Weary of Looking for Work, Some Create Their Own

Two reactions to the strange economic environment: Some talk about "making my own work..." Others seek something more secure.

1. Making my own work (great NM prospects)...

SAN FRANCISCO — Alex Andon, 24, a graduate of Duke University in biology, was laid off from a biotech company last May. For months he sought new work. Then, frustrated with the hunt, he turned to jellyfish.

In an apartment he shares here with six roommates, Mr. Andon started a business in September building jellyfish aquariums, capitalizing on new technology that helps the fragile creatures survive in captivity. He has sold three tanks, one for $25,000 to a restaurant, and is starting a Web site to sell desktop versions for $350.

“I keep getting stung,” he said. And his crowded home office is filled with beakers and test tubes of jellyfish food. “But it beats looking for work. I hate looking for work.” More intriguing stories in NYTimes here. (PDF here in case.)

Persons who are sick of looking for steady work, or who know the old jobs will never come back, are looking to "make their own work," like Monica here says (see PDF above).

Those are excellent prospects for your NM business aren't they?

NOTE. It's not about "firing your boss". It's about making your own work. A do-it-yourself income maker doing something they love. It's not about making giant income. Just genuine income that pays the bills. Today, when jobs are not easy to find because the industries are disappearing. "Make your own work" is kind of a neat ad for entrepreneurs, think?

2. On the other hand, some folks have been scrapping to make income with their own businesses for a few years, and now they're tired of it. Now they're looking for some certainty - even for a few months.

What's a non-risky way to make money online?

Truly no risk means non-glamorous. But steady income traded for time or by the piece. Like copy-editing, or audio transcriptions, or taking online surveys (for major companies like Coke etc). Look past the big red type here. Yes, there's a money-back guarantee from a grade A company, so a person is totally protected. Don't spend more than $100 on how-to's like this (this one is under $50).

A big advantage to the survey type option is that you don't have to advertise your skills and hope someone hires you and pays you. You sign up and just go do it. Not thrilling, agreed, but steady.

P.S. One career that is taking off, with no recession affects in sight, is, well, in the funeral business. Not for the faint of heart, and not an at-home situation. See here.

Do we trust too much because we want so much to believe?

"On Sept. 7, 2006, Nouriel Roubini, an economics professor at New York University, stood before an audience of economists at the International Monetary Fund and announced that a crisis was brewing. In the coming months and years, he warned, the United States was likely to face a once-in-a-lifetime housing bust, an oil shock, sharply declining consumer confidence and, ultimately, a deep recession.

He laid out a bleak sequence of events: homeowners defaulting on mortgages, trillions of dollars of mortgage-backed securities unraveling worldwide and the global financial system shuddering to a halt....the audience was dismissive, some laughed." New York Times, see here.(PDF here in case.)

But most people at that event, and in the financial world, WANTED housing, oil and banks to succeed. Not only did the players themselves crave the income, but governments loved it too. They got big taxes on those huge earnings. Realtors made big commissions and property owners saw the value of their real estate zoom up. Speculators made big bucks flipping properties. And financial people made huge commissions selling mortgage packages and derivatives

What's not to love in an up up up market?

Except the gains turned out not to be real.

Was the want to believe so big that it blinded them all, including the analysts?

Even comedian Jon Stewart got into the act last night, blasting well known CNBC financial host Jim Cramer here:

CNBC shirked its journalistic duty by believing corporate lies, rather than being an investigative "powerful tool of illumination." And Stewart alleged CNBC was ultimately in bed with the businesses it covered - that regular people's stocks and 401Ks were "capitalizing your adventure." Cramer agreed to offer more levelheaded commentary.

Did Cramer and his network too, want to believe in the up market? More than they wanted to know the truth?

I wonder if this might have happened to Bernie Madoff's victims, too. Yes they were swindled...but did they want to believe so much in their unusually large returns that they didn't do their homework?

"Madoff Had Accomplices: His Victims"

S0 writes the New York Times tonight. Yes, we can all agree Madoff ruined the lives of many people with his lies. Still, were the victims blameless? They BEGGED to invest with him. He pursued no one. They wanted the steady, big returns. Who wouldn't?

But most of them did NO due diligence, either.

“These were people with a fair amount of money, and most of them sought no professional advice,” said Bruce C. Greenwald, who teaches value investing at the Graduate School of Business at Columbia University. “It’s like trying to do your own dentistry.” Mr. Hedges said, “It is a real lesson that people cannot abdicate personal responsibility when it comes to their personal finances.”

I wonder if they trusted too much because they wanted more to believe that the returns would be true forever, than to discover it might all be built on lies. After all, it feels good to think how lucky and special you must be to have found such a magician.

Is this what happens to the hordes of folks who start out in NM and spend time and money based on the promises they hear? Do we want to believe the good possibilities so much - that we don't do any due diligence to discover what it takes to make it in the NM business?

And then everyone's too embarrassed to talk about it so they slink away? Like Madoff's investors who now feel like fools?

Your take?

Secret Behind Ranking and Cost of Google Ads

I've been learning how to build new customer bases by doing, among other things, PPC (Pay Per Click). That means, running ads on Google - the ones you see at the top and right side of your search result pages.

Here is perhaps the most enlightening explanation ever, BY GOOGLE'S chief economist (who looks like a friendly grandpa), of how you get ranked. AND why some ads rank at the top, EVEN THOUGH THEY pay less than those below them. Here's the vid.



It all has to do with the words you use. Just like what we teach in the "If My Product's St Great, How Come I Cant Sell It?" and the Customer Enchilada CD (and MP3) program. Top left and left four down.

A day worth remembering

"One day at a time - this is enough. Do not look back and grieve over the past, for it is gone: and do not be troubled about the future, for it has not yet come. Live in the present, and make it so beautiful that it will be worth remembering."
Ida Scott Taylor
1820-1915, Author

Results: Is Duplication Dead?

Totally mixed responses to this...

With 110 responses, about 20% think duplication as now practiced is dead. About 36% percent say no, it's not dead, and some 45% have mixed feelings. Plus different definitions of what duplication is.

See here.