@SamuelRSolomon me and @AddisonPike91 will start a national radio show called triple R radio stands for ruthless ranting radio. Thoughts?

April 30, 2012 11:15 am via Twitter for BlackBerry®ReplyRetweetFavorite

@EstebanLander

Steve Lander

Starting your own talk show should be easily feasible.

The cool thing about creating a talk show is that it costs nothing other that time and a few opinions. Here are a few things I would think about before beginning.

Forget the radio. Consider newer mediums for communication. The democratization of broadcasting technology allows anybody to have a voice. Podcasts, and YouTube videos are great places to start.

Focus on a topic. Pick a few articles or blog posts from the week that you feel comfortable discussing for 15 minutes. Have someone lead the discussion by keeping people on topic, and making sure transitions are made at the right time.

Have a regular schedule.  How often do you want to do the show? Once you figure that out make sure you release your show at the same time every week.

Find a few guests. Guests add different perspectives to the show. If they don’t live close by have them call-in through Skype.

Taking your show a step further.

Build a website. This doesn’t mean go out and pay someone $1,000 to put one together. I would suggest buying a domain, and using it with Tumblr. This will give you a simple website that you can post your shows on. Make sure you tag the topics of your show.

Transcribe your show. Although Tumblr is not known for being SEO friendly, transcribing your show will give search engines something to grab.

Look for sponsors. It is one thing to create a following, it is another thing to find a way to monetize it. The latter is more impressive.

Looking for ideas on how to start a business? Tweet me @SamuelRSolomon.

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Here is a collection of books that will change your life.

I have divided them up into three sections: Books that will change your perspective, Books that will help you build a business, and Books that will help you understand education.

Books are like teachers, most simply provide information, while the best ones inspire you to discover information for yourself. That is my hope for the books on this list. I hope that they light a spark. I hope they force you to ask questions. I hope they make you as thirsty for knowledge about entrepreneurship, education and life as they did for me.

If these books are not worth every second of your time I’ll buy you a beer.

Books that will change your perspective.

A Whole New Mind by Dan Pink

All through high school I hated books. I couldn’t understand the fascination some had with them. I didn’t care about the story if it provided no useful knowledge. Then in my freshmen year of college I happened upon this book, A Whole New Mind. Pink’s book walks through the paradigm shift we are about to take. You will be obsolete in the next decade if: someone in India can do it cheaper, a robot can do it faster, or if you can’t provide a unique value. The good news is that it is not too late. Pink lays out six traits that will be vital for individuals relevancy in the second half of this decade. After reading this book I realized everything I know is wrong. 

This is the perfect book for those that are ready for a change of pace, or looking for somewhere thought provoking to begin.

Start With Why by Simon Sinek

No theory has changed my world more than Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle. It is a simple, yet profound take on how to inspire. His TED talk on how leaders inspire action is one of the all-time most viewed videos on TED. If you want to hear more about the Golden Circle  it is worth the 20 minutes.

Start With Why expands on his speech and gives more examples. It is a perfect follow up if you just read A Whole New Mind.

Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

Viktor Frankl was a psychologist and survivor of four Nazi concentration camps, including Auschwitz. He recalls the tragic events of the Holocaust and vividly portrays life in camp from a psychological perspective.  A terrifying and fascinating read, Frankl discusses how man is able to find meaning amid suffering.

I have yet to read a book with as much meaning packed into so few pages.

Books that will help you build a business.

The Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris

The Four Hour Work Week is perhaps the best book for those looking for a taste of entrepreneurship. It is entertaining and enlightening. If you want to start a business this weekend, this is the book to read. Although released in 2007 all of his marketing techniques are still relevant.

Beyond being a fantastic writer, Tim Ferris is a Thai Kickboxing Champion, Tango extraordinaire and speaks eight languages (well maybe six).

Four Steps to the Epiphany by Steve Blank

This is the Holy Bible of entrepreneurship. If you have been taking classes about putting a business plan together throw those books out the window. Models of entrepreneurship more than 30-years-old are no longer relevant. If your entrepreneurship teacher hasn’t heard of Lean Startup suggest they read this book. It won’t be entertaining as Four Hour Workweek, but you won’t find another guide that will tell you exactly what to say to your first customers.

I have yet to read a more important book in the realm of starting a business. If you are a student, go to Steve Blank’s website to purchase the book for half price. If you aren’t a student at $40 this book is still a huge bargain. This is what I read instead of going to Organizational Behavior.

Books that will help you understand education.

The Education of Millionaires by Michael Ellsberg

Ellsberg interviews some of America’s most successful people about how they achieved success. Whats the single common denominator? None of them graduated from college. Ellsberg offers enlightening interviews that suggest the biggest thing you won’t learn in college is how to succeed professionally.

Can 35 millionaires and 4 billionaires really be wrong?

Dumbing us Down & A Different Kind of Teacher by John Taylor Gatto

A three time New York City teacher of the year, John Taylor Gatto believes that the current school system is designed to make children intellectually and emotionally. People are naturally interested to learn as much as they can about the world around them. School people into poorly lit rooms for eight hours.

A book for those that have a hunch that something about our educational system is wrong.

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How one simple concept prevented the technological advancement of the Roman Empire.

Laying the foundation of western thought and philosophy, few civilizations in history have contributed to humanity more than the Greeks. They built on the exceptional mathematics of the Egyptian and Babylonian empires, and were without a doubt the best mathematicians on the planet at that time.Names like Pythagoras, Archimedes and Ptolemy are so synonymous with mathematics that we recognize them two millenia later.

Fast forward to the first century B.C. and the Romans replaced Greek civilization.

The Romans carried a great deal of Greek culture with them. For centuries they were the dominant empire on earth.  However, there is one missing element in the Romans contribution to humanity.

They had no notable contributions to mathematics, or mathematicians for that matter.

The Romans built roads, invented the water wheel, and constructed vast aqueducts that we marvel at today. How can that be?

Roman numerals.

The Roman numeral is an extremely complex (and irrational) system of numbers. The system does not make sense, because ”zero” does not exist, which makes all higher level mathematics impossible.

Beyond that Roman numerals follow an additive system. When certain values are reached they are added to a new symbol.

There is also a subtractive element that makes the numbers easier to write, but adds complexity to equations.

As you see simple math can become complex when useing Roman numerals. Because of the additive and subtractive properties of Roman numerals an extra step is required along the way.

Imagine trying to do algebra, yet alone calculus with Roman numerals. Two millenia ago the Romans thought they had the ideal numbering system, Today the concept is laughable.

A complex numbering system prevented an entire civilization from advancing in mathematics, science, banking and astronomy.

That is a simple story about one complex system, but is that same story still being told today?

Complexity is a boring, but extremely important topic. The story above is one told by my favorite futurist, Thomas Frey, to explain how complex systems strangle innovation (If you are a futurism nerd like me then his blog has volumes of  mind-blowing content).

Every aspect of our lives are governed by systems we have created. We live, eat, learn and work based on these systems, but we rarely take a step back to look at the bigger picture. Is it possible that complexity of our current systems is preventing us from innovating?

I would argue so, and among them here are the worst.

• U.S. Tax Code - Weighing in at an estimated 66,000 pages. The system is so complex an entire industry has developed to help ordinary citizens do their taxes. Inefficiencies cost the government $250 billion in lost revenues annually.
• Imperial Numbering System - If anything the story about Roman numerals is a case study in why we should convert to the metric system.

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I spearheaded digital marketing for the CrowdFunder campaign to democratize startup finance. The campaign resulted in more than $14 million in pledged investments.

CrowdFunder was at the forefront of the recently passed JOBS Act, which legalized business crowd funding. The bill passed in a landslide victory, 390-23 in the house, 73-26 in the Senate, and with the blessing of President Obama.

The campaign was executed using precisely targeted, and heavily tested Facebook Ads. I managed the CrowdFunder Facebook page, which garnered more than 1,300 followers during the campaign.

I also helped manage and optimize the press list for media contacts. CrowdFunder was mentioned in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Business Insider and CNN. Founder, Chance Barnett, received interviews on Bloomberg Television and TechCrunch.

Friday I was told that I would not be considered in the inaugural class of Venture for America Fellows.

I knew the program was a long shot. I had a 1 percent chance with 5,000 people applying for 50 fellowships. Just for perspective, the acceptance rate at Harvard this year was about 7 percent.

Venture for America, a post graduate program for America’s best young entrepreneurs, hopes to create 100,000 new jobs for the United States by 2025. The concept is simple, more entrepreneurs equals more jobs. It is a fantastic idea, and I give my best to the 2012 fellows. Below you will find my responses to some of the essay questions.

I know that forgone opportunities only lead to new ones, and will continue to look optimistically towards the future. I would like to thank everybody that supported me. I want to give a special thanks to Michael Isaacs, Dale Vaughn and Lauren Smith for writing letters of recommendation.

Why did you choose to apply to the Venture for America Fellowship Program? What do you hope to learn from the experience as a Fellow? Be specific.

The premise behind Venture for America is one that I deeply believe. The creative force in an economy is the entrepreneur. It is the entrepreneur that creates jobs, wealth and value for himself and others. When the economy turns around it won’t be because of politicians, brokers or lawyers – it will be because entrepreneurs took a risk to create value. I want to be one of those people out creating value.

I made my first foray into entrepreneurship my junior year of college with a business called FRUGGL. I jumped into it blind, and full of enthusiasm. FRUGGL was a social coupon website that offered college students discounts to local shops, or restaurants every week. It was created  before all of the deal website the hype, when Groupon was only in a hand full of cities. I simply saw an opportunity to give deals to college students around the country.

During that time I made every mistake imaginable, some time consuming, others expensive, but all great educational experiences.

Looking back, I could have build a successful business for practically nothing. Facebook, MailChimp and a charming smile would have sufficed. Instead I lobbied for business cards, fancy handouts and an extremely complex website.

So, what do I hope to learn from Venture for America?

I have learned a great deal about building a business on my own, but I think it is time for me to learn from those who have failed before. I want to understand their journey, and I want to help them succeed.

Entrepreneurs have experiences that few others in the business world can match, because  they often fail. Where others quit they persevere. Even if they fail again, they are willing to do it over and over again.

Why?

Because, the architecture of success is failure.

What do you see yourself doing following the Venture for America Fellowship? Be specific about what you would like to do.

I want to build a Khan Academy for college entrepreneurs.

As someone who built a startup while in college, I quickly became aware of the shortcomings of a traditional education. Modern business education focuses mostly on old theory and less on practical business knowledge. Practical information you can take home and immediately start figuring things out.

When I needed information there were no classes about Facebook Ads, blogging or customer development. I had to scrape knowledge together from far reaches of the internet and learn by trial.

I have been working with the Auburn Student Entrepreneurship Organization to create a workshop that helps students experiment with new business ideas and test them in a week. Most students look at entrepreneurship and think they need to build a $10,000 piece of software, when really they just need to get out of the classroom and test basic concepts.

I want to help build entrepreneurs just like Venture for America; however, I think the best time to start giving entrepreneurs the right tools is before they graduate college.

One feature of entrepreneurs is an ability to think independently.  Please identify one belief or idea that you feel is held by the vast majority of your peers that you disagree with, and argue your side.  

A college degree is no longer a requirement for success.

Or as Adam Davidson harshly put it in his New York Times piece, “A college degree is no longer the guarantor of a middle class existence.”

Don’t get me wrong. You are better off having a college degree than nothing; however, the value of a college degree is something that we seriously must question.

The cost of a college degree has risen more than 400 percent in the last 30 years not accounting for inflation. How much has the value of a college degree increased?

I would argue that the overall value of a college degree has actually decreased. I know many who are unemployed, underemployed, or working entry-level corporate jobs at $10 an hour. The combined unemployment and underemployment rate for college graduates last year who are under 25 was around 45 percent (Most articles cite college graduate employment for those older than 25).

In-state tuition at the University of Georgia is shy of $9,500 a year. That doesn’t including room, books and other living expenses. Some might say that$38,000  is an appropriate price for an undergraduate college degree, but what else could you do with that money?

I am currently working on a post that questions how individuals could get a better education by spending tuition money on other life experiences. Workshops with authors, studying abroad and internships. There are other ways to spend money on your education than tuition.

Often those who have had success in business were failures in school. Sure it’s easy to look at Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg and see they didn’t finish school, but there are many others. Ask Michael Ellsberg, author of The Education of Millionaires, what is the common denominator in their formal education? The common denominator is they did not have, left or discounted their formal education.

A college degree is no longer a requirement for success.

Unfortunately, in a country where the average student loan debt is $25,000, I would say a college degree can be an obstacle to success.

In 25 words or less, what motivates you?

The keys to the next golden age lie somewhere between education and entrepreneurship. I want to find those keys.

Please read the essay provided at: http://www.theamericanscholar.org/solitude-and-leadership/

Write a 100 word reaction to this essay as it relates to you. 

Our world has leaders, and those in power.

Leaders know themselves. They know their purpose, their ideals and their beliefs. Those in power do not know themselves. They have been elevated by conforming to the purpose, ideals and beliefs of others.

Leaders are followed, because others want to follow them.  Those in power are followed because others must follow them.

We have a leadership crisis in this country. We have many of those in power and few leaders.

Our education system is at the core of this crisis. It rewards conformity, and punishes diverse thought. How can we build leaders when we are training conformists?

The biggest lesson I had to learn was how to fail faster… That’s why when I left Xerox at five o’clock, I would go up the street to the nonprofit charity, helping homeless kids, and I would dial for donations at night. I had a goal every night of getting rejected thirty times. The more I increased my failure rate, the more success I had at Xerox.

-Robert Kiyosaki in The Education of Millionaires by Michael Ellsberg

Thirty rejections a day! Thirty!

I do a large amount of reading, and cannot remember the last time I read something so completely stunning.

Not the fact that he failed 30 times, but that he went out with a goal of coming home with at least 30 failures.

I suppose the biggest successes are built, often on a mountain of failure. Before Microsoft, Bill Gates started a data company that went nowhere. Before Twitter Evan Williams, started a podcasting platform that was crushed by iTunes.

The concept of failing faster goes hand-in-hand with lean startup theory: fail fast, fail cheap, move on to the next idea.

My Blueprint for Increasing Failure.

It is 3 a.m. on a Thursday night (Friday morning I suppose), and I can’t sleep. I keep coming up with new concepts for organizing these “failures.”

So far, here is the plan.

I will try to test one new business concept every week.

If the concept passes a series of metrics, then it gets the green light to move onto the next phase. If it fails I tweak the campaign, or I restart the process.

Most of the testing just takes time, so it is easy to fit around my freelance projects.

I can hardly wait!

Until then the only excuse for not failing is succeeding.

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Yeah, I said it. A Windows desktop Mac users can envy.

If you own a Mac you should probably stop reading.

You see that image above?

That is what my desktop looks like right now. It’s efficient, beautiful and has an awesome clock. The best part is that setting it up takes less than an hour. That includes cleaning all the crap off your desktop.

However, it wasn’t always that way. It was once cluttered with a mess of folders and papers in complete disarray.

Making your Windows desktop awesome.

As neat an organized of a person as I am, I admit that with a lot of projects going on my computer was an absolute mess. It was the kind of mess that you know where everything was, but a mess nonetheless.

I was doing my morning reading before an  interview, and I happened to come across an awesome Lifehacker article about rebuilding your desktop. I immediately knew that is was time to do some early spring cleaning. Before you start clicking on links over there beware! ObjectDock and StarDock really slow down your computer. Everything else here should play nice.

First thing is first, we need to organize all those folders and shortcut on your desktop. Drag the programs you use daily to the Taskbar. The ones I added are below.

• Internet Explorer
• Rockmelt
• Chrome
• Firefox
• Photoshop
• Illustrator
• Dropbox

Create a few new folders that you can organize the items into. If you can’t find a place to put it, it’s probably trash. The folders I created are below.

• Projects – Get a Job Course, Bison Box, etc..
• Project Archive – FRUGGL, School work.
• Temporary – Images for this post, things I plan on deleting soon.
• Resources – A/B Testing Calculator, Project Viability Calculator, The Boron Letters.
• Resume – I know it’s obnoxious, but I have five versions of my resume.

Now open My Computer, and navigate to your user name (Mine is Samuel Solomon). Create a folder that best describes the stuff in the folders above (I know it’s tough).

Next go to Libraries. Right click and add a new library. I named mine Projects. Now you have easy access to the stuff you use without it taking up space on your desktop.

Hopefully your desktop looks something like this now (Ignore Windows Explorer being open). If you don’t have as many icons as I do that is good, the less the better.

Now for the fun stuff.

Adding the giant clock.

Download and install the Rainmeter monitor and configuration tool for Windows. I know what you are thinking, won’t it slow your computer down? No, not anymore than the widgets you normally use, which ads about 3-5 seconds on to startup.

WARNING: Rainmeter works like a charm on Windows 7. If you have Vista or XP you may want to reconsider.

Once Rainmeter is installed. Download and install the Pragmatic 3.0 theme from Deviant Art (Download link is top right).

You should have something that looks like this.

In the Pragmatic 3.0 menu go to Launch, and left click on TIME. Right click all the other Items, as we are only using the clock.

Center the clock.

Now go download the Early Sunrise Wallpaper from HD Wallpapers. You’re also welcome to any of my pics on flickr. Simple pictures that have lines that lead to where the clock goes work best. For the sake of time I have forgone looking for the right picture. Photography nerds like me can spend hours looking for the right one. However, If you do find a nice picture feel free to post the link in the comments.

Perfect.

Except for the trashcan right?

This part is a little tricky. The solution is well documented in these links.

• How to Pin the Recycle Bin to the Windows 7 Taskbar
• How to remove the Recycle Bin from your Desktop in Windows 7

Beautiful.

If you found this helpful consider sharing it below.

Started with Matt Powell, a childhood friend and hardware genius, Bison Box creates performance computers with design as a top priority.

The website, bisonbox.com, is still under construction, but if you are in the market for a new desktop don’t hesitate to get in contact. We’ll put together something much better than Dell.

I know that writing this will give away some of my good mojo, but I think this post will be extremely useful to many job seekers.

About a month ago I began a proactive job hunt experiment – Use Facebook ads to target potential employers, and use a landing page to see if I could sell them on my potential.

I have always questioned traditional job hunting methods. Everybody is creating the same bland one column, Times New Roman, 1-inch-margin resume. How are you supposed to stand out from the pack if you do the same things that everybody else does? Even if you submit a well designed resume with decent credentials like mine, the chances of an employer calling you back are slim.

I decided to take a different approach. Rethink the channel for job candidacy. Using specifically targeted Facebook advertisements, I created different ads targeting companies in industries that interested me. I gave myself $150 and about two weeks to see what would happen.

The results? I placed my first Facebook Ads and got a phone call the following afternoon from a startup in Los Angeles (hence the post name). As a result of this campaign I scheduled five interviews, received 18 job related emails, and had others wishing me luck. I had two blog posts written about the campaign. One from Tom Singer, College Student Seeks PR Job and Goes Beyond the Normal Path to Get Noticed, which was picked up by the Texas Entrepreneur Network. The other post was by Dave Ambrose, founder of Scoop St., a company similar to FRUGGL.

 How to create your Facebook Advertising Campaign

Building a landing page for employers.

The most important part of this campaign is your landing page. This is where potential employers that click your ad will be directed. Do not simply send employers to your LinkedIn, or Visual CV page. Great advertising for a product with a terrible presentation does not lead to any sales.

If you do not have a website that you can create a landing page for go to Weebly and use their editor to create a presentable website. Weebly requires no coding experience and is my favorite of all the browser-based website builders. I have used Weebly to create landing pages to test product ideas, as well as a landing page for my internship search a year ago. It is free, easy and only takes an hour or so to put together.

I have split tested several landing pages, with the sales letter with my picture being the most effective. Many hate the sales letter look of things, including me. Every time I see such a layout I automatically someone is trying to sell me instant weight loss products, or how to get rich quick programs. Similarly it is hard to argue with results and the sales letter layout has performed the best. I am currently working on a video to test on the pages, but that is a “how to” post for another time.

Design your first Facebook Ad.

Start by going to facebook.com/advertising/ and click Create an Ad.

Set the Destination to External URL. Now place the URL of your landing page, blog, video resume. This is where potential employers will be redirected when they click your ad.

Find a picture of you and shrink it to 110 x 80 pixels, the maximum size for a Facebook Ad. Make sure it is a good one. The image is the first thing that attracts attention, thus the most important part of the ad.

Come up with a title that will grab attention. Ask a question. If you want to target a specific company mention their name in the title.

The  body is where you explain who you are and what you want. Make sure you have a call to action.

Targeting employers.

This is where you decide what employers to target. Where do you want to work? Who do you want to work for? These are all factors to consider when targeting employers.

If you want to work for a company in California, add it under location. If you want to work for Facebook, add it under workplaces (you may have to click Show Advanced Targeting Options under Connections). If you want to work For Facebook, but only in their Palo Alto headquarters add both parameters.

You will notice the estimated reach will change as you add and remove, locations, interests and workplaces. This is the pool of people that will see your ad. Try not to let your pool drop below 100 people. A small pool will make it difficult for your ad to appear.

If you don’t have a company in mind click Switch to Precise Interest Targeting. If you are looking for a general PR job, public relations should be one of your targeted interests. If you want to work at a big company human resources should be in there as well as recruiter. You can see some of my general interest targeting parameters below.

NOTE: This section includes everyone who has at least one of the interests in their profile. Someone may see this ad that is interested in #Marketing, but not #Human Resources.

Creating the campaign, and setting  the bid.

Create a new Campaign. Call it Hire me, or something of the sort. I ran my campaign for 15 days with a daily budget of $10 per day.

Click Set a Different Bid (Advanced Mode) if it is not already chosen.

Make sure you have Pay for Clicks (CPC) Selected. This will only charge you whenever somebody clicks on your ad.

When setting the bid I generally bid 10 to 15 cents above the suggested bid. In the example below I bid 50 cents per click. This gets your ad out to more people, so you can see how well it performs.

Facebook  charges less per click for ads that perform well. After about 10 clicks I move the bid price closer to the average CPC. In the example below the Price is the average CPC, while Bid is the maximum I will pay for a click.

Create more Facebook Ads!

Don’t stop now. The most efficient way to run a Facebook Advertising campaign is to create several ads. This makes guarantees that only your best ads are being seen, which costs you less in the long run.

Conclusion

I hope that some of the information in this post was useful, and that it helps somebody find a job.

As for me, I am in the process interviewing. I am giving myself to the beginning of February before I accept any offers. There are several other job search ideas I have yet to test.

…And for those  interested in the specifics of my campaign.

• Reach: 154, 010
• Clicks: 634
• CTR: 0.137%
• Introductions: 18
• Interviews: 5
• Cost: $148.42
• Run Time: 15 days

Criticism is always appreciated, feel free to comment below.

Created as part of my Style & Design final project.