I have yet to see Waiting for Superman, but since it covers such a hot topic, education in America, I already have made assumptions about its message, and its vehicle. It is one of those topics in which everyone believes they are an expert in, simply because they went through the school system. It is deeply personal to us all.
I am resisting stating my opinions on education in the U.S. because, really, they are unfounded. I will say this, one thing I can say with a degree of confidence, cultures or communities or units that value education differ greatly from those that do not.
That aside, I had decided not to see the movie because of one question:
Does the movie perpetuate this idea that there are gatekeepers in life, that we need someone else’s permission, that success is not in our own hands?
I recently changed my mind about seeing the movie because everyone is now part of the conversation. Plus, having educators in my family compels me to want to better understand and appreciate their world.
My assumption is that the most interesting conversations are probably happening offline, but here is that is taking place online:
I do not know how I missed this one, but GrubWith.us is a social dining website that lets you join a table of strangers at a highlighted restaurant. So, basically, you go to GrubWith.us, see a list of upcoming dinners at different restaurants, you can then buy a seat at any one that has a spot open, along with twelve other strangers. It is a really fun and clever way to meet new people.
Marc Hedlund, founder of personal financial site Wesabe, has a candid and interesting read on Why Wasabe Lost to Mint. There were many rumors running around as to why it failed over Mint which he wanted to address.
The best conversation on the topic is happening over at Hacker News, but I thought I would throw in my personal opinion as I was a early user of Wesabe and was sad when they shut down.
When Wesabe launched it was perfect timing for me as I couldn’t stand the available personal finance software such as Quicken. I signed up and started using the service right away. I recommended it to everyone I knew. The mental hurdle of providing one’s personal financial data online was an issue, but I was able to convince some people.
Then Mint launched. Others started to tell me about it and that I should sign up. In return, I would show them Wesabe as a better option, but there was something about it they did not get. Plus they felt it looked amateurish and untrustworthy.
It has been awhile, but from what I remember about Wesabe, it was less focused on a replacing existing software, software people understood, and more focused on new ideas. Ideas I think people were not ready for.
The great thing about living in a bubble is that everything works in your favor. You are living under your own rules so why wouldn’t it? Not only that, but it is comforting, you can focus on what you find interesting and ignore the rest of the world. This is great for building software, making music, writing, etc. Your level of output can explode.
There’s just one thing…
You can easily forget how the real world works. There are new sets of rules people are adapting to everyday and you can easily fall behind.
I am not saying that you should fall in line, but is it really a bad idea to pop your head up every once in awhile to see which rules you want to ignore?
I am partial to startups focused on food and I am loving the new services that are popping up around it. I would like to see more people working on startups around food, specifically around the idea of sharing or the making of food.
Here are a few that have gotten my attention recently.
CookItFor.us which launched at midVenturesLAUNCH on Tuesday here in Chicago. CookItFor.us matches people with recipes they want made with others who will make it for them. It’s one of those ideas that was hard to grasp at first, but I think it has huge potential if they focus and find a group of people who love trying new foods.
Forkly is in stealth, but the name and logo leads me to believe it is food related. That’s all I got on them
FoodSpotting.com – People sharing their plates of food, mostly from restaurants. Great way to see what restaurants actually make so you know if it is at least visually interesting.
Foodzie is a marketplace for artisan food makers. It is kind of like Etsy for foodies… You will want to buy most everything on here.
TasteSpotting.com is community driven recipe book. Effectively they collect recipes from around the web and display them in a beautiful recipe card format.
I never bought a blue-ray or hd dvd player, DVD quality is fine. I never bought a tivo, TV sucks, why record or even pause it. I don’t have a Roku box, I have a computer connected to my TV… So of course I never bought a Kindle even though it makes perfect sense to me now.
I read a lot, I like having a book with me at most times, I’m always looking for new books to read, I like to take notes on what I read and I am usually reading a few books at once.
What took me so long.
The nuisances of this new technology was a roadblock to my appreciation of it. What if dirt gets inside it? Can I read it in the dark? How much are the books? Is it heavy? I like how books feel in my hand so no thank you. I like to flip through books to read at random points. Can I read PDFs on it? What about digital books from the Library? What if I lose it? Is it fragile?…
This is me fighting something that is truly revolutionary. The more confused I am about a new idea or technology, the more it challenges the status quo, the greater its chance of being disruptive.
The reverse can also be true. If something at first glance is perceived as brilliant or interesting, the likelihood of it being longstanding is usually quite low.
My grandfather always reminds me that relationships are what’s really important in life. That the people we choose to surround ourselves with will help bring happiness and interest to our lives.
Steven Johnson shows just how important interacting within our network is in developing new and interesting ideas.
Back when I first tried to buy my Android phone (MyTouch) there were two color choices, white and black. I went in wanting the black model, but just out of curiosity I asked if I could see the white model.
So, after verifying my account standing and eligibility for the savings, the T-Mobile sales rep said “No problem” and ran to the back room and came back with both a black model and a white model. He opened up the white one and let me check it out, but I was quickly put off, so I told him, “I’ll take the black one”.
“Um, I actually just scanned this one into the system so I don’t think I can make the change”. “Err… Let me see”…
From what I gather, there just was no option to make the change or even remove it as a line item.
“Ok, I’ll just pay for the phone, return it and then you can ring me up for the black one, I don’t mind waiting”.
So he tried that, I paid for and returned then phone.
“Hmm… It looks like I can’t actually ring you up for a new phone since your account is now marked as no longer eligible for the savings”.
We went back and forth for a bit trying to figure something out, he called T-Mobile offices and there was nothing they could do. But They did have a solution.
Go to another T-Mobile location and buy it there.
“Huh?”
Here I was, ready to hand over hundreds of dollars, sign a new 2-year contract, and was unable to because of a simple miscommunication. And the comedic solution was to go to another T-Mobile store about five blocks away.
So a known bug in their process forces customers to find another physical store location. Should not a transaction always occur, no matter what, if both parties are a good fit?
