26M Americans visited an online dating site during 12/02
"Personals Comprise the Largest Paid Content Category on the Internet: According to a [12/02] study...the Personals category grew 387 percent to become the largest online paid content category among consumers in the third quarter of 2002, surpassing Business Content." (source: comScore Media Metrix)
"'I have 43 employees, and we'll bring in $43 million this year. That's $1 million per employee,' [uDate president Martin] Clifford said. 'We have zero cost of sales within our business...The margins are almost super-margins.'" (source: MSNBC.com)
Google+Blogger is an ideal combination for serving this market.
Here's how I think Go_Ogle will happen:
Soon, Google will improve the searchability of "blogspace" by making it easy for bloggers to annotate their blogs with information about themselves and their blogger friends. This information will be encoded in an RDF dialect called FOAF (Friend of a Friend).
It will then dawn on people that the FOAF file is effectively a static online profile, while the associated blog is akin to a living profile (in the 'living document' sense).
With this, Googling people will come to encompass both researching people you have met -- already a common practice -- and researching people you would like to meet.
The upside potential of this, as introduced above, will prove too substantial for IPO-bound Google to ignore. (In addition, I believe leadership of the market for online matchmaking software is the gateway to early leadership of the market for lifelong learning and career services, which will be worth hundreds of trillions of dollars in the coming decades. Toward understanding the relationship between the two markets, consider: according to a recent American Demographics survey, couples in the U.S. meet primarily at work (36%) or school (27%). More on 'online dating software -> LLCS' here).
Google will then acquire the best makers of RDF query tools and launch Go_Ogle, the mother of all online dating sites.
85% of employers surveyed in July 2001 prefer "a job candidate with great reviews from his/her internship supervisor, but who had only mediocre grades, to a candidate with outstanding grades but no experience." (source: Information Week)
"Having an internship or co-op on your resume will earn an 8.9% larger starting salary over a new hire with no experience." (source: www.jobweb.com)
"College graduates with less than one year of [internship] experience will have approximately three times as many jobs to choose from than college graduates without experience. College graduates with more than one year of work experience will have fifteen times more opportunities." (source: CareerBuilder Job Market Report)
So it is reasonable to expect the emergence of for-profit internship providers.
(As it happens, not long ago my business plan for such a provider was circulated internally at
Microsoft. I subsequently received the following e-mail from Randy Hinrichs, Manager of Microsoft Research's Learning Sciences and Technology Group:
"Frank, you are a good man. Have you thought about joining this team? Your only alternative, of course, is venture capital. But their usual models require getting rid of the 'originator' within the first eighteen months. With Netscape it took a little longer, but you get the idea."
You can see an updated, open source-friendly version of the plan here.)
In the future, then, there will will be paying internships -- it's just that the interns will do the paying.
On the upside, the benefits of a really well-run, well-documented internship will outweigh the expense.
Enjoy,
Frank Ruscica
Founder
The Opportunity Services Group:: Have Fun to Get Ready
www.opportunityservices.com
No problem. Let me know if you have any follow-up questions. (I have spent a fair amount of time around Von Hippel's ideas, and related work.)
Beyond this, nice essay. As it happens, while I was the Director of Digital Services at a CLEC in 98-99, I presided over the introduction of the first (class 4) softswitch into Verizon's network. Worked fine. Tremendous savings.
In Von Hippel's parlance, 'Lead Users' drive innovation. Specific to process innovations (including innovations encoded in software), non-technical domain experts (i.e. Lead Users) originate effectively 100% of innovations.
Project Zero is an educational research group at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Among the Principal Investigators is Howard Gardner, who you may know for his theory of multiple intelligences. His 1999 book, The Disciplined Mind, makes recommendations for improving curriculum design that are wholly consistent with your inclinations toward creating compelling 'entry points' to math concepts, in keeping with each student's learning style.
His recommendations derive from the ongoing work at Project Zero.
Excerpted from Follow This Path, by The Gallup Organization:
"[Gallup's] hundreds of studies proved time after time that talent makes a huge impact on profitable growth across every major type of occupation and industry...Superior performers...follow their instincts and thereby identify and develop their specialties. [Given the current modi operandi of education and corporate training] almost always they do this on their own."
Other key research findings are:
Creativity is a better predictor of achievement than intelligence (source: Torrance)
Creativity takes shape at the intersection of creativity skills, domain knowledge and intrinsic motivation (source: Amabile)
So, while the article's research is anecdotal, the core thesis is 100% correct:
"People thrive by focusing on the question of who they really are -- and connecting that to work that they truly love (and, in so doing, unleashing a productive and creative power that they never imagined)."
Excerpted from Follow This Path, by The Gallup Organization:
"[Gallup's] hundreds of studies proved time after time that talent makes a huge impact on profitable growth across every major type of occupation and industry...Superior performers...follow their instincts and thereby identify and develop their specialties. [Given the current modi operandi of education and corporate training] almost always they do this on their own."
Excerpted from Follow This Path, by The Gallup Organization:
"[Gallup's] hundreds of studies proved time after time that talent makes a huge impact on profitable growth across every major type of occupation and industry...Superior performers...follow their instincts and thereby identify and develop their specialties. [Given the current modi operandi of education and corporate training] almost always they do this on their own."
"Dale and Krueger noticed something odd. In many cases, they found that applicants who were rejected by brand-name schools did as well in later life as those who were accepted."
Not so.
What Dale & Krueger noted is that people who were accepted by highly selective schools, but chose to attend less selective schools, later enjoyed the same level of professional success, on average, as their peers who did matriculate at the highly selective schools.
It may also be worth mentioning that D & K found this to the case only when the less selective school was only moderately less selective (so, for example, Harvard might be foregone in favor of, say, NYU, but not Remedial U.)
Slashdot Mirror
Google+Blogger is an ideal combination for serving this market.
Here's how I think Go_Ogle will happen:
Soon, Google will improve the searchability of "blogspace" by making it easy for bloggers to annotate their blogs with information about themselves and their blogger friends. This information will be encoded in an RDF dialect called FOAF (Friend of a Friend).
It will then dawn on people that the FOAF file is effectively a static online profile, while the associated blog is akin to a living profile (in the 'living document' sense).
With this, Googling people will come to encompass both researching people you have met -- already a common practice -- and researching people you would like to meet.
The upside potential of this, as introduced above, will prove too substantial for IPO-bound Google to ignore. (In addition, I believe leadership of the market for online matchmaking software is the gateway to early leadership of the market for lifelong learning and career services, which will be worth hundreds of trillions of dollars in the coming decades. Toward understanding the relationship between the two markets, consider: according to a recent American Demographics survey, couples in the U.S. meet primarily at work (36%) or school (27%). More on 'online dating software -> LLCS' here).
Google will then acquire the best makers of RDF query tools and launch Go_Ogle, the mother of all online dating sites.
- 85% of employers surveyed in July 2001 prefer "a job candidate with great reviews from his/her internship supervisor, but who had only mediocre grades, to a candidate with outstanding grades but no experience." (source: Information Week)
- "Having an internship or co-op on your resume will earn an 8.9% larger starting salary over a new hire with no experience." (source: www.jobweb.com)
- "College graduates with less than one year of [internship] experience will have approximately three times as many jobs to choose from than college graduates without experience. College graduates with more than one year of work experience will have fifteen times more opportunities." (source: CareerBuilder Job Market Report)
So it is reasonable to expect the emergence of for-profit internship providers.(As it happens, not long ago my business plan for such a provider was circulated internally at Microsoft. I subsequently received the following e-mail from Randy Hinrichs, Manager of Microsoft Research's Learning Sciences and Technology Group:
You can see an updated, open source-friendly version of the plan here.)In the future, then, there will will be paying internships -- it's just that the interns will do the paying.
On the upside, the benefits of a really well-run, well-documented internship will outweigh the expense.
Enjoy,
Frank Ruscica :: Have Fun to Get Ready
Founder
The Opportunity Services Group
www.opportunityservices.com
Beyond this, nice essay. As it happens, while I was the Director of Digital Services at a CLEC in 98-99, I presided over the introduction of the first (class 4) softswitch into Verizon's network. Worked fine. Tremendous savings.
Regards,
Frank
See Von Hippel's papers here.
Enjoy,
Frank Ruscica
Among the Principal Investigators is Howard Gardner, who you may know for his theory of multiple intelligences. His 1999 book, The Disciplined Mind, makes recommendations for improving curriculum design that are wholly consistent with your inclinations toward creating compelling 'entry points' to math concepts, in keeping with each student's learning style.
His recommendations derive from the ongoing work at Project Zero.
Enjoy, and best of luck.
"[Gallup's] hundreds of studies proved time after time that talent makes a huge impact on profitable growth across every major type of occupation and industry...Superior performers...follow their instincts and thereby identify and develop their specialties. [Given the current modi operandi of education and corporate training] almost always they do this on their own."
Other key research findings are:
- Creativity is a better predictor of achievement than intelligence (source: Torrance)
- Creativity takes shape at the intersection of creativity skills, domain knowledge and intrinsic motivation (source: Amabile)
So, while the article's research is anecdotal, the core thesis is 100% correct:Excerpted from Follow This Path, by The Gallup Organization: "[Gallup's] hundreds of studies proved time after time that talent makes a huge impact on profitable growth across every major type of occupation and industry...Superior performers...follow their instincts and thereby identify and develop their specialties. [Given the current modi operandi of education and corporate training] almost always they do this on their own."
"[Gallup's] hundreds of studies proved time after time that talent makes a huge impact on profitable growth across every major type of occupation and industry...Superior performers...follow their instincts and thereby identify and develop their specialties. [Given the current modi operandi of education and corporate training] almost always they do this on their own."
The reporter wrote:
"Dale and Krueger noticed something odd. In many cases, they found that applicants who were rejected by brand-name schools did as well in later life as those who were accepted."
Not so.
What Dale & Krueger noted is that people who were accepted by highly selective schools, but chose to attend less selective schools, later enjoyed the same level of professional success, on average, as their peers who did matriculate at the highly selective schools.
It may also be worth mentioning that D & K found this to the case only when the less selective school was only moderately less selective (so, for example, Harvard might be foregone in favor of, say, NYU, but not Remedial U.)