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What would have happened if the 700 billion bailout money was divided amongst US citizen residents
21+ who made less then a certain set amount a year?
I mean think about it. The government cuts the people a check, they get a chunk of it back via
taxes, then the rest is obviously going to be spent. Paying for college, paying off mortgages,
paying off cars, buying this and that...etc. etc.
Would something like that not kick the economy up? Just something that popped into my head after
reading how a company like AIG who was about to file bankruptcy yet gets bailed out and wastes over
half a million dollars for an executive "retreat/meeting".
In October 10 and 11 articles, numerous print media outlets, including the Associated
Press, the
Chicago Tribune, the
Columbia (Missouri) Daily Tribune, the Milwaukee
Journal Sentinel, and the
Politico, reported that Sen. Barack Obama represented the Association of Community
Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) in the 1990s in a lawsuit. But those articles did not note
that the Department of Justice joined with ACORN as a plaintiff in the suit, which sought to
force the State of Illinois to implement a federal voter registration law. By contrast, in an
October 10
article, The New York Times reported: "While Mr. Obama did represent Acorn in a
lawsuit in 1995, Acorn was on the same side as the Justice Department." The Times also
noted that "other organizations, including the League of Women Voters," were plaintiffs in the
lawsuit.
As an attorney in private practice, Obama represented ACORN in a 1995 lawsuit against the State
of Illinois seeking to force the state to implement the National Voter Law of 1993, the federal
"motor voter" registration law. The June 5, 1995, decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals
for the Seventh Circuit in the case, Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now
(ACORN), et al., v. [then-Illinois Gov.] James R. Edgar, affirmed the lower court's finding for
the plaintiff-appellees including ACORN, the United States of America, the League of Women Voters
of Illinois, and the League of United Latin American Citizens. The decision identifies Obama as
counsel representing ACORN.
From the decision (retrieved from the Lexis database):
COUNSEL: For ASSOCIATION OF COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS FOR REFORM NOW, (ACORN), EQUIP FOR EQUALITY,
INCORPORATED, JACQUELINE ANDRADE, SWENDOLYN COLEMAN, CHINETHA DIXON, JOEY L. WOODEN, Plaintiffs -
Appellees (95-1800): Judson H. Miner, Jeffrey Cummings, Barack H. Obama, DAVIS, MINER, BARNHILL
& GALLAND, Chicago, IL.
For CATHERINE A. CALDER, RENE D. LUNA, LEAGUE OF WOMAN VOTERS OF ILLINOIS, Plaintiffs - Appellees
(95-1801): Thomas R. Meites, Joan H. Burger, Lynn S. Frackman, Paul W. Mollica, MEITES, FRACKMAN,
MULDER & BURGER, Chicago, IL.
For UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee (95-1802): Joan C. Laser, AUSA, OFFICE OF THE
UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Criminal Division, Chicago, IL. Steven H. Rosenbaum, Samuel R. Bagenstos,
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Civil Rights Division, Appellate Section, Washington, DC. Thomas P. Walsh,
AUSA, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Civil Division, Chicago, IL. Tricia A. Tingle, UNITED
STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, DC.
For LEAGUE OF UNITED LATIN AMERICAN CITIZENS, Plaintiff - Appellee (95-1803): Maria G. Valdez,
MEXICAN AMERICAN LEGAL DEFENSE & EDUCATION FUND, Chicago, IL. Arthur Aram Baer, PUERTO RICAN
LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATION FUND, INC., New York, NY.
pCitoyens ! A HREF="http://www.wikio.fr/tag/Michael+Arrington" class="deep u"Michael Arrington/A
s’est énervé tout rouge il y a quelques jours, annonçant la mort du Web
2. Ses raisons sont les suivantes : “This time, Wall Street and our government screwed
everything up all on their own while we minded our own business and acquired our own instead of
going public at crazy valuations. [...]/ppSource : a href="http://citizenL.hors-sujet.com"
target="_blank"Citizen L./a (a
href="http://www.wikio.fr/subscribe?url=http://feeds.feedburner.com/CitizenLAkaLaurentFrancois"
target="_blank"s'abonner/a)/ppExplorer : a href="http://www.wikio.fr/high-tech/internet"
target="_blank"Internet/a/p
(Football) Annoncé en contacts avancés avec Manchester City, Thierry Henry,
l’attaquant international français du FC Barcelone, a tenu à démentir
l’éventualité d’un départ chez les Citizens.
Annoncé en contacts
avancés avec Manchester City, Thierry Henry, l’attaquant international français
du FC Barcelone, a tenu à démentir l’éventualité d’un
départ chez les Citizens.
img src="http://media.sporever.fr/sport365/images/resized/block1/144x66_74004.jpg" alt="FC
Barcelone : Henry dément pour City" align="left" style="margin: 5px;" /Annoncé en
contacts avancés avec Manchester City, Thierry Henry, lÂ’attaquant international
français du FC Barcelone, a tenu à démentir
lÂ’éventualité dÂ’un départ chez les Citizens.img
width='1' height='1' src='http://rss.feedsportal.com/c/356/f/4939/s/21ac849/mf.gif' border='0'/div
class='mf-viral'table border='0'trtd valign='middle'a
href="http://res.feedsportal.com/viral/sendemail2_fr.html?title=Foot - FC Barcelone : Henry
dément pour
Citylink=http://www.sport365.fr/la-une/article_269972_FC-Barcelone-Henry-dement-pour-City.shtml"
target="_blank"img src="http://rss.feedsportal.com/images/partagez.gif" border="0" //a/tdtd
valign='middle'a href="http://res.feedsportal.com/viral/bookmark_fr.cfm?title=Foot - FC Barcelone :
Henry dément pour
Citylink=http://www.sport365.fr/la-une/article_269972_FC-Barcelone-Henry-dement-pour-City.shtml"
target="_blank"img src="http://rss.feedsportal.com/images/bookmark.gif" border="0"
//a/td/tr/table/divbr/br/a
href="http://da.feedsportal.com/r/21291139787/f/4939/c/356/s/35309641/a2.htm"img
src="http://da.feedsportal.com/r/21291139787/f/4939/c/356/s/35309641/a2.img" border="0"//a
Just two
days ago, when we told
you that Jamie Foxx was joining Gerard Butler for vigilante thriller Law Abiding Citizen, we were all still under the
impression that Frank Darabont remained in the director's seat for the project. Unfortunately,
AICN has confirmed word that Darabont has
indeed stepped away from the film, for reasons unknown, and I for one share the sentiment that
this is a distinctly less exciting prospect now.
What's curious is how descriptions of the film's plot have varied. Our
post on Darabont's hiring and the film's IMDb
page (at the moment) both shared a synopsis that involved an elaborate scheme by an
incarcerated criminal mastermind to control the city. Last week's
Hollywood Reporter piece on Foxx coming aboard took it back to an reportedly original,
comparably simpler tale of injustice and revenge, which screenwriter Kurt Wimmer(Street Kings) may still be able
to spin into something special.
Just not, y'know, Darabont special. (Maybe he could return to Stephen King country and
finally bring "The Long Walk" to the screen; one can hope...).
pFiled under: a href="http://www.joystiq.com/category/features/" rel="tag"Features/a, a
href="http://www.joystiq.com/category/pc/" rel="tag"PC/a/pdiv style="text-align: center;"img
vspace="4" hspace="4" border="1"
src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.com/media/2008/10/img_1891.jpg" alt="" /br //div Chris
Metzen and Andrew Chambers sat down at BlizzCon to chat about the lore and story behind the
universe of span style="font-style: italic;"Starcraft II/span. As we sawa
href="http://www.joystiq.com/2008/10/10/blizzcon-2008-starcraft-ii-gameplay-panel-notes/" in the
gameplay panel/a yesterday, Blizzard is aiming to really break a lot of new characters into the
foreground using the adventure game-style cutscenes, and Metzen and Chambers seem really excited to
bring some new faces into the RTS staple sequel.br / br / To start off the panel, they ran through
a few of the folks we'll meet in the Terran campaign. Dr. Hanson is a "Dr. Lady with glasses (so
she looks really cute)," said Chambers -- originally she was designed to be a male citizen kind of
person (someone the player just helps to make their way through the campaign), but they moved on to
try and make Jim Raynor (Starcraft's protagionist) a sort of romantic interest. As much of a
romantic interest as a hard-bitten mercenary can have, anyway.br / br / Lots more from the span
style="font-style: italic;"SC2/span lore panel below.pa
href="http://www.joystiq.com/2008/10/12/blizzcon-2008-starcraft-ii-lore-panel/"
rel="bookmark"Continue reading emBlizzCon 2008: Starcraft II lore panel/em/a/pp style="clear: both;
padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"nbsp;/ppa
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Frank Darabont, selon le site d'informations Ain't it cool News, vient de quitter le projet Law
Abiding Project qui devait faire suite à son excellent The Mist, injustement boudé
dans nos salles il y [...]
Category: Education
Released: Oct 05, 2008
Price: $0.99
Description:
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app please send us an email at yarodev@gmail.com�
This is an advance clock displaying current population number of the United States of America in
real time. Every US citizen should know the current population number of his or her country, which
is why I have written this little app to keep everyone up-to-date. ***Network connection
required*** ***Updates*** The next version of this software will include improvements to UI clock
additional information will be included in the app also. Other features will be added as features
are requested by you by emailing us at yarodev@gmail.com
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Note: The description above is the official one supplied by the application
developer and does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of this site or its staff.
pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/10/political_tools_top10.jpg"
align="left" hspace="4" vspace="2" width="494" height="210" style="display:block;float:none;" /br
It's hard these days to imagine how elections happened before the web grew to popularity. With all
the instant-access news, video, data, and social networking available in a few seconds' time,
election season is a prime time to dig in and find out where the candidates are getting and
spending money, what's being by and about them and which of it is true, and how to make sure you
get your vote in on Nov. 4. Read on for a roundup of ten tools to get politically savvy this this
election season and beyond. emPhoto by a
href="http://flickr.com/photos/ldcross/2246225674/"ldcross/a./em/p h3 style="font-size: 120%;
margin-top: 20px;"10. Compare the candidates./h3 pimg
src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/10/compare_a_candidate.jpg" width="240"
height="103" class="right" align="right"Unless you're working on a campaign, chances are you don't
know where each candidate stands on every issue. McCain's take on net neutrality? Barack's stance
on school vouchers? SelectSmart's a
href="http://www.selectsmart.com/president/2008/comparethem.html"2008 Presidential Candidate
Selector/a gives you the skinny on the major-topic stances of every candidate, including most of
the third-party contenders. Those are the five-minute takes; for a multitude of quotes straight
from the candidates' mouths on the issues, try a
href="http://ontheissues.org/default.htm"OnTheIssues.org/a./p h3 style="font-size: 120%;
margin-top: 20px;"9. Go poll-crazy at a href="http://fivethirtyeight.com"FiveThirtyEight.com/a./h3
pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/10/538_tipping.jpg" width="220"
height="177" class="right" align="right"Nate Silver is a total data geek, but he knows how to apply
it to interesting topics. He proved that with a href="http://baseballprospectus.com"Baseball
Prospectus/a, which projects performance by players and teams, and he's striking out to do the same
for election results. Silver's FiveThirtyEight grabs all the polls it can find, weighs them based
on methodologies and past accuracy, projects data for regions where it can't find polls, then runs
thousands of simulated elections to come up with a likely outcome. Silver's site currently has
Obama walking away with it; if nothing else, it'll be interesting to see, come Election Day, how
database projections fared with real people./p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"8. Get
your video fix at YouTube's a href="http://www.youtube.com/youchoose"You Choose '08/a./h3 pimg
src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/10/youtube_center.jpg" width="200"
height="85" class="right" align="right"Sure, it's mostly campaign ads, he-said-she-said coverage,
and other videos that are, depending on views, reassuring or infuriating. But YouTube's You Choose
'08 section is a central source of all attacks, scandals, video evidence of gaffes and quotes, and
occasionally, informative video. Bookmark it and feel better about fast-forwarding through the ads
when they blanket your television in the coming weeks./p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top:
20px;"7. Follow the money./h3 pimg
src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/10/earmark_visual.jpg" width="201"
height="160" class="right" align="right"Spending's become a much-debated issue, at least in this
part of the race to the White House. Using some cool visualization tools, you can get all kinds of
specific data on the wheres and whats of government spending. This a
href="http://www.sunlightfoundation.com/presscenter/releases/2007/11/06/navigate-house-defense-earmarks-on-google-earth/"Google
Earth layer/a adds pinpoints wherever appropriated money is being sent, although it leans heavily
toward military and homeland security bills. The graph-happy folks at a
href="http://services.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/browse/visualizations?q=elections"Many Works/a
have put together a ton of interactive (and usually Java-required) tools, including this a
href="http://services.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/view/SgjIIQsOtha65v~7cTFLQ2~"earmarks
visualization/a of per-capita earmark spending. Now you're not just mad, you're madly informed./p
h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"6. See what the candidates said about your hot-button
topic./h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/10/google_quotes.png"
width="220" height="164" class="right" align="right"Google Labs offers two neat search tools that
let you get beyond the basic talking points and read or see the candidates speaking on any topic. a
href="http://labs.google.com/inquotes/"In Quotes/a lets you type a term and see how Obama and
McCain referenced it in speeches, interviews, and other places. a
href="http://labs.google.com/gaudi"GAudi/a, the YouTube-searching audio index tool, does basically
the same thing, but points you to specific points in a video where they said it. Oddly enough,
neither candidate has said anything so far about Google, Gmail, or YouTube, according to those
tools./p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"5. Find out how and where to vote./h3 pimg
src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/10/voter_info.jpg" width="220"
height="180" class="right" align="right"In all the never-ending debate and fervor of an election
season, it can be easy to forget that it's all about, you know, actually showing up and casting
your ballot. Google's a href="http://maps.google.com/vote"Voter Info Map/a, run as a partnership
with the a href="http://www.lwv.org/"League of Women Voters/a makes short work of finding out if
you can still register (today is the last day in New York and others, for example), where you go to
vote, where to grab an absentee ballot, and your local board of elections web site./p h3
style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"4. Vote early with a no-excuse absentee ballot./h3 pimg
src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/10/votehere_scaled.png" width="200"
height="150" class="right" align="right"You probably don't know exactly what your schedule will
look like on Election Day, or how crowded your polling place will be. In 28 states, you can skip
the early-morning/lunch break/after-work jam and vote with an absentee ballot, no excuse required.
The a href="http://earlyvoting.net/states/abslaws.php"Early Voting Information Center/a runs down
the particulars of getting the jump on your right as a citizen./p h3 style="font-size: 120%;
margin-top: 20px;"3. Track developing stories on blogs and news sites./h3 pimg
src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/10/meme_tracker.jpg" width="208"
height="150" class="right" align="right"Political veterans (or just jaded political wonks) always
see an "October surprise" in an election year. See what stories and trends are gaining ground and
staying there with two search tools: Microsoft's a
href="http://socialstreams.livelabs.com/politics/"Political Streams/a, part of its Live Labs,
follows news stories across blogs, portals, and other aggregators, tracking how often, and for how
long, it's getting linked and written about. Google's revamped a
href="http://blogsearch.google.com/"blog search/a is more specific to blog-generated articles and
the buzz they generate. Both are worth checking when you're looking to see how stories are spun,
refuted, and propagated across the web./p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"2 Track fund
raising and donations by candidates (and your neighbors)./h3 pimg
src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/10/fundrace_map.jpg" width="180"
height="157" class="right" align="right"Want to see what interests, businesses, and individuals the
candidates are helping line the candidates war chests? a
href="http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/index.php"OpenSecrets.org/a has maps, graphs, and details
that can keep you busy for days. But, honestly, it's more fun to see who in your neighborhood is
giving to whom. Luckily, you can get just that specific at a href="http://fundrace.org"Fundrace
2008/a, a Google Map mashup run by the Huffington Post blog network (you'll see their left-leaning
post links, but the data is straight-up). You can search donations by street, city, company, or
occupation./p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"1. Get beyond the spin at a
href="http://factcheck.org"FactCheck.org/a./h3 pimg
src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/10/factcheck_graphic.jpg" width="200"
height="153" class="right" align="right"Run by the non-partisan, non-profit Annenberg Public Policy
Center at the University of Pennsylvania, FactCheck.org has been a go-to source for years whenever
politicians claims that they, or their opponent, did or didn't so something that just seems a tad
bit unbelievable. You can track the latest spins and truths by RSS or email alerts, but the site
updates pretty quickly with blow-by-blows after debates, major news stories, and other events that
cry out for a little objective double-checking./p pHow do you track the election, the topics at
issue, and the galaxy of data available out there? Share your great election resources and links in
the comments below./p br style="clear: both;"/ img alt="" style="border: 0; height:1px; width:1px;"
border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?i=f32442e29af99b3d8f58d3ca39c00542" height="1"
width="1"/ img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=f32442e29af99b3d8f58d3ca39c00542"
style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/ pa
href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~a/lifehacker/full?a=tOEKN8"img
src="http://feeds.gawker.com/~a/lifehacker/full?i=tOEKN8" border="0"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a
href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=2m2PM"img
src="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=2m2PM" border="0"/img/a a
href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=bJJZM"img
src="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=bJJZM" border="0"/img/a a
href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=ALoVm"img
src="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=ALoVm" border="0"/img/a a
href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=GE06m"img
src="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=GE06m" border="0"/img/a /divimg
src="http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~4/417852242" height="1" width="1"/
We are witnessing either an epic financial meltdown or a long overdue resetting of existing
business practices and the hollow markets they create. Or, perhaps we’re experiencing both
of these phenomena. Either way, it has the nation gripped with fear, uncertainty, and an
unsettling eruption of questionable advice confusing everyone, everywhere.
While the floor is crumbling for many industries much in the same way it did for Silicon Valley
during the dotbomb years, the sky isn’t necessarily falling on the startup industry
– at least not for those with marketable technology or products, dedicated and
capable teams, an executable business plan, and access to the resources necessary to help it
reach users and customers.
For those startups that are building and marketing something of value for consumers or
businesses, there is much work to do. While there is always a need to attract mainstream users,
this isn’t the time to stretch or over-commit resources to hit everyone all at once.
Branding is an expensive proposition, one that requires time, capital, diligence, dedicated
teams, enthusiastic customers, and patience. As counter intuitive as it may seem, this is exactly
the right time to market into the echo chamber to earn the support of influentials who will
create significant, concentrated brand visibility and momentum to carry you forward.
Your business can grow with the groundswell and doesn’t necessarily require the instant
adoption by the masses in order to succeed in the short term.
Usually, when the economy slides, the first natural reaction is to
cut expenses, conserve
cash, and
hunker-down to weather the storm. All good advice. But don’t
forget also that this could be your time to shine, albeit, in a strategic and intelligent way.
Great entrepreneurs build value and market-share in down markets. They go to work seven days
a week and the(y) breakout when other folks check out. — Jason Calacanis
Now’s the time to get your head in the game and focus on what it is you do, and go do it
better than anyone else. You’re either on the field or you’re on the sidelines.
Any company that intentionally pulls itself from the radar screen of their customers will be
absent from customer decisions and referrals. In the process, you create a frictionless
opportunity for your competitors to swoop in and fill the void.
There are always customers making decisions, so make sure that you’re part of the equation
and process, wherever they go for information and insight.
Influence and adoption historically have migrated from the edge to the center. Or using a more
common example, customers and word-of-mouth referrals travel from left to right along a bell
curve that starts with Innovators and Early Adopters, peaks with the Early Majority and the Late
Majority, and finally permeates with reaction from Laggards.
If you dissect the art and science of technology marketing using a car as a simple metaphor, your
product serves as the chassis, your cash as the fuel, Social Media, Interactive/Web, Sales, SEO,
and PR as the accelerator, marketing strategy and execution as the gears, RPMs as a market
indicator for listening and responding, the speedometer to convey inertia, and you, as founding
executive, sitting in the driver’s seat, steering and controlling the entire operation.
Marketing to the echo chamber, believe it or not, is how you get that car rolling, starting
everything in first gear. Appealing to those who can help spark word of mouth is how you can
accelerate, gain enough speed to shift into second, and subsequent higher gears, and attract new
users and evangelists along the way, growing in distance and reach at every turn. It is the echo
chamber that can help you efficiently gain velocity in order to progressively reach greater
audiences and command additional financing and also revenue in the process. With its support and
assistance, it is almost like starting with a colossal push.
You have to start by engaging those who’ll get it, and in turn, share it with their peers.
It’s an ongoing process that strengthens with each cycle.
Hopefully you are building your business in a way that is independent of the stock
market.
— Kevin Ryan
The world doesn’t flock to new things en masse. It takes a focused and progressive strategy
that evolves and matures over time. In a down economy, this is non-negotiable.
Digg and Twitter are among some of the best examples of how alpha users can help promote a
company or service by embracing these new solutions and religiously demonstrating why they are
pervasive and useful. And, emphatic users also contribute to the community building process,
assisting in the translation of the value proposition for different markets as well as enticing
and compelling their peers to join them, which offsets and relieves the company from carrying the
bulk of the responsibility for promotion and guerilla marketing.
But, where are Digg and Twitter in respect to the adoption cycle? They’re not as far along
as you think judging by the buzz and permeation of your social graph. These companies still have
oceans to swim until they become household brands. But, that’s OK. They’re building a
business, cultivating legions of dedicated user communities, evolving and improving their
product, and still conserving cash. Remember, it took brands such as eBay, Youtube, Google, and
Amazon hundreds of millions of dollars and armies of enthusiasts and partners to achieve
saturation – and many would argue that there’s still much work to be
done.
I would bet on any company that earned the support of innovators and early adopters and took the
time to listen to feedback in order to iterate based on real world needs, preferences, pains, and
new ideas.
Without influence, you’re going to spend precious resources, more than you can afford,
convincing people that they should pay attention. Peer-to-peer marketing is priceless and still
your best bet for having a shot, and more importantly, making a long-term impact.
But you first need a spark, something to start that avalanche that grows as it races downhill.
The echo chamber is bigger than we think or give it credit for. In fact, think of the echo
chamber as its own bell curve. Most of the blogs and users that naturally come to mind, may
reside on the left side, leaving a wide array of technology enthusiasts to uncover and pursue.
Innovators and early adopters are global citizens and do not solely reside in Silicon Valley.
Figure out who your market is today, tomorrow, next month, and set goals for user acquisition so
that you can tweak your product and tailor your messages to those very people, as they’ll
uniquely connect to your story, and also share it differently among their peers, as it traverses
across the bell curve.
Remember, reporters, bloggers and online tastemakers (aka trendsetters) who spotlight innovation
can send tens of thousands of new and loyal users to you almost instantly. I’m not just
referring to unique visits of those who sign up, test things out, and then leave to try the next
shiny service. When done right, the echo chamber can generate real world interest and support. It
is these very users who tell you everything about what works, what doesn’t, and how to
improve. These same individuals and networks also augment and complement your marketing efforts
by legitimizing you’re products, associating credibility and providing pseudo endorsements,
and in turn, giving you unprecedented access to their invaluable and highly connected networks of
early adopter friends.
This is the time to focus on user acquisition. This is edgework. Everything starts with an
intimate understanding of the markets you’re trying to reach and an even deeper connection
to the peers, voices, and other channels that influence them. Most of you are not marketing
iPhones, gaming consoles, premium spirits, or new music artists. At the very least, you are
redefining how people communicate, collaborate, connect, and ultimately work.
There’s a prevailing necessity to educate your markets and introduce not just new products
and services, but also change the daily routines of everyday people.
Therefore the goal to race from zero to 60 and hit mass penetration immediately is not
necessarily the primary goal. If we look at business development and communications as a series
of strategic stages, we realize that there are focused activities that we must pursue and
smaller, reachable voices we must reach and convince to help us carry and adapt our story from
stage to stage – each time, addressing the needs and pain points of the
individual, respective groups.
Of course, as you learn, internalize feedback, change, adapt, and engage with your markets, the
foundation for your business solidifies and begins to afford and beget expansion. It is at this
point in time, when you can continue to expand your focus and reach to attract and inspire users
residing outside of the echo chamber.
Nothing beats a killer product idea and an impressive, objective, and focused team to carry it
forward. Expectations count and will determine how you channel information and progress. Think
too big and you’ll miss your target and burn through resources before you can ever earn any
significant market traction. Aim too low and the market will pass you by.
In this volatile economic climate, the echo chamber can be your direct connection to success, or
at the very least, help to kickstart market adoption of your products. It is a global incubator
designed to help you grow, gain momentum, and ultimately propel your business across the bell
curve to appeal to and attract a wider, active base of customers.
We live in interesting times and it’s up to us, and only us, to define our future.
While the number of blogs on or based in the South Caucasus is often put in the tens of
thousands, the actual number of bloggers is significantly lower. Moreover, the vast majority
based on the ground are usually situated in the capital cities of the three republics making up
the region. Low Internet penetration standing at just 5.8 percent in Armenia, 12.7 percent in
Azerbaijan, and 7.8 percent in Georgia as of
2007 makes the situation doubly worse.
It's not surprising, therefore, that most bloggers are part of a small and somewhat exclusive
group of foreigners and locals working in the media or civil society and international
organizations. Most are Yerevan-based and information from outside the capital is lacking as a
result. However, in recent years the U.S.
Peace Corps has allowed its volunteers to set up blogs to update friends and family back
home.
In Armenia, PCV blogs now offer a rare insight into life in the regions of the country. Mark
in Armenia, for example, talks about the problem
of giardia, “a nasty parasite that reproduces in our small intestine.”
[…] I have had a couple horrific days of stomach problem, but I haven’t been lucky
enough to get giardia so far. One of my friends, a fellow A-16 (since we are the 16thgroup of
volunteers to come to Armenia (‘A’), starting in 1992 till now, 16 years
of volunteers helping Armenia), had giardia and he look deathly ill after having it for 2 days.
His face was stark white and he looked like he was now only made up of 60% water, before he was a
fairly big guy from Wisconsin. I think he is better now, but I’ve been told everyone gets
giardia during their tour in Armenia.
Moore From The Sourceintroduces its
readers to “nightlife” in the country's second largest city of Gyumri.
[…] nightlife is not really something that I get on a regular basis. Really, unless
I’m in Yerevan, there isn’t much of what we would call in the states a
“nightlife”. But, that’s not to say that there aren’t exciting things
that happen at night. So, I’ve decided to sketch out a few nocturnal events that have
happened recently.
1. Wolves! In a daring effort to reclaim the land for nature’s original tenants, a pack of
wolves deftly sneaked into the city of Gyumri under the cover of night’s darkness. The
citizens of the city awoke to the terrified sounds of cattle being slaughtered and devoured by
the hundreds. When morning dawned, a total of 300 head of cattle had had the likes of life
removed from their bones, courtesy of countless encounters with the vengeful jaws of relentless
wolves, who incidentally turned out to be fairly efficient at what they do. […] So
that’s exciting.
The blogs also unintentionally introduces oversight and transparency into regional development
projects as well as highlight some of the needs. A recent PCV who left Armenia this summer
wrote about his project in
Noyemberian late last year.
I haven’t mentioned much about the school and our handicap accessibility projects lately,
as our work from the ramps is pretty much done. The biggest step, which the school director and I
started discussing over a year ago, is renovating their bathroom and sewer system to make them
accessible (and usable, really). Right now, students and teachers have to go to the bathroom
outside, which is horrible in the winter and completely unsanitary, as there’s no place to
wash up afterwards. And considering the whole facility is on a muddy slope, it redefines the word
“inaccessible”.
It’s starting to get cold here and there is snow on the surrounding mountain tops. It
won’t be long until it’s on the ground here. Everyone in the village keeps telling me
how long and cold the winters are, when I tell them there’s snow where I live in the United
States they seem to think I’ll survive here. The difference is the lack of central heating
and heat in the buses and cars. The wind chill is also a factor here. On the bright side they
make great quilts here that are filled with wool, not processed but actual clumps of
sheep’s hair. They are really warm and even though the bedroom is cold sometimes, the
blanket really keeps you warm. If nothing else I’ll just wrap myself in one of these all
winter.
With the country essentially on lock-down, Peace Corps has put us on high alert and is requiring
us to stay at our sites until further notice. Outside of Yerevan (and Noyemberyan is no
exception), things are functioning as normal, and we have not had any problems with civil unrest
here or in our region at all. Schools and businesses are open, and we are going forward with
life, albeit with a black cloud looming over the country. [...]
[...] We will see in the next couple weeks, but until then life will remain tense and
uncomfortable. It can only get a lot better, or a lot worse, from here. Hopefully this State of
Emergency will do the former and at least keep people off the streets. It has, of course,
disrupted some things in my life (for instance, my friend was supposed to come teach a class here
this week, and my skiing trip was canceled) but I am safe and not worried about the situation
getting worse here in Noyemberyan.
Interestingly, the blogger was later instructed by the Peace Corps to password protect the entry so
that only those who requested access could read it. However, the password was revealed a
few days later.
[…] Due to the delicate political situation in the country, and Peace Corps’ role as
a non-politically affiliated organization, I was asked to password protect my last post about the
situation in Yerevan, and any future posts about politics in the country. The password is, and
always will be, my last name. […]
But, as a sign that blogs are now being taken seriously by the Peace Corp itself, posts from many
of these blogs are handily available from one source — A PCV Wiki at http://www.peacecorpswiki.org/journal/. There is
also a list of past and present PCV blogs from Armenia at http://www.peacecorpsjournals.com/am.html.
 I have to admit that I’ve been a bit overwhelmed by today.  I’ve
sorta glazed over as I’ve gone through blog post after blog post talking about how grim and
dire things are for us. I realize that the week has been legendary in terms of the stock markets
plunging, but the response from many startups and bloggers has been far more than emotional than
logical.
I guess that on Wednesday when I spoke of the optimism
I have gained from my prior experience, I imagined that everyone would be infected by my
visions of sugarplums, unicorns and rainbows. Instead, today has been filled with proclamations
of the death of Web 2.0, layoffs, and depressing photo essays. Obviously, I realize
that it may take a bit more than one single screed to turn the tide of emotion that seems to be
sweeping over most of us, and I don’t intend to relent.
Our own resident cranky geek Steven Hodson was the
first to chime in, and with many of the same sentiments I had:
The trick here is know that as human beings we have the incredible capacity to pick ourselves up,
dust ourselves off and try again. We are an incredibly resilient people which we have proven over
and over again. We did it in the 1980’s and again in the late 90’s. While we may not
seem to learn lessons from those experience it doesn’t stop us from getting up each morning
and trying once more.
This is the type of time that separates the wheat from the chaff. Those who can not survive may
be able to sell off their assets in order to start something new. As Steven said, “are we
going to feel pain?” Absolutely, but there is a lot to learn from pain. You learn not to do
the same things. Personally, I think we will see some interesting ideas start to appear, and they
will be created cheaply. Innovations in technology will continue to appear, but consumer prices
will drop in order to stay competitive and affordable.
At the end of the day, a society’s economic standard of living is based on the ability of
its people to do more with less resources. Less time, less money, more output. The United States
(and, increasingly, the world) is filled with brilliant, creative, and entrepreneurial people.
This financial downturn may take a serious toll, but the tools that we have to deal with it are
the best they have ever been.
The three of them hit on a few salient points that bear enumeration. Â As Steven and
Rob say, many of us have been here before, and one of the key factors that separates the wheat
from the chaff (in tough times particularly) is perseverance. Â And as Lee said, in a
time where less capitalisation may be available, those that do more with less will come out ahead
on the other side (and as he and I agree, it’s never been easier to do more with less).
Necessity is the mother of invention, though, and the need to streamline budgets during a lean
time will spell increased demand for certain types of businesses. Â A few immediately
spring to, though I’m sure there are many others.
Co-Working Spaces: Very recently, we featured an Austin area co-working space
that made a significant impression on me. Beyond the fact that I think it’s a great idea in
general for companies looking to save on costs and be in a position to grow their business
through networking opportunities. This is a type of business that’s growing quickly right
now, as several have popped up in other areas of the country as well. San Francisco has enough so
that it’s difficult to spit without hitting one. Â CenterNetworks has showcased
a number of coworking
spaces recently, including New Work City and IndyHall.
One of the things that really struck me about Conjunctured out in Austin was that it was a
completely bootstrapped effort that seems to be paying off already. John Erik Metcalf gave the blueprints to how they made this
happen at an interview he gave us at the SummerMash Austin event.
Bootstrapping and Growth Based Businesses:Â Bootstrapping a business (or as we
used to call it years ago, making your business “growth based”) is one sure-fire way
to build a sustainable business under these circumstances. Of course, if they nay-sayers are all
right, we’ll all have no credit to speak of and it could be our only option for new
businesses for a while, but if a business is able to make due on their own they can come out the
other side much stronger.
Even before the catastrophic times of the last week or two the more folks I talked to
both at events and via contacts made for story pitches at Mashable, it seemed I was hearing more
about folks shunning the angel funding and venture capital route for the bootstrapped
method.
It requires a more sharp business mind at the outset of the business than your typical VC-backed
startup. There are a lot more pitfalls in a growth-based business, too, since you’re
operating without a net most of the time. Â Whereas in the instance of a venture backed
firm, if you’ve made a gross miscalculation, I’ve heard many stories of where the
business plan they started with has been modified beyond recognition to continue through the many
rounds of financing. With a bootstrapped business, you’re still required to be nimble and
responsive to market changes, but you’ve got less chance to get it wrong before
you’re out of business.
In the end, the rewards are greater since you haven’t halved your business a few dozen
times with the many investors, and if at the end of the day you have something successful,
you’ve got greater freedom and share of the spoils.
Collaborative Tools: This is an area that has a lot of potential for growth, at
the very least for existing players. Much of what is possible in this space has already been
done, but for what’s there already could see a lot of growth as companies try to put the
clamp down on unneccessary spending for travel. Â Meeting tools like GoToMeeting and
Webex immediately spring to mind, but Web 2.0 tools like Google Docs and Zoho which allow
simultaneous editing of documents can also see more heavy usage and user growth.
Virtual conferences and online seminars are also going to see an uptick. Next to
personel costs, travel budgets to conferences (particularly winter conferences like CES) are
insanely expensive. The ability to network, meet vendors and learn from presenters with live
video and advanced communications tools like Twitter, IM and inline chats all have the capability
to replace (or create a suitable fascimile thereof) of the conference experience.
Idea Marketplaces: There are a growing number of idea marketplaces on the web
these days. I’ve actually looked at several under embargo in the last week or so, and
they’re all getting more and more specialized for individual niches. In the past, companies
have been bought and sold via places like SitePoint, eBay and even Craigslist, but what’s
to come will be more specialized marketplaces so that weekend projects and bootstrapped efforts
can be turned over to portfolio companies and larger organizations that want to rapidly add to
their available services.
Workforce Marketplaces: This is going to be perhaps one of the more dicey and interesting sectors
to watch as it develops under the coming economic shifts. Sites like Rent-A-Coder and
GetAProgrammer are all international marketplaces where finding someone to do the grunt work on a
project all generally go the the lowest bidder. It’s difficult for most citizens of first
world nations to compete with the much lower costs of living overseas where the talent often
matches American talent in most areas.
This is both good and bad. Â A lot of work can be accomplished for very little cash,
which is good for the cash-strapped business. Working with overseas contractors comes with its
own set of issues, though, and this often precludes
)
and reject those that you are not interested in
(
)
Annoncé en contacts
avancés avec Manchester City, Thierry Henry, l’attaquant international français
du FC Barcelone, a tenu à démentir l’éventualité d’un
départ chez les Citizens.
Just two
days ago, when 
Category: Education
