Presenting and Sweating

Had to do a presentation today. My armpits sweat a bit. Much like the good days in high school. Except now I do it for a living, and get paid a lot for doing it.

Ah, gotta love it.

Not so popular

PRESIDENT BUSH'S approval ratings - ouch

Source: WSJ

Weeks Bridge Photo

A photograph I recently took of rowers going under the Weeks bridge in Harvard

Deal... or no Deal

Did you know it utilizes the concept known in statistics as expected value? (common notation: e(x))

The expected value of the game - that is, if we were to play this game over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, until the last case, we would come realize that the average gains would equal about $131,477.539 dollars





So if you're ever playing the game and you get to the point where you're above this amount, consider yourself lucky as you're winning. If you're under, the house is winning.

Simple, yet not so simple

New beginnings: A focus on focusing

I've been thinking about what I'd like to do my blog about and I just can't come up with an original insight.

So, I've decided to try and focus on writting about possible business ideas or just my general comments on different types of bussinesses.

I will write indiscrimentaly though, so no matter how silly the idea might be I will be posted here.

Here's a thought, for example:

• I already run a different webpage and I've started using Google AdSense. So far, the first month made me $20. If I had at least 3 webpages just as succesful, that'd pocket me $60 a month... Which is a heftly $720 bucks a year!
• The webpage I'm using as an example is all in spanish though. Spanish speaking countries, such as the one where I come from, are behind in technological advances (read internet) If I crated an english version of the site I am sure I could get more than that (current site stats: 150 visits per day, 2,000 pageviews)
  

I'm into photography so one of the sites could sell cheap photographs with a semi-pro quality of just about anything (panoramas, city scapes from my travels, maybe even a few random corporate if I put myself into it)

I need to do more research about this, and procrastinate less (which is my biggest problem) and see if I can put up-to-date a few sites and pocket some extra money.

In the meantime, it doesn't hurt to write down all these thoughts so that I don't dish them for some quality guitar playing time.

Note: Information above is only revenue. Doesn't take into account any expenses or opportunity costs

some spare change and a sense of belonging

There's a guy outside the Trader Joe's that I shop at (don't really know if he's homeless, but my guess would be he is) who sells the a newspaper under the ‘Spare Change’ name.

I’m not sure the newspaper is called Spare Change itself, but the idea is that you give him some spare change and you get this newspaper/newsletter instead (talk about Bartering)

He’s not a very strong salesman, and is always saying in a very monotone voice ‘Pleeeease buy the latest issue. Pleeease buy the latest issue. Support the homeless. Pleeease buy the latest issue’ (so never mind my comment before; he is probably homeless)

Yesterday night I stopped by to get some sushi and decided to get 10 dollars cash back after my grocery purchases. I rolled the ten, stepped outside and tried to hand it to the guy.

‘Here you go my friend’

I expected to walk away right after that, but he insisted on giving me one of the issues. I said, no thanks, keep it, but he insisted.

‘I have two different issues. Oh, wait, this one is from last week. Which one did you say you wanted? Wait okay, here, take this one’

And so I did.

As I walked away, I realized how I could have offended him by giving him money and not taking his newspaper. I realized he probably feels accomplished when he gets money from selling and issue. I know I probably would.

So, in retrospective, I realized how important it is to be a part of (or feel a part of) of something that we think as greater than ourselves… or maybe not greater, but just be a part of something… and yesterday I was glad I made the Spare Change guy feel that he was being a part of something.

10,000 and a fresh start

So, say you're given $10,000 USD.

What would you invest the money in?

I'm looking for ideas to invest some money I stole, uhm, I mean, earned

Suggestions are welcome

P.S: I'm talking investments outside the Street... sorry, finance gurus

Wal-Mart's leverage on major CPG companies...

Scary...

Google Adsense and YTD Results

YTD Adsense earnings for Google Adsense:


It's only been half a month (NOTE: the earnings are NOT for this website, it's a different website I run in spanish... so don't feel like you're being robbed, but please, be kind, click the google links on the right)

So far there's a trend that's very apparent... I wish I would get more on impressions and less on just clicks, since my visitors are very inefficient when it comes down to clicking on every single ad they see and they tend to do so at about 1 per every 100 ads

What do you guys do to increase your earnings on your site?

Update: What I've been reading lately

Forgivness I ask to my avid readers (yes, all three of you, including myself and my girlfriend) for not updating this more often.

I've been reading what has been thus far a very basic book on strategy and game theory, called 'Thinking Strategically: The competitive Edge in Business, Politics and Everyday Life' by Avinash K. Dixit and Barry J. Nalebuff.

Strolling down Harvard square I found this book at the Harvard Bookstore... With such a title, how could anyone resist to read this?

A lot of times the most obvious things written concisely and eloquently are what I find the most useful. So if you were to get anything from this book (and I quote), I'd recommend you to get this (and some of it is a bit out of context, but it's still valuable)

"...The strategic insight is that other people's actions tell us something about what they know, and we should use such information to guide our own action"

Print it, frame it, and hang it.