Day two of the resurrection.  So many of these sites have fallen into disrepair, and the monetization of others has diminished.  But c’est le price of an M.B.A.  So I just keep thinking I have the skills, both business, entrepreneurship, networking, and programming, to go full-time on these…  I mean, that is the foundation of Jonathan Coulton, isn’t it?  And I’d really like all of them to take off–just FYI for those of you who don’t personally know me: I’d much rather have one call a week from 52 businesses than 52 calls a week from one business (cf. serial vs. parallel entrepreneurship.)  In the end one of my roles has to be in private equity or on a board, because that’s really where the renaissance mind of a parallel entrepreneur thrives.  I really enjoyed my time at a holding company, which was basically the same thing.

As I always say, in a real business the founder (more of a CEO/Chair) hands off the reins to the fascist (more of a  President/COO) pretty early on, so if any of you want to balance me out in a famous management marriage, if you wished you owned or worked for any of these businesses, including simply running/monetizing the family trees, just speak the word.  You cease being a code monkey when you become a CTO of a two-man organization.  (Honestly, that’s how my bridal magazine started–from me with downloaded software on a 300 mhz iMac to printing 30,000 copies of a 500 page bridal guide to a character based on me in a movie to an MBA.  It’s the circle of life, Simba.)

So I’ll hereby report to the world what’s going on with each website:

1. BusinessAWeek.com – software updated, me off my butt and amen.  NEXT STEP: blog daily
2. RamPrint.com – despite having sold the company, I still have a BNI by the Bay Business Services Power Group meeting to unofficially represent them tonight at Bradley Commercial on Irwin St, San Rafael, at 7pm.  Holler if you want to come.  BNI’s a neat thing.  NEXT STEP: none, sold it!
3. OfficeSpares.com – Got some phones in my garage that I haven’t taken the time to sell yet, and it’s summer so even if I did there’d be nowhere to donate a portion.  But if you want to do a quick eBay thing to familiarize yourself with the model and cut yourself in, holler.  Otherwise I’ll be off my butt in its regard within a few days.  No web software to be updated, tested the email address today, phone number current.  The site really should be built out, though.  Should that email address be a link, or is that just inviting spam?  NEXT STEP: sell that phone system
4. FooMusic.com – 2 plugins updated, 2 spams caught, and now I just need more content.  Eventually we need links to buy each track–that should be easy in 2010.  Maybe that invisible auto-linker that amazon puts out, too.  NEXT STEP: Invisible auto-linker, then content.
5. ENFP Consulting.com – needs to be built out, no apps to update, email address tested today.  Looks solid, but no calls.  I’d vote marketing is the first need–it needs to be more targeted…  Maybe a bay area-focused small business section.  NEXT STEP: Target something or someone.
6. TheInvitationsExpert.com – I had a week-old unanswered comment!  Answered it, everything updated.  Need to monitor and add content.  NEXT STEP: Write another article.
7. ScriptureForum.net – NEXT STEP: cut and paste more OT chapters. Where do I get traffic?  I need a booster shot before I can just mention it on other boards, possibly from sharing a database with a partner (since I’ve done all this work), or simply from craigslist ads…
8. QDWebDesign.com – Ugly and no traffic.  NEXT STEP: Rebuild!
   
9. FilmClean.com – Never rebuilt from the time my last host went bankrupt and disappeared.  I need to just call ClearPlay and see what the status of their referral program is, and see if I can syndicate their weekly movie reviews…  NEXT STEP: Call ClearPlay.
10. KarateConsulting.com – I put up a placeholder Saturday, now I just need some traffic, which probably means make it a bit more professional, add some photos, and add content.  The content is off the top of my head right now.  The landing page shouldn’t block blog traffic.  NEXT STEP: Take control of the clickflow.
11. FortibusEs.com – Needs some professionalism upgrades; needs to mention cities by name.  Needs photos of me.  First, though, content.  I’ve only had a few posts and they get eaten up.  NEXT STEP: Cut and paste old papers from school as blog posts.
12. TheUnionStatesman.com – I need a model of syndicating news articles post approval and editing, like digg or the like.  I’m sure there are much more modern plugins than what I’m using.  NEXT STEP: Check Plugins, sources, rebuild.
13. PrintShopForSale.Net – Turn into a consulting site, leave ambiguous login prompt.  NEXT STEP: Rewrite intro paragraph, add content (perhaps content no longer used by RamPrint.com) Larry Hunt, give me a call, possibly some job/gig hookups (as I am an MBA with unlimited printing experience), and I’ll give you this domain that should have been yours anyway except you chose to buy one with a typo!
14. SafariPetShop.com – new plugin.  NEXT STEP: reestablish contact with the owner of the brick and mortar!
15. MormonNewsWatch.com – NEXT STEP: get unionstatesman down and duplicate it.
16. JMJensen.com – NEXT STEP: raise prices on the book since I don’t own the publishing house anymore.  Or publish it third-party.  That may be the real next step.
17. FortuneFrenzy.com – NEXT STEP: Look at it! I haven’t looked at it in a while.
18. DMRevolution.com – NEXT STEP: Fix that htaccess loop! Maybe post a request for help on facebook.
19. ColinAndBethany.com – Why have I not counted my “non-”BaW sites before?  If I count RamPrint.com, I should count colinandbethany.com.  Because my personal site, which in my mind is basically family pictures and family trees, still gets 10,000 unique hits a month and has at times averaged >$1/day in ad revenue.  So it’s real.  Ditto with the next four BaWs.  NEXT STEP: I’ve gotta’ have the front page syndicated from all my sites and/or status updates, because I don’t want it as a separate blog.
20. ColinJensen.com – NEXT STEP: Drop the job-search motif.
21. BethanyJensen.com – NEXT STEP: content or workaround.
22. KimberlyJensen.org – NEXT STEP: Find a programmer.
23. GraduationDirect.com – NEXT STEP: Make it look professional, remove ambiguous branding.

Other domains/sites that aren’t formally BaWs yet, so please mention if you have any visions for them, or if you’d like to work/volunteer for any of them:

• generalconference.net – Doesn’t anybody have an idea for this?  I should just redirect it to one of the other sites.
• dickandsonja.com – just a mailserver, but I want a splash-page, whether a clock or a photo gallery.  We’re getting mail blocked for not having a main page.
• EsrasTrust.info – Important, Priority.
• nephiandmaxine.com – Use it or loose it.
• marketsurfing.com – It’s Time! Find a programmer.  Promise him unlimited wealth in exchange for a coupla’ hours of messing around.
• paulandkarajo.com – nag paulandkarajo!
• safaripetstore.com – redirect to safaripetshop, and then, at this point, release into the wild.
• stylartweddings.com – Stylart, call me and offer me a job, and just for pretending you’re interested, I’ll give you the proper spelling of your website (theirs is stylartwedding.com without the S!)  Crazy!  Seriously, I would love to drop everything and go run Stylart.

I know, I know, I’m spread too thin.  But I’m not.

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I know–I can’t just announce a 2.0 without any changes to my website, but I promise you this is legit…  I’ve sold RamPrint (BaW #2), finished my M.B.A., and now it’s time to crank up the BaWs!  I’ve got so many ideas!  This week I rebuilt DMRevolution.com, rebuilt ScriptureForum.net, put a yellow pages onto colinjensen.com, and upgraded all the software on all of my sites.  Knowing me, or judging me from this site, or knowing the economy, what do you think should be next?  Yes, that also means what kind of job, but it primarily means what sort of non-job, because jobs are not my destiny–being a crossfunctional partner in non-jobs of increasing size is my destiny.

Bethany and Dave say I should announce myself as a tour guide.  I get that a lot, and would love it.  Multiple people have said I should be a full-time writer, blogger, etc.  I’d really like to put some time into scriptureforum.net, but that’s not a quickly monetizable option.

I’d like to start one on the theme of “how to ramp your business back up after the recession” consultancy.  Maybe just a seminar.  I have so many friends that charge $500 or $1000 for their seminars, and I just can’t wrap my head around that, since they all suck!    But I really do need to crank up a printing consultancy (PrintShopForSale.net), general/strategic/marketing consultancy (ENFP Consulting), and maybe some other fun ones like KarateConsulting.com.  You know, to this day, the most profitable BaW has still been officespares, unless you count ramprint, which is almost disqualified…  FortibusEs is ironically up there…

If anyone would like to be my programming/technical partner in MarketSurfing.com, I’ve now proven the model against historical data.  I knew following my system for the past 5 years beat the market, but I know have the data worked out for the last 50 years, so I can confidently put up a good website for those who are interested.

Anyone in Utah, theinvitationsexpert is incredibly turnkey, providing I’m the key, but still…

As always, if you want to partner on any of these, say the word, and we’ll springboard from there.  There’s enough to go around.  I need partners!

Ain’t it nice?!  So I shouldn’t be bragging about $100 from Google.  I mean, OfficeSpares may have transacted $5,000 this week, RamPrint.com now pays my bills, and it’s not like Google took me any less work per dollar.  But there’s something about completely residual money, no matter how much time it took to get set up, that’s beautiful.  I came home from work one day this week and there was $100 in the mail, which, for those of you who haven’t figured it out yet, is residual AdWords revenue from ads I’ve allowed Google to place on my websites.  Thank you, Google.

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So people want to know more about what to do with your life if you’re an ENFP, they want some help being organized reading their Book of Mormon, they want to talk about Adobe CS4, and they want to know why pharmaceuticals have such dumb names despite their being billion dollar products.  And a couple plugs for Latin, Safari Pet Shop, and martial arts consulting (I need to remember the ones at the bottom of the list are still statistically significant.)  Ironically, the two winners (ENFP Consulting and the 365 Book of Mormon), are my most personally neglected holdings.

Maybe I should combine the 365 Book of Mormon with ScriptureForum.net somehow… anyone?

I have moved probably 30 times in my life, and I’m not a banker’s son or an army brat.  Most of the time I’ve had to rediscover radio stations in the new area, and realistically that takes me a year.  When I travel, I end up listening to NPR or 80s music, solely because I know I can find it without a hassle.  And when I go on a roadtrip, I hit seek frustratingly every 5 minutes.  What the world needs is a way to plan your radio usage as you plan your trips, to search possible stations relative to your location.

It seems that from the FCC or online you could easily get a database of every radio station in the nation and their signal strength–even every broadcast antenna and its strength.  That, by definition, has to be public information.  I want someone, and I think Google itself should do it, to mashup that database with a map, a la geolocation.  Three axes, two for location and the third, normally the size of the pin, would be the strength of the signal.  That would basically give you a good map of which radio stations are in your area, and which radio stations are strongest in your area.

Granted, signal strength gets boosted and wanes throughout the day, but if that’s pretty even-keel across the market, that should be graphically negligible (they’ll all go up, they’ll all go down, but what you’re looking at is the relativity.)  Some stations can reach hundreds of miles at certain times of the day, but if not dismissed that variable could be approximated with a gradient.  Mountains get in the way, but again, people will understand that.  If we could factor in all that stuff we’d be making coverage maps for Verizon/AT&T/T-Mobile.  I’m not proposing a “can you hear 102.7 now?” guy driving up and down the street–that wouldn’t be viable–not even for Google.

What I am proposing is a simple mashup, financed in the usual ways, and with a huge emphasis on usability.

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I would like to start a business as a small-time business-writing editor for technical manuals, marketing pieces, theses, and self-published books.  So proofreading, copyediting, etc.  I would lead with my own niche strengths and competencies: in my case a degree in hardcore mathematically-sound grammar, an auditory brain development conducive to an unmatched fluidity in writing, and a comfort-level with ambiguity that is attracted to the nuance of diction.  I am not qualified to discuss what publishers like to see, whether the tone of your work matches your intended audience, or who eats at what restaurant.  But I have run a magazine that printed 30,000 copies per issue; been to grad school; been a college president; produced ads and marketing pieces for a living my whole life; and obtained a major, minor, and 4 teaching credentials in language teaching.  That lovely pile of resume fodder has gotta’ be worth something!  I would be quite justified in saying, “Nothing should touch the public that doesn’t go through me first.”  So if you’re a successful businessperson who just can’t spell, a programmer who hates writing your FAQs and policing your wiki, or someone who wants proofreading for your memoirs, give me a call at (415) 827-5630.

This has seemed obvious to me for years, and I just can’t find anyone who does it.  A full-service business that puts a 3D rendering of your business onto Google Earth.  That program was all the rage, and is still pretty cool, and allows users to submit 3D renderings of famous buildings, etc.  The obvious part is the amount of traffic that will come inherent to any random dude who puts a crappy version of his house on there–in a few minutes you can put a box on there, call it your house, and everyone who looks at your city from then on will see a giant 3 dimensional box called Colin’s house.  It seems, with so little oversight, one could easily springboard a basic knowledge of CAD, etc. into posting people’s businesses onto Google Earth.  So someone would hire me to come out, measure their business, possibly with nothing more than a tape measure and a GPS in hand, and then render it beautifully in Google Sketchup.  It’s a precise enough skill that there’s an inherent barrier to entry, so they can’t just call the architect who did their house and have him save his CAD file in Google Sketchup format any cheaper than I can do it.  So call me, people, and I’ll launch this business.  One SWOT benefit of mine is that I already have multiple employees with solid CAD experience (now being used to render blueprints, etc. at my shop.)  (415) 827-5630.

Thump!
“Based on the Caldecott Award winning kids’ book, the new qubo series My Friend Rabbit chronicles the wide-eyed adventures of Rabbit, his best friend Mouse, and a group of other colorful characters from across the animal kingdom. As Mouse says, Rabbit means well…but somehow just can’t avoid getting into sticky situations! But if they work together, they can solve each dilemma with ingenuity, creativity and, most of all, friendship.”  This show plays on Saturday mornings on qubo and on ION during the week, and the main character, the loving Rabbit, screams “Thump!” whenever he has a good idea or other cause for interjection.

Anyone like this idea, or have any suggested words?  Fetch!, fiddlesticks!, shazaam!, zargles!, …?