Cracking into the future
I was trying to think yesterday about what I would do if I was just starting today. Like if I’d had just now come to the mindset I was in 2-3 years ago and wanted to crack into the industry(ies). Or, let’s say I got fired and had to start completely over.
Henry Copeland said we’re in a post-media world. Umair is calling it a post-consumer world. Maybe it’s a post-college one as well. At least in the sense that the educational system simply cannot keep up with what is happening. By the time the US military got around to adopting maneuver warfare in the late 90’s, the world had moved on to 4th Generation combat. Before you have time to understand something, it’s already obsolete. The implications of that are profound. A good example, I’m reading this book right now called Gonzo Marketing by the author of Cluetrain Manifesto which is brilliant and totally right but it was written in 2001. It doesn’t even mention Google, Youtube or blogs.
I’m just looking at it like–and I don’t mean to rationalize my decision onto other people–that we might be past the point where college means anything. In my opinion, your average teenager is significantly smarter than any generation previous, regardless of what any standardized testing might show. Where I am now, mainly self-taught, well-read, connected, and with access–how would that have been possible 20 years ago? Tucker’s reading list was an enormous contributing factor to that. In order for me to find that or something similar without the internet I would have had to a) know him personally b) be the child of a college professor. And even then how could I have possibly made sense of the material? I couldn’t even have bought most of the books.
So I think that leaves the dilemma as such: How can you prepare now for a world in which traditional education is obsolete? How can you capitalize or leverage a world in which people are instantaneously connected and you have access to literally all the world’s knowledge?
[*]If I wanted to break into finances or money management, I would become the best financial adviser to bloggers/web guys. Mike Davidson just told his company to MSNBC for $10 million dollars, and he’s clearly looking for something to do with that money. I’d be tracking down personalized tips for each of these guys and giving them to them for free. And then I’d make this offer: “I know I’m young, but what if you let me manage $5,000 of your money? I double in the next 12 months. And I’m playing with my money too–so this isn’t a joke.” What resources does a major brokerage have that you don’t at this point? Insider information, maybe. People want to make money but they also want to work with people they like, who understand their goals and show they have potential. And I would write about the entire process as it happened.
Or of course, you could be an intern for 2 years and pray someone throws you a few nuggets of wisdom along with the abuse as this whole thing passes you buy. All you need is one guy to create enough trust to let you break your back for one person and if you deliver, that whole world is open to you. When Kevin Rose sells digg, don’t you think he’ll ask Mike where he put his money?
[*]I’d become a personal RSS reader for one or two of the big bloggers. “You’ll like this article.” “Do you read this blog? He hits a lot of the same themes that you do.” “I’m hearing rumors that ____ is going to acquire ______, just wanted to give you a heads up.” And I would tailor the results for that person based on what I know they like. I would kill myself doing it. Every day, 5-10 articles. And then I would start to integrate commentary or questions. Become the guy that they get their information from, the person that keeps them connected to the pulse. Maybe one week I’d take a break and send nothing, just to highlight the difference. The ultimate end game being that they would start to send you out to find things for them: “What can you tell me about ________” Yes, you’re a research bitch but in the end, you come away with something that even the person you’re serving doesn’t–not just a vast reserve of knowledge but the ability to find out where it is coming from
[*]I’d copy Muhammad Saleem and become one of the top contributors on one of the social media sites like Digg or Del.icio.us. But I’d twist it a little. I’d identify sites that were tracking well and poised to really pick up and then I’d email them and say “Hey, I know it’s awkward to submit your own stuff on Digg but I have a pretty good reputation on the site, if you’d like to start submitting your stuff to me I will post the links I like.” Become the easy connection between social networking and the content creators with your own editorial voice. And then you might find that they start writing for you–which is real power.
There are a ton more ways to do it but my point is this: All the things you’re supposedly going to school for (unless you’re going to be a doctor) you could be doing right now. No one knows who you are on the internet. All the BLINK biases and constraints are gone. So why aren’t you?
I fucking love this entry. But like the education system, I just feel like I can barely breathe and keep up with the changes that are happening so fast. How do you keep on top of all this?
Man, a good post.
I made a decision to raise my profile about 60 days ago. 60 days. I’m now a target of recruiters because of writing on blownmortgage.com, and other places.
In 60 days, my skills are better, I think faster. I’m 31. I was successful–to a point–before, but now? $100k a month is available to me, and in reach.
The point is–it doesn’t take long. None of this takes forever, and it’s not as hard as it seems. You have to be authentic, and really wish to add value.
And it’s more important to be authentic than to add value.
How many of those books on Tucker’s reading list have you actually gone through. Was it just a small handful, or are we talking about the majority of the list?
What’s it like to fellate yourself? I’ve always been curious myself but I could never attain the necessary flexibility. You seem to have it down pretty well though…
I’d say there are more exceptions than just being a doctor. In my chosen field, chemical engineering, a degree opens up jobs in the auto, food, oil, chemical, pharmaceutical, and material industries. Otherwise it’d be impossible even to get an interview. Internships and PA’s are also (well) paid, so those can’t really be considered abuse.
That’s not to say that you’re not onto something. As a current law student, I could see someone using the internet to research cases that support their side and forming a winning argument. Someone with reasonable intelligence and enough determination should be able to pull it off without the benefit of classes and professors.
The thing is though, a bar license holds a lot of clout these days. Without one, you just won’t be taken as seriously. You mention finance, which I don’t know much about, but don’t brokers or other professional investors usually need to have some sort of license before the average person will trust them with their money?
I just find it hard to believe that traditional education will become obsolete any time soon. I think there will always be some fields that require it, especially the sciences, which are becoming so specialized that you almost need to go on to grad school in biology, chem etc.
If I wanted to break into finances or money management, I would become the best financial adviser to bloggers/web guys.
You sound really ambitious. If its that easy I mean wouldnt it make sense for everyone to just start their own hedgefund and makes millions of dollars. Unfortunately, you live in a candy coated bubble wrapped Los Angeles world. If it were that easy I’m sure you could call Goldman Sachs up and they will GIVE you a job. While it is TECHNICALLY possible to be a money manager without a college degree, to do it at a successful level, you need a college degree, years of training in the field, and an advanced degree. But if you want to skip all that, you should probably go read about 200 text books in financial accounting, futures, options, other synthetic derivatives, technical indicators, and a whole other mess of shit.
What advantage does a major brokerage have that you don’t? Are you serious. Are you serious. This completely proves you…are an idiot. I can’t even start with how dumb of a comment you have made. I think you should spend a day at an investment banking office and see if you really understand anything. Can you conceptualize an income statement and form a thesis about it? Can you formulate a theory about the economy based on weekly economic indicators and how entrenched the subprime mortgage crisis is? Not even the best people on Wall Street do all of this. The fact remains that a company’s (like google) stock price fluctuates not whether or not they launch a pretty new blog hosting site and you think lots of poeple will got to the site because its so “kewl” but rather on based on much greater forces that of a scope greater than you can image. Its not so easy as getting “personalized” tips for your blogger friends. And to say college is obsolete? Go through four years of a legitimate college and tell me if you think differently
Trust me kid, stick to your internet journal
^^ That’s what failure and timidity sounds like when they feel attacked.
In reference to Kevin Rose, I think John Chow put it best when he wrote “All it takes is a laptop and a $50-a-month Internet hookup to make a kid the next mogul.” There are countless examples of this on the web. The Million Dollar Homepage, Facebook, Collegehumor–all enterprises started by people under 22.
I’m with Rob on this matter. With a lot of stamina and ambition, some talent and a good idea you can pull off a lot of awesome stuff, but there are also many fields in which you need a proper education, because they just aren’t as new and unexplored as the internet, and refusing education there would mean to ignore centuries of developement and work done by those before you.
What kind of confuses me, Ryan, is that you talked about the ‘middleman’ becoming obsolete thanks to the internet (in an article I can’t find right now). All these careers you describe here, now seem to put you in exactly that position (excluding maybe the finance thing) of not really adding value, creating anything needed, but only manage other people’s works.
Did I get anything wrong here?
Of course–but there is no reason you can’t be doing these thing IN college. The point is that your degree isn’t a ticket anymore, it doesn’t magically drop you into a job.
The middleman question is interesting though. I’m not sure I’d call it that.
This “middleman” type of work is the avant-garde of marketing yourself online. I don’t see any negative side effects of keeping informed and connected while helping others.
Of the couple dozen people I’ve mentioned this blog to, I’ve found two who already knew of it. Both of these guys are university students and have been inspired to broaden their networks more personally, albeit online, by this. They both began with Tucker’s reading list just as I did.
Having just finished The Tipping Point (you knew my vocabulary was too familiar, didn’t you?), I can’t think of another way of utilizing the Law of the Few any better if you’re beginning with little to no bank. This is where the market will be; Rudius fans just have more foresight than the rest of the crowd.
I do think college is useful in one sense–it allows you to hone your communicating abilities, provides plenty of opportunity to interact with new people and possible mentors, and replaces your shitty high school friends with maturer college ones. That’s really what college is all about–the interactions, the people, the communication. Sharpens you for real life and puts you ahead of the game.
That being said, students at Cal might be a bit of an upgrade over Riverside.
Even if you are trying to be a doctor… You can still can use these types of ideas and tactics while in college – I’m doing it right now. I’m working with physicians and learning from people in the field I’d like to be in.
Just because college is inherently necessary for certain professions (like medicine), you can still simultaneously initiate related projects and relationships.
College gives you a few types of relationships, but why limit yourself? It’s much more useful to seek out mentors and peers who have a similar intense goal or thought pattern to learn from rather than just relying on what happens to be available at your university.
PS: I know this post is from 2007, but had to comment anyway at the risk of looking like a creep. Working my way through from beginning to end and I am really enjoying the progression. It’s almost like reading a biography.