I have big plans. Big Plans, I say!

3 big things in the works this week.


1. An article on privacy - headed to a top journal in my field.  This article has been troubling me for years because I could never find the right hook for it to be really good.  I think I found it.  The first draft was completed this week.  Once I get some preliminary feedback, I'll professionally edit and push the article out.
2. A completely revamped and amp'ed up web dev class is now under way.  I recorded my first two lectures yesterday.
and last, but most exciting...
3. My new business venture has kicked into high gear.  I have a writer, a domain name, a website under development, and the enthusiasm to get this done.  Currently scheduled to go live August 1st.

Stay tuned for more updates.

Google Translate for Blogger

A new feature on Blogger, Google Translate your blog into any language.  Cool feature.  But for me, this is too little, too late.  After learning all the capabilities that WordPress can offer, I will be switching platforms this summer - or at the very least creating a new WordPress site and primarily posting there.  More news will be forthcoming.

5 year goals update

Time to revisit my 5 year goals.  Lately, there have been two major interconnecting questions consuming my plans for the future - 1) How should I focus my career? and 2) How to establish my financial security?

As I have mentioned several times before, I have been contemplating how to focus my career for the past year.  I have now come to a clear direction - developing myself into web technology guru helping others make good decisions with web technologies.  I'm not interested in being a specialist, like Facebook app guy or a eBay store expert.  Instead, I want to be knowledgeable enough across the e-commerce domain to be an effective consultant, researcher, and educator in utilizing web technologies strategically to improve business processes.  This is significantly different than my research agenda just 2 years ago, which included significant research in ethics.  While I'm still interested in ethics and will still does some research in that area, the switch to e-commerce aligns my research with my teaching and with my financial goals.

In the financial realm, I want to develop a system for wealth generation that is more recession proof and less dependent on stock fluctuations.  I am still worried about the economic condition of our country and where we might be 20-30 years from now.  There is also a large unknown as to how the university system might change in the coming years.  To address those concerns, I need to develop a system for wealth generation that can both build wealth rapidly and withstand economic upheaval, should it occur.

SMART 5 year goals:

1. Research and publish at least 10 articles in e-commerce. 2 were done this year, so only 8 more to go.
2. Get promoted to Associate Professor.  The research above will help with the above goal.  It will also help establish myself as an expert for my later initiatives, listed below.
3. Establish and promote several web based businesses generating at least $20k a year passive income.
4. Develop and market high quality training modules in e-commerce for my classes and to publish on YouTube.  I start my first round of recordings this summer.
5. Establish and promote a consulting/education business using the above training modules for marketing and earning at least $36k a year.
6. Establish a real estate investment business to invest earnings from other businesses.
7. Double household income - from the above initiatives and my wife returning to work.
8. Support and encourage my family with their goals.

The trick will be to devote enough time in my evenings and weekends to get the web businesses up and running.  To get there, I plan on using what I learn from 100grandbrand.com, internetbusinessmastery.com, smartpassiveincome.com, and whatever other resources I discover along the way.  In the process, I'll be developing knowledge to help with my classroom instruction and research.  The training modules are part of my e-commerce class I teach at ECU, so the time spent on those classes are part of my normal job responsibilities.  If they are successful, I might push myself to develop more modules above and beyond what's necessary for class.  Those modules could then be encapsulated into package deals to sell for aspiring small business owners and/or web developers.  In the real estate investments, I currently own a house in Michigan that I'm renting.  I also have experience with owning a duplex.  I plan to capitalize on that knowledge and expand my investments.  If I spend time setting things up right and only investing in high ROI items, I should be able to make descent returns with minimal effort.

And then there are my nice to get to goals, but not high priorities:

1. Write a book on productivity and goals
2. Write a autobiography on one of my major life decisions (Not saying what it is yet :)
3. Write a textbook or two
4. Publish an article in a top journal in my field

I have an endless supply of ideas and not nearly enough time to do them.  It's a great feeling.

How Does Google Search Work?

Google returns searches in a half a second.  How do they do it?



What can a web developer do about it?

First - Before you write a page, think about what search terms people might type to get to your page.  Make sure that those terms appear in your title, keywords, text, alt image property, etc.

Second - Don't include every search term under the sun because the major search engines look on this negatively.

Third - Promote your web page in hopes others will link to it.

Google Groups versus Facebook Groups

The other night, I got into an interesting conversation at my kid's school about creating an online group for the parents.  One of the parents recommended we use Facebook groups for the parents group.  At first I was hesitant as I thought Google groups might be a more inclusive platform, but I admittedly didn't know enough about either to make a strong recommendation.  I am currently a member of several online groups through both Google groups and Facebook groups.  In neither case, have I administered a group.  I decided it was time to get educated.

Here's a quick break down comparing the two.

	Google groups	Facebook groups
Create	2 steps	1 step
Post with email address	Yes	Yes
Threaded discussions	Yes	Yes
Membership qualifications	Must have email address or Google account	Must be Facebook member
Privacy	Public, restricted, secret	Public, closed, secret
Archive	Posted at groups.google.com	Posted on facebook group wall
Notifications	Email	Email and Facebook
Chatting	No	Yes
Photo sharing	No	Yes
Doc sharing	No	Yes
Schedule events	No	Yes

The biggest negative for Facebook groups is that you must be a Facebook member in order to participate.  While most people today are on Facebook, especially among the younger generation, it is not as ubiquitous as email accounts.  If inclusiveness is important, Google groups is the clear winner.  That being said, it is easy to set up a Facebook account.  Doing so does not require you to "Friend" anyone or post outside of the group.

Where Facebook shines is in the features integrated into the platform.  You can use their chatting system to chat with other users online, share photo and document easily, and even use their events scheduler.  All of these can notify members within Facebook or by email.  That makes it extremely useful and nearly as accessible as Google groups.  It may also address some of the concerns of the older generation that is a bit nervous about signing up for Facebook.

What would I recommend to the parents group?  The one major concern - inclusiveness - makes Google groups a strong contender.  If they went with Facebook groups, a number of parents not on Facebook might feel alienated from the community and excluded from the goings on at the school.  However, with a education and training, many of those parents might learn the value of Facebook groups and be willing to overcome their initial hesitation to join.  The capabilities of Facebook certainly are useful.  If I were to recommend one platform, I would suggest using Facebook, but as offer education and training for those parents not already on Facebook.  However, I would certainly seek feedback from the group to make sure their concerns are addressed.

Designing web content for any device

After reading how you can build rich mobile apps with HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript, and then reading about how to create devise agnostic design patterns for web sites on multiple screen sizes, it got me to wondering if there could be some general patterns to these designs that would work for both traditional web sites AND for a corresponding mobile apps.  Essentially, a single design pattern that works across ALL web enabled devices of different sizes, different ratios, different OS, and different browsers, including apps, from now into the near future.  Now that would be powerful, IF it can be accomplished.  Which it probably already has.  I just don't know about it yet. 

This realization lead me to the conclusion that I have a lot to learn about the latest in web development technology.  Perhaps one of my summer projects will be digging deeply into advanced techniques for web and mobile app development.  I have several projects in mind, so it may be useful to combine my projects with my knowledge development. 

A priortized list of knowledge to discover:

• Advanced PHP
• CMS - WordPress, Joomla, and/or Drupal
• HTML5
• Mobile app development

If I can get through all of these topics (which is no guarentee), I will look into designing content for any device.  Maybe there is a research project in there???

Two great podcasts

Over the past month, I have started to listen to two great podcasts - Internet Business Mastery and Smart Passive Income.  Both deal with building website businesses, with slightly different foci, but with great content.  What I love about these two podcasts is their integrated discussions of web technologies and business.  That's right up my alley.  In fact, I see a confluence in my teaching, research, and financial goals.  Awesome.  My brain is swimming with ideas.  All I need now is to execute.

Next actions:

1. Complete business plan
2. Review business plan with Master mind group
3. Complete training concept map
4. Review concept map with other professionals
5. Research search keywords and domain names that match my business idea
6. Buy domain name and hosting service
7. Buy high quality microphone
8. Build site
9. Record killer training videos
10. Post videos
11. Market like crazy
12. Build more killer content
13. Repeat 9-12

Follow me on Twitter

For my blog readers,

You can follow me on Twitter @tryreason.  I regularly tweet about web development, with occasional tweets on productivity, economics, philosophy, science, and other cool stuff. 

I call this research.  No seriously!  I'm starting a research project on using social media in business.  In order to fully understand the platforms, I have to actively engage in them.  Don't worry, I'm not collecting any data from this profile ;)

Publishing to multiple blogs

I'm looking for some ideas.

In my web development class, I want our students to create their own blog in order to write weekly posts about class topics and in order for manipulation in later assignments.  But I would also like those same posts to appear on a separate class blog.  The class blog will consolidate all of the individual posts into a centralized location, besides providing additional resources for our students.  So I'm trying to discover the best set of technologies for easily setting up this framework. 

Requirements:

• The class blog already exists as a WordPress custom install. No decision has been made on the student blog platform, but I'm leaning towards Blogger for easy integration with Google AdSense.
• The final solution has to be a free and web based.
• It has to be easy to set up and use for my students as most of them are not familiar with web publishing yet.
• It requires minimal effort on my part.

Ideas I have looked into:

• WordPress allows remote publishing with either ATOM or XML-RPC.  So the capability should be there for some sort automated solution.
• Ping.fm does allow publishing to multiple blogs.  The down side is that it does not contain a WYSIWYG editor and may require more set up skills than the students have at this point.
• I'm still researching if FeedBurner can accomplish what I want.  It may require installation of a widget feed reader on the class blog.  Not ideal because of the time it would require of me to setup and maintain.
• Microsoft Word has attempted to integrate Blog writing into the software, but I've had difficulties getting it to work with Blogger.  I haven't tried it with WordPress.  And since Word is not web based, I would prefer to stay away from it.
• I could just require students to copy and paste posts in two places. Bad for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the time involved on their part.

Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions?

Creating an environment for classroom success, Part 2

As I stated in my last post, the goal of my web application development class is: To develop sufficient knowledge of web programming and e-commerce concepts to successfully start a career as a web developer.
How can help facilitate success in their careers?  There is the obvious knowledge component, which is a major part of my class.  However, habits and virtues can make or break the long term success of my students.  In this, Rand's ethics provides the perfect basis for developing the habits and virtues necessary.

To be successful, students need to be rational, productive, and proud.  Students must actively try to understand and integrate concepts in a meaningful manner so that they can utilize those ideas later in their career.  Rationality demands a respect for facts and a strict adherence to logic.  Abstract integrative reasoning is necessary to apply knowledge to new situations.  Students must also develop the habit of productiveness, consistently developing their knowledge in order to create web solutions to business problems.   Productiveness is not just about hard work, although hard work can often help.  Productiveness demands a focused effort to produce something of value.  Lastly, students should produce work they are proud of.  The results of their efforts should be something they want to show off - something they are excited they brought into existence - something that shows the best within them. 

Below are some of the things I'm considering in my class to facilitate the adoption of these virtues.  I'm always open to new ideas if you have them.

How can I encourage rationality?
1. Eliminate evaluations that depend on rote learning
2. Encourage abstract integrative reasoning with writing assignments
3. Require application of knowledge to real world situations

How can I encourage productivity?
1. Reward output, not time spent
2. Push them to create increasingly higher valued web solutions
3. Motivate them by keeping reality based and addressing real world problems

How can I encourage pride?
1. Give them a chance to fix their mistakes
2. Reward going above and beyond requirements
3. Do not provide a means for hiding in anonymity

While I could also identify Rand's other virtues of Independence, Justice, Integrity, and Honesty, those are often taken for granted in most classroom environments (I know... not all.  But most).  Those virtues are vitally important to success as well, but not interesting enough for me to write about today.

Creating an environment for classroom success

In my web applications development class, I have created a goal for my students: to develop sufficient knowledge of web programming and e-commerce concepts to successfully start a career as a web developer.

To achieve expert ability, evidence from many fields suggests that we need at least 10,000 hours of sustained focused practice.  Note the wording is sustained focused practice, not just experience or repetition of a skill.  Instead, it's conscious practicing toward improvement.  Although there are no agreed upon numbers for other levels, I suggest that 100 and 1,000 hours also offer plateaus in ability attainment.  At the 1,000 hours of practice, individuals establish their skills in a specialization to be fully productive in most occupations.  At the 100 hours of practice, individuals establish skills sufficient for entry level work.  By 100 hours, most employees have established the basic vocabulary and conceptual understanding to function within a domain for continued growth.  Without that basis, a new employee would be essentially worthless.  Some businesses require a new employee to have at least a little experience in this field.  Other employers might send new employees to 2-3 week training workshops (which takes approximately 100 hours).  My goal is to accomplish that within my class - 100 hours of deliberate practice.

In my class, we meet for 3 hours every week for 15 weeks for a total of 45 hours.  That means I need at least 55 more hours in out-of-class activities to reach the 100 hour mark.  The classroom activities and homework should integrate to form a complete package driving the development of conceptual understanding and programming skills for web application development.

To make this happen, I plan in class to lecture on e-commerce and web programming skills for 1 1/2 hours per week, provide exercises and lab work for 1 hour per week, and review and discuss class topics an additional 1/2 hour per week.  On their own time, students will every week read a chapter in the book for 1 hour, write two blog posts on class concepts in 1-2 hours, and complete web development assignments in roughly 1-3 hours. 

To help supplement their education, I will record all of my lectures and make them available online for later referral.  I will create short video clips on specific topics that might cause problems or that only a small set of students would be interested in learning.  Furthermore, there are numerous free web resources that will be provided to the students.  I will also maintain a Twitter feed that I will update with interesting links and commentary about current web development and e-commerce issues.

I have a number of other ideas on how to make this experience awesome, but I'm keeping a few of them under wraps for now.  It should be a good semester though and I'm looking forward to it.