This morning I woke to a cloud-based service I use for business being down. It was a rush for me to check them on social media, get the fix, and get up and running. And then I got mad. I won’t say who the company is. They’re holding up admirably under an unbearable strain and [...]
Watching the latest revision of Robin Hood, one is invited to disgust with the way Americans keep consuming stories that alleviate the responsibility to innovate, to create, to contribute – to be extraordinary. Latent in it one finds work without significance, for the vast majority of people – just contented drudgery relieved by dancing, screwing, [...]
I’m not going to say that I’m in favor of not giving kids any money, or shelling out a measely allowance, but I think fewer kids than ever are learning to work for money at an early age – that too many kids are getting 100% of their needs met by asking parents for cash. [...]
I had a garage sale recently, designed to reduce possessions to only those things we need and are using. It was wildly effective, and what I didn’t sell, I donated. The result is an empty garage and a home that finally echoes again, and feels big. When I sell things, I interact a lot – [...]
I really like it when someone correctly identifies the nexus between work and schooling. We spend all this effort talking about how the world of work has become unacceptable, as we’ve conceived it, but very little on the fact that traditional schooling is the mechanism for creating precisely this world of work, and for conditioning [...]
Classic avoidance behaviors are those things we’re doing when we say, “I really need to study”, or “I should be focusing on my writing”, or “One of these days I’ll get around to my marketing.” Students find reasons to do almost anything – the list is endless – which tells me that either school is [...]
First, let me say that the desire to make a living for oneself on the internet is a noble goal. The internet represents independence, freedom of information, free expression. That’s why there’s such a concerted effort to install cut off switches, blacklists, and bans in the US and China, because otherwise it’s the realm of [...]
Holy Rollers showed twice at the Tulsa United Film Festival 2011. We’ll talk about it here, because it’s a film, fundamentally, about work. ‘Rollers is about a large network of fundamentalist evangelicals that are professional black jack card counters. They have investors, managers, and players, and they take casinos for a lot of money. Now [...]
Sooner or later, if you’re in business, you’ll have to turn someone away. Business owners have lots of ways of doing it – some explicit, some less direct. They might set a price too high or stop going out of their way (if that’s what the client has grown used to). Other companies will just [...]
Facebook is the new AOL. The main differences are: 1. Facebook is ostensibly free (although 1-5% of users might buy something at some point – perhaps a game token of which facebook gets a cut, or maybe something from an ad on facebook, and facebook of course gets ad revenue. 2. Facebook has seamless integration [...]
In near the future, cloud fees will begin figuring into your monthly budget. You’ll pay for your accounting, invoicing, CRM, marketing more than anything, and a host of online services you need to operate a business, but also potentially to operate a household – because a household *is* a business, and increasingly we’re seeing a [...]
One of the most common things I hear about the decline of paper, CDs, DVDs, and other tangible media, and the corresponding rise of internet marketing, the death of big box stores and the transformation of cable TV into just a pipeline, and the corresponding rise of amazon.com and Netflix, is that “it’ll never go [...]
I once knew a guy who worked out of his enormous garage as a computer hobbyist. He didn’t make a lot of money at providing some technical expertise to other hobbyists, but he just loved computers, and it was like a warehouse in there, with every kind of part imaginable. He built a lot of [...]
WSJ reports decrease in fruit and vegetable consumption correlated to unemployment. Come on, we’re always hearing how the ‘poor’ in the US can’t afford fruits and vegetables, because crappy meat and junk food is cheaper. The hell it is. It’s cheaper by the pound for garbage meat, but not cheaper per food value delivered. And [...]
The author of Scroogenomics was on NPR today, and said that the financial value of gifts we give one another is 20% (on the average) less than what is paid for them, resulting in some $62 billion dollars in waste each year. That’s the cost from the things we give one another to wear or [...]
As another Black Friday arrives, it might be useful to observe a trend that’s going to shape some future Black Fridays. The glory of ownership is over. That’s right, I said it. You might think that’s overblown, but just look around you. The cornerstone of the culture of ownership – the house – is failing [...]
Back in the mid 1990s, it was quite common to hear people say “I just have no need for e-mail” and “I believe in doing everything face to face.” The verbal emphasis on the “e” in “e-mail” was one of rolling the eyes or sometimes derision. A bit later, it was common to hear the [...]
Ever since some of my friends got smart phones, I never hear from them anymore. I don’t even get responses, often as not. So I got my first smartphone, a nice Android model (next one damned well better have a real keyboard), uploaded the fat finger touch keypad, and I’m sort of on my way. [...]
When I went to my first job interview to be a teaching intern, I was asked the standard question. “Do you love children”. My response was this: Image by Getty Images via @daylife I know that’s a standard question that the interviewee is supposed to gush over with not only yes, but yes, yes, yes, [...]
In my youth, I spent some time in and around a kind of fundamentalism that placed a special emphasis on the concept of “authority”. I never have been really good at caring about what people use that word to mean. For one thing, when I say “authority”, I’m referring to something corresponding to reality. If [...]
Daniel writes prolifically about subjects ranging from work to social justice, does literary writing, and is Marketing Director of Free Agent Source. Daniel founded JobHacker (formerly the Rules of Work) blog when the bottom fell out of the mortgage market, and the US economy started its death rattle.
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