Just the other day I revisited Orson Welles’ early masterpiece “Citizen Kane” that details a news magnates rise to power and prosperity and ensuing fall back into obscurity and possessionlessness. Nearly universally hailed as the greatest film of all time, the uncannily wise writer and critic Jorge Luis Borges referred to the movie as a “metaphysical detective story” that invites the viewer to piece together a motivation for the protagonist’s calculating actions through the scenes provided. To me the film’s most salient quality remains its exploration of created reality versus shaped reality, depicting a man who desperately sought to shape the events according to his own will, tragically shaping them to protect him from his deepest insecurity. Charles Foster Kane decided what events were newsworthy and which were not so that he effectively fashioned the world in his image.

In an admittedly kooky way, yesterday’s blog entry by David H. Freedman of the New York Times’ blog post in which he discusses the benefits and the downsides of retaining a degree of secrecy regarding one’s business ideas crosses ideological paths with Welles’ film (http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/21/got-a-great-idea-tell-everyone/?ref=smallbusiness). Bouncing his ideas off of a certain Jason Freedman’s blog post in which the young entrepreneur explains his reasoning for not ever choosing to go into stealth mode when the latest and greatest epiphany occurs, but instead to unrelentingly share it with all those he comes into contact with. I believe that “Citizen Kane” lends itself well to this conversation here. Either one can attempt to control and manipulate one’s public image to gain some business advantage, by highlighting what’s positive and eliminating the less appealing attributes; or one can embark on the route of (authentic or not—might not matter) transparency. To me the two options distinguish themselves in that the first option especially benefits those who have already decided on a business image they want to maintain whereas the latter have most likely have not yet and are seeking to gauge the public response to their idea. Here are the Freedman II’s reasons for sharing his ideas:

1) Your idea isn’t that great; it’s your execution that will determine your success.

2) Your product’s first iteration won’t be good enough, and you will fail if you don’t get smart investors and entrepreneurs to tell you how to fix it fast — before you run out of money.

3) Being secretive will prevent you from getting enough of that advice.

While I agree that Freedman’s approach should be considered for those intending to arrive at some kind of long term success but have not sensed any unified direction in which they are heading yet. You cannot find any better advice than getting real people to say real things in the field. Especially in the age of the internet where the tools for appearing transparent are more prevalent than ever, getting real-time interactions are quickly becoming novelties. But if you have gotten most of your ducks in a row, I would warn from exposing too much to the public. Once you’ve given away several bits and pieces, it gets trying to even retain gigabytes of information and will have to work as hard as Charles Foster Kane to keep the public from getting a look at secrets you would rather not have them be privy to.

Paperwork, receipts, pay rolls, returns, 1040s, 1040EZs, 1040as, bs and cs, w-2s, W-3s, W-4s, and so on: it’s that time of year again. All of my housemates have filled out their tax forms and can are  already expecting their returns. Needless to say, I have not gotten that far yet. As with every new year I begin with resolutions to be organized and finish my taxes on the early side of April 15 but find myself scrambling to get it done the beginning of April. With the season in mind,I would like to share some financial resources intended for freelancers  gathered by a friend of SimplifyThis, Kim, who has recently started a blog dedicated to serving those in accounting.  Finances can be a sticky mess in which the fine dexterity of organization and oversight make all the difference in preventing  tax time nightmares. The links gathered by Kim cover the basics from starting to organize, to financial planning.

http://www.accountingdegreeonline.com/29-financial-articles-every-freelancer-must-read/

Several years ago when traveling through Germany a friend of mine watched me open up my email account: “You use Gmail? I expected more from you. Don’t you know how dangerous this is?” I quite honestly had no frame of reference with which to receive his shock. From the earliest days when Google was only a search engine I preferred it both to Yahoo and to Msn.com and my appreciation for the (free) tools offered by Google only grew to love it as time passed and Google grew into a full blown behemoth. My friend informed me of the dangers of Google and the perils it could potentially could/would pose to users—a treasure trove of information far exceeding that which Hitler had access to in Nazi Germany when citizens had to suffer the consequences of the data associated with their names. For these reasons, Gmail has not been made available in Germany, being that the privacy settings that Google operates with do not meet the criteria established by the German government. All in all, because of Germany’s tragic history its citizens evince a deep abiding concern in the use and misuse of personal data. I have to admit myself I found it strange and somewhat concerting when I spent some time in café not too long ago and a cameraman contracted by Google set up a tripod  and began digitizing us without even asking whether we approved.

At the moment Representative Jackie Speier, a Democrat from California, has been preparing a new legislation titled “Do Not Track” which will give consumers the opportunity not to have any of their information collected before they begin navigating the sites. The efficacy with which Google, Facebook, Amazon and others have been able to target users with ads based on their navigational history and other online behavior could radically alter how the online business world communicates with consumers. If as the late great French historian of philosophy Michel Foucault pronounced, “knowledge is power,” than who could be greater than Google with whom the greater portion of the globe has opened an account in their information bank. Imagine the nuclear explosion of a wiki-type-leak in Google’s servers.

And yet the tools of web 2.0 have streamlined our lives in a marvelous and unimagined way, bringing together consumers and producers, users and providers, individuals and communities in ways that even language has hitherto been unable to do. My Netflix suggestions have only served me positively by introducing me to movies I would never enjoy otherwise; so who am I to say they should stop serving me?