I also have a new shop. Now I have a place where I can build my robots, have meetings for the Columbus Robotics Society, and run my business.

So I went back to JFM (Java Media Framework) but I am having all kinds of inconsistent issues. Sometimes it works with Groovy, sometimes it does not. I tried it working with straight Java and it’s in-consistent. It sucks that it takes so much effort just to get images I’d really like to do more than fight with device drivers and the basics of frame grabbing, but here I am…

Updated 8/18 @9:38

I am going to stick with my original C implementation, though it has a memory leak right now, it will be easier to manage than trying to muddle through the unsupported JMF.

Updated 8/18 @11:34

I now have a copy of the JMF source. I have a feeling this will be all I need to now get everything working… Plus a C primer or two…

1. Problem(5) - How well is problem understood?
2. Solution(5) - How well does solution work?
3. Market(8) - How well is market defined?
4. Market Size(3) - How large is market?
5. Market Reach(9) - What is the cost to reach this market?
6. Market Feedback(8) - How much/little feedback do you have on Problem/Solution from target market?
7. Cost Value Scale(8) - How well does product/service rank with similar products or services on a cost/value relationship?
8. Competition(5) - How many other businesses are doing the same thing, how close is this product/service to being duplicated by someone else at a lower cost?
9. Automation(8) - What’s the product/service potential for systematization and automation?

My thought is to get break out Excel, then list these items with their weights in columns, and your business ideas in rows. Rate each business idea on each of the following attributes and your total score best represents a high business potential.

So for an average business you might have scores reading: {Problem = 5*5=25, Solution = 5*5=25, Market = 5*8=40, …. Automation = 5*8=40 } equals 290 for a Total Business Score, good businesses, with 7’s or greater for each category would end up with a score of 406.

I would like to use this model to plan for future business endeavors.

That was major cool!!!

Thanks,
Scott

• Elance - My Vendor is giving me a load of crap about some software I contracted them for. In essence they are not doing what they signed up to do.
• Amazon 3rd Party - They sent me something that does not work, and now will not accept a refund, load of crap.
• WOW Cable Down - The internet was down for 2 days at the house, I went so far as to order new service only to later cancel it after dealing with Time Warner and ATT customer service.

All of these experiences I am/was the customer. All of these experiences I was the payee paying for a service. All of these experiences I was expecting something good to happen and just the opposite happened.

Yes, so that iPhone, new gadget, website, robot, part, TV, etc. is nothing more than a means to an end, a feeling.

Depending on how well you sell that feeling, how well you sell that consistent experience, you will get repeat customers and make lots of money, which usually reciprocates with… feelings…

Updated: If you tie this in with my previous post, of the value/time relationship, it seems like there’s also a relationship between free time and good feelings.

In robots for example, you can get a basic sumo robot kit for about $100 or you can get a RoboNova for about $1000. The value spread on this is a little disproportionate to actual robot per dollar, but the RoboNova looks really really cool and has a bunch of features and is harder to reproduce.

In software for example, you can get some really useful software for free and you can even use most websites for free. But if you want proffesional design software like Photoshop CS3 it cost $650. What’s the value add for $650? People know it, ease of use, features are more usable? Same with Microsoft Office, even though most people can get by with Open Office, or Google docs.

In both of these cases it seems like value/cost equates to time. Value it seems equates to time to create/replicate or time saved, thought cycles saved. But it seems like the cost of things increase with their perception of the time saved vs real time saved which to me seems counter intuative to the 80-20 rule (Pareto’s Principle), but then again it’s perceived time saved.

So it’s my thought that there exist a value scale unique to each individual or business that equates dollars per hour to their time. Something that would save a week’s worth of time, would cost more than something that saves a days worth, and there are something that if they only save 5 minutes worth of time, might just be done vs. paid for. Thus people with less time spend more on time savers than those with more time.

This book is heavy into the psychology of starting and running a business. It’s about the way you think and how you mindset changes from someone that’s conditioned as a “worker/employee/technician” to someone that’s an “owner/employer/entrepreneur”.

It changes your mindset from thinking about a product/service business to thinking of a business as the product/service. For some people this might be the shift they need to make it work. But fundamentally the definition of business does not change, no matter how you say it. Though changing how you say it, might make a difference to people.

The definition of a business used in the book is about a system/process of solving problems for people/customers in such a way that it’s repeatable and systematized so that it can function without any single person of talent and it can be automated to the point that the system of solving problems for people can function on it’s own. The key is that the problem, the product, the solution does not matter, it’s the system that’s important, then you switch out the product/service accordingly.

But even though I enjoyed the book, the over emphasis on psychology was kind of a distraction since I don’t like social science all that much, but I suppose that when dealing with people/business employing this branch of “science” is a requirement.

The other thing about the book that sort of get’s me, it’s a sales pitch for franchises. ]]> http://www.scottpreston.com/articles/524.php/feed http://www.scottpreston.com/articles/523.php http://www.scottpreston.com/articles/523.php#comments Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:49:59 +0000 Scott http://www.scottpreston.com/articles/523.php After a year off of working with J2EE (WebSphere) I started again this spring, but this time with Java 1.5, JSF and BEA. To my dismay, nothing has changed. For the most part the IDE, the frameworks, the amount of XML and inconsistent behavior all remain. Instead of making you more productive as a programmer, it makes you less productive. I literally spend less than 50% of the time coding, and most of the time, either waiting for things to compile, build, or chasing something that should not behave a certain way, only to find later it resolves itself for no apparent reason.

I enjoy PHP because of consistent behavior, and no build/deploy crap. I enjoy solving problems and building solutions, not waiting for a tool or a language or a framework to work the way it’s suppose to.