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1198 days ago
Please change your bookmarks/RSS feeds to point at http://lagesse.org. It's much more fun over there - really! Rob
1200 days ago
After a lengthy chat tonight with someone I respect, I have some questions for you. Is it really important that we have a physical space for "The Learning Locker" or could a similar idea work on the web? Basically think of an Amazon-like site (or maybe even THROUGH Amazon) where teachers could go and order material. Is that less useful? Or just as useful? The costs of maintaining a physical store and staff would eat into the product we could supply teachers. It's overhead that would be hard to avoid. I can't think of a real reason for a physical presence now that I have been offered this alternative. Would need some central office somewhere to mange things, but beyond that everything could be cyber-based. Get shippers like FedEx and UPS to ship free. Partner with an existing company with on online store to fill the orders - just build a specific portal for the teachers. Maybe at this point we don't even partner with individual companies - we seek funding from ...
1200 days ago
For those looking for an update: I spent most of the morning stealing text educating myself on the available material on the Internet. Hopefully I can update the WiKi Business Plan in the next day or so. I've been mentally focused on trying to get companies to donate material for this project, but I also realize I will need cash donations as well. Even non-profits have to pay utilities, etc. I've started talking with a couple of large retailers about partnerships where they do both. This takes time. And persistence. I find they are all generally and seemingly genuinely interested. But I've test driven a lot of cars I didn't buy, and I've heard a lot of business pitches I didn't invest in. I still need help with a lot of stuff - especially getting the work out - the more people that know what I am trying to do, the better chance I find someone that can help! A local network-affiliated station has offered to give me some air time - either in the nightly news, on a ...
1201 days ago
I was just preparing myself to commit this blog to The Learning Locker and avoid other topics... but I found out tonight that an ex co-worker has passed away, and I can't not share my emotions. Jerry Lusk was a talented programmer. I've met a lot of those. But Jerry was also a wonderfully kind human being - the kind I always hoped to be. If one of my employees approached him about a "bug" he would say, "OK, I probably f*cked" up". And he worked with my team to find out the root cause, and he did it gracefully and without an ego and he just "got it" that QA and Development were not enemies - we were a team. Jerry was probably the programmer that most understood this, and didn't ever make my team feel like we were "tattling on him". if we found a bug. He assumed we knew what we were talking about. He assumed he was human, and fallible. He just wanted to find the bug, and fix the bug, and he appreciated us finding it before a ...
1201 days ago
I spent the day walking uphill, on a treadmill, into a headwind. That's what it felt like anyway. It is difficult to get people to understand exactly what I am proposing - so I'll work on putting together a written presentation in the next few days. I really need help with the business plan though 0- so any of you that have experience in writing business plans (especially for a non-profit) please feel free to help - the Business plan WiKi is located here, and it's really easy to go and spend 5 minutes or five hours updating it. There is not much of anything there yet - I've been spending my time doing what I think I am better at - talking to people :). I know the business plan is important, so I'll devote some time to it as soon as I can - but I could really use help! Speaking of help - are any of you graphic designers and want to take a stab at a logo and/or banner for The Learning Locker? As soon as I find a host for the web site I'll go live, and your logo could be the ...
