Practice Makes Perfect (here's proof)

Every now and then a book comes along that changes the way your outlook on liffe. Sometimes you are fortunate enough to read two books in a row that reinforce the lessons of each other. I recently did that. First I read Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell which is a book about success. Gladwell conducts research on a wide variety of topics. Among the many subjects explored, he explains why Asians are so much better at math than everyone else and why Jewish attorneys are so successful. The next book I read was When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi by Pulitzer Prize winning author David Maraniss.

The central theme from Outliers was that there are outside factors that contribute to success, very rarely does someone make it to the top all on their own. Rather, throughout ones life they are constantly preparing for greatness while reaping outside benefits not readily available to others that they are competing with. Without trying to give too much away I will give one example that Gladwell uses: Bill Gates. We all know the generic Bill Gates story – nerd who dropped out of Harvard to start Microsoft. But history shows us that Gates’ entire life led to him dropping out of Harvard to start Microsoft rather than him doing it on a whim like we all thought. Long story short; Gates was born to a wealthy family in Seattle and had virtually unlimited access to one of the only computers on the western seaboard at the University of Washington while he was in high school. Gates spent virtually all of his free time on the computer learning, tweaking, and experimenting – nearly 10,000 hours (a number Gladwell says is the average amount of time someone has to practice something in order to be great). Ad that to Gates’ already above average IQ and private schooling and bam, 30 years later I am writing this blog on Microsoft office software. This is just one example that Gladwell gives, if you want to learn others I suggest you pick up a copy.

Enter Lombardi, after reading Outliers I was much keener to realizing everything in Lombardi’s life that led to his success. I am not going to go into the paths he took or the mentors he had along the way, you can just as easily Wikipedia that. I will say that you could not have scripted a more precise path to glory, it was like Lombardi read a book titled “how to be the best football coach in the world: the 40 year plan” when he was 15 years old and followed it verbatim.
If you take the lessons from these two books and apply them to your own life you will probably live it differently. It is only after you devote yourself to something and believe you can do it that it will start to happen. I know we here this again and again, but make sure you love whatever you are doing. If you don’t perceive it as work, it will come much easier to you. Lombardi loved being a teacher. Gates loved computers. Do you love what you do? Whatever you grand aspirations may be, (and we all have them) make sure that they include something you love to spend your time on. The journey is just as important as the destination.

I'm Never Going to Use This in Real Life

Why do colleges teach material from boring textbooks in a dull way? Why don’t schools teach classes about investing, innovation and sales? Why do colleges require you to take classes that have nothing to do with your major (zoology for business majors anyone)? Colleges need to take a look in the mirror and realize that they are slowly becoming a microcosm of what has gone on with the economy. If schools aren’t careful, they too will end up filing for bankruptcy (no classes on that outside of law school). Here are the five things colleges need to implement or change within the next 20 years:

1. Courses offered

2. Courses required

3. Textbooks (Professors lining their own pockets)

4. How to conduct classes

5. Swallow your pride

1. Have you looked at the New York Times Best Seller list lately? This one may be more geared towards high schools or even middle schools, but we need to start teaching kids about money, technology, sales, and innovation.

In2008 the average credit card debt per household was $10,679 (creditcards.com), the average credit card debt for the notorious 18-24 demographic was $2,200. “Oh not so bad for the kids” Eh, well that is addition to the average of $20,000 in student loans that they, excuse me, we have. And you wonder why the economy is in such bad shape. Schools need to start teaching kids how to buy assets and cut back on liabilities. The faster they do this, the faster we can lower the debt and America will once again be that “Shining city on a hill” that we all know it can be. Do you think a class on investing in assets and smart money management would be a better fit for a lowly undergrad than zoology?

Everyone is down on sales. My question is why? What people don’t realize is that everyone is a salesman to some degree. Doctors, carpenters, teachers, cashiers, no matter what your profession is, you still have to sell a good or service in order to make money. That’s it, cut and dry. Robert Kiyosaki, author of Rich Dad Poor Dad told a riveting story that went something like this.

One day I was giving a seminar and afterward, one of the participants came up to me and told me how she loved what I did and how she too was an author but had failed to ‘make it’ in the literary world and asked me for some advice, I suggested that she take some sales classes. She replied in an appalled manor “I am a highly educated author, there is no way I am going to lower myself to taking sales classes” that is when I took out a copy of my book and pointed to the cover, and there it was: New York Times #1 best SELLER. She stormed off huffing and puffing.

So there you have it, everyone should have at least some background in sales because like it or not, that is exactly what you are doing.

Innovation and Technology are a little harder to be taught than investing and sales, but that doesn’t mean they should go unnoticed. Velcro started when a Swiss mountaineer returned from a hike covered with prickly cockleburs. A little observation under the microscope yielded the reason – natures tiny hooks, perfect for grabbing a ride in the feathers or fur of passing creatures. I am not saying innovation should be pounded into the curriculum along with math and science, but students need to be aware of their surroundings and always be on their toes about what could possibly catch on as the next big idea. You never know.

2. According to USA Today, 64% of high school students go on to some form of higher education while only 29% end up with a degree. So what happened to the other 35%? While college is not meant for everyone, 35% is still a high number to drop out. If you took away some of the required prerequisite classes it not only would keep kids more interested, it would also reduce the time it takes to complete an undergraduate degree thus lowering the cost of higher education all together. This is really the heart of the “I am never going to use this in real life” title. My first two years in college were a lot like my first last two years of high school. If they are making us take the math and science classes again, what is the point of their admissions requirements to get into school in the first place? Do the high school classes that we took count for nothing? By cutting some of these prerequisite classes we will ultimately reduce the cost of college (two or three years is a lot cheaper than four or five), this will increase the overall talent pool enrolled as well as lower the dropout rate. When the talent pool goes up, so does the competition, and after that we will see the results in the job market as well as the economy (over time of course).

3. Ok, textbooks need to go, enough is enough already. There are two things that are terribly wrong with textbooks:

1. They are boring and often outdated.

2. Professors often write their own textbooks and they have astronomically high pricing.

Seldom does a semester go by where I don’t have a professor that spoon feeds me dull and irrelevant material from a boring and outdated textbook. Again, have you seen the New York Times Best Seller List lately? Has a textbook ever cracked the top one hundred? There is a reason people don’t buy textbooks outside of school. We live in an age of the Kindle and the iPhone, an age where talk of paper books becoming superseded altogether is a very real possibility. Yet every semester I find myself spending hundreds of dollars on the textbook monopoly that colleges all across America have built up over the years.

*Don’t forget that every college is a business, and like every good company, they are in business to make money.

This brings me to my next point, the whole textbook publishing fiasco going on. Talk about the ultimate business model. Before you read this, keep in mind what we talked about earlier how the average kid has $20,220 of debt at graduation.

If you want to become an author and guarantee yourself x amount of annual sales (how ever many students are enrolled in your class) write your own textbook. How hard can it be? If you look at any textbook it is not as much writing (some at the beginning and end of each chapter) as it is patching together different works by other authors in to one fluid textbook. Throw in some quiz questions and pictures, and BAM, you’ve got yourself one brand new textbook that you can price at whatever your heart desires and sell twice a year to every student you teach. Oh, and let’s not forget about the new editions that come out every year. I can see new editions for material that is time sensitive, but think about all the math books that have new editions coming out every year. Do you really think the author and the publisher would put out their first edition and that’s it? The real residual value of a textbook comes from putting on a shiny new cover and a new interactive CD that comes along with the next updated edition, that way students can’t save money by buying used textbooks and have to shell out the big bucks for the brand new editions. The professors are able to maximize their profits while minimizing their workload as the years go by, all at the expense of the student. Unacceptable.

4. Have you ever heard of the Prussian education system? It has Lutheran and Pietest influences and came to fruition in the late 1700’s. This teaching method worked great for its time period. In fact, the industrial revolution can credit a lot of its success to the Prussian education system. What would happen was all the workers would report to the factory and stand around for a little while until the whistle blew and signaled them to go to their assigned work station where they would sit and wait for instructions from their boss. The whistle would blow for lunch and again at the end of the day. Sound familiar? It should. If you take the above story and switch whistle to bell, worker to student, boss to teacher, and factory to school, you have your entire K-12 educational structure in a nutshell.

Last time I checked, it was 2009 and the 1700’s method of getting things done is no longer the most efficient way of educating people. If you don’t believe me, just ask the American auto industry, they seemed to cling on to the Prussian system longer than anyone. Oh wait, colleges are still holding strong. The time of having students listen and teachers preach is dead. People don’t learn by listening to others talking about something, they learn by doing it on their own and repeating the process. Just look at Google and other successful companies. The amount of freedom they grant to their employees fosters an environment for creativity that is unmatched. Schools need to adopt a model less formal and more nurturing. More two way communications and banter in the classrooms will challenge and motivate students more than teacher talks, students listen. Trust me, I have gone through both the old way and new way. Not only is the new way more fun, but you also retain a lot more of the material. Isn’t that the reason we are in college in the first place?

5. Change isn’t only necessary, it’s required. As with any organization, the reason schools have been so slow to change is because they are still making incredible amounts of money every time a new undergrad comes to campus in the fall (enrollment always increases). The people in charge have a “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality. Their only way of fixing things is new facilities. New facilities will attract more esteemed professors which will draw in a more talented pool of students. Coincidentally, it is the talented students who end up donating the most money back to the institutions that gave them their “education.” Then newer buildings are built and the cycle is repeated again and again. This sounds like a pretty fool proof plan and it has been for quite some time. But if colleges don’t change the way they do business, they will soon be out of it.

What if you could take business classes from Jack Welch, IT classes from Bill Gates, or writing classes from J.K. Rowling? Actually, let me rephrase that: Would you rather take classes from those three people and other renowned talent or would you continue to keep taking the classes that you have been from your current professors (If you have already graduated just hypothetically answer)? Well pretty soon you will be able to take courses like that from distinguished professionals from all walks of life. There have been talks of an online program like this that anyone throughout the world can take. This method would not only save thousands of students millions of dollars, it would also make for a more relevant study and better prepare kids to enter the real world. I could write 3 more pages on the benefits of learning from esteemed individuals like Jack Welch but I won’t, this blog has gone on long enough. What I will say is that aside from just learning the material taught by these Power Professors, kids will also inherit their traits and work ethic which to me is more valuable than the material will ever be.

That’s it for me; I’m late for class

Christopher Carlton

Detroit Innovation = Oxymoron

I just got back from a little road trip my dad and I took to St. Louis this weekend. While away at college here in Whitewater, I have no car, so I relished the opportunity to get back behind the wheel and shoulder most of the driving duties. When driving anywhere, you can’t help yourself from thinking about all the turmoil you hear coming out of Detroit these days. We have gotten to the point where “Big 3” news is not only anticipated, but expected.

Chris Anderson wrote a terrific article in this month’s Wired magazine, Detroit Reimagined. Like you, I have heard countless experts offer their synopsis of how Detroit lost its market share to the smarter, more efficient Japanese competition. Anderson sheds some light on what has become a long dark tunnel. Instead of focusing on how we are getting killed on labor costs and supply chain inferiority, Anderson talks about how Detroit has not been receptive to outside opinions on innovation and technology. Therefore, none of the most sought after young minds coming out of Americas most prestigious Universities are entertaining the idea of working for GM or Ford, they’re all going to Hewlett Packard and Dell.

We are all familiar with the stigma that Detroit automakers have earned this past decade, Anderson suggests outsourcing some of the R&D and then rewarding those with the most competitive designs. Think of it as an App store for Hybrid technology. What if all those creative minds had been working on a more efficient hybrid to compete with Toyota instead of tip calculators and games? Why aren’t they? I’ll tell you why, it’s because GM, Ford, and, Chrysler have insisted on maintaining their elephant like speed in adapting to the competition.

How to find new websites that interest you

So if your like me and you love finding new websites but don't know where to start, try StumbleUpon. It's like the Pandora of websites. During my first visit (which ended up being about an hour and a half) I played the piano, got inspired, and learned some really great recipes using ingredients that I have in my refrigerator right now.

This is one of many websites that are using the "Pandora algorithm" to filter out what you don't like and keep what you do like. It's a more precise way of the "if you bought this, then you will love this" like we see on Amazon all time. Bottlenotes is an example of a website that uses an algorithm to determine what kind of wine you like.

Another way you can find new websites is to join Twitter is you haven't already and follow people who interest you. This could be anyone from authors to celebrities and athletes. Most people in the public eye tend to post links to sites that interest them.

Hello everyone, this is my first ever blog. I will be focusing on hot topics, opinions, and cool stuff about business, sports, and technology.