Frustration Friday: Go Make Something, Numbskulls

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What you say, another raucous rant on the economipocalypse?  Well of course!  Besides, Frustration Friday is focused on foul-ups, frustrating folks, and other things driving us crazy.

And in this case, I've realized what I'd like to say to the various banisters, fraudclosure fiends, mortgage mayhem masters, and the pilots of the rocket dockets.

"Would it have hurt you folks to do something that actually made something?"

I mean really.  New financial tools that were obviously just meant to funnel money away while giving nothing?  Robo-signing that was going to obviously be found?  Sinking the world economy with a shell game?

Would it have hurt all these geniuses to find a way to make money at something that did something, made something, made a difference?

I'd like to know really did they somehow delude themselves into think they were making the world a better place, that what they did mattered?  Did they at least have the honesty to admit they were con-people, deceivers, and exploiters looking for loopholes in and around the rules?

Sadly I'm feeling that some of these econonincompoops really did think they were some great captains of capitalism, some innovators of investments.  That they honestly thought a bunch of resorted loans and quick slice-and-dice of economic items to turn them into investments were going to work.  I'm worried they really, truly, believed they were doing good and making something.

Newsflash.  They weren't.

So when I look at the people that gave us the economic apocalypse, it's another reminder to me to make sure I do something, that I make something, that I build something.

Because damned if I don't want to be like the people that got us into this mess.

– Steven Savage

News Of The Day 11/18/2010

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MySpace and Facebook friend each other, and . . . oh you know that's the main story, but there's plenty else to keep up on!

Economics/Geekonomics:
MERS is going to be investigated. A look at the whole mess behind the loan system . . . company . . . thing. This could be a shallow nothing, or it could yield a lot of info on the whole mess, so stay tuned.

Matt Stoller discusses how we've gone from sharecropping to debtcropping, noting how the debt treadmill is messing up our society and economy . . . further. Some thought provoking stuff here.

Comics:
The casting for the Superman film begins. Also a good point is made in this article that post Potter, Warner will probably want more big hits and has a lot of properties at its fingertips . . .

Publishing:
Mega-Big econo-political magazine The Economist comes out for the iPad. That is big news because the Economist is an insanely popular magazine, and how it succeeds or fails at this is going to be watched.

Social Media:
Facebook and MySpace are going to get integrated with SOME data, which is causing people to figure it's over for MySpace. The MySpace CEO says otherwise. One thing I can guarantee – speculation is gonna be rampant.

Also Facebook further makes a move against Google with the option to make Facebook your homepage.

Technology:
Either this is utterly brilliant or going to prove to be stupid – but I like it. Plastic Jungle raises $10 million for its gift card exchange business. Thats a nice amount of money, but what a great business idea – because really, how many times to gift cards sit and not get used?

Marketo gets $25 million. They're a northern-Silicon Valley company that does management of email marketing and lead generation, and seem to be doing pretty good. Might be resume worthy.

Video Games:
There's now a cross-mobile platform MMO.

And there they are! OnLive to launch its Microconsole so they're not bound to the computer. At $99 that's a pretty nice deal, smart bit of marketing. I haven't dug up much on OnLive that says people think it's changing the world, but this may help . . .

QUESTION OF THE DAY: Avoiding the MySpace/Facebook discussion, what do you think the next big "cooperative" effort in Social Media is?

– Steven Savage

Role Models and The Power Of Mistakes

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Role Models.  We look to them to guide us with the examples of their lives.  We look to them to inspire us with their stories of success.  We look to them to to remind us of our potential.

They also help remind us about screwing up.

If you have a good Role Model, it's important to look at them and learn from their mistakes.  They probably have a spectacular amount of them if you only look.

The great blunders of our Role Models are important because:

  1. They remind us our Role Models are humans, just like us.  Realizing that helps us see them as people.  When we see them as people we relate to them better, learn from them better, and also treat them better.
  2. They teach us just how common making mistakes is.  It's too easy to forget just how often all of us create absolutely spectacular messes of our lives.  Remembering that keeps us from being to harsh on ourselves.
  3. They teach us how to recover from our foul-ups.  In fact, they remind us of how it is possible to recover from truly wondrous blunders.
  4. They keep us humble.  If those we admire can mess up, it reminds us how we too can make mistakes.

So next time you're looking up to that Role Model, look down a bit and see the mountain of mistakes, the fields of foul-ups, the sea of screw-ups, at their feet.  It'll help you a great deal.

– Steven Savage