Behind the Scenes at Blogrlab
by blogrdoc
I’ve got a three day weekend starting today. I’m hoping to make some progress on two other experiments (#2 and #3). I’ve got a 10′oclock meeting at Starbucks to make $65 for experiment #1.
Experiment #2 will be an online mistakes database. I’m hoping for everyone around the world to pour in their life’s goofs where my team will apply emotionless, scientific analysis of these mistakes, life regrets, and failure modes so that we, as a human race, can get smarter. Ridiculous idea? It’s a whopper, allright.
Experiment #3 will need to be kept under wraps for a while. The leg-work required for Experiment #3 is huge. Please don’t ask me about it, because I really don’t want to elaborate on it right now. Lemme just say that it’s an invention. I’ve done the patent search for it. Though it looks promising, I’m not ruling out that prior-art will be a show-stopper; so I’m cautiously marching on. I’m 99% sure that if I told you what it was, you’d be un-impressed. Aside from intellectual property concerns, I think that might be why I don’t want to talk about it! I don’t need any discouragement!
On my way home from work a month ago, I picked up some off the shelf items at Target and The Container Store to kludge together to make a prototype. I need to go to Home Depot today to rent some tools. Once I get the prototype together, I can start testing it and see if my idea has legs.
Is this guy, for real, or what? Is he serious?
I’m as serious as a heart attack. I feel that I’ve got about 4-5 years to make something happen in my life. After that, my motivation for doing stuff like this will dramatically deteriorate, I suspect. My vision is for one of these experiments to take off. There will obviously be failures, so that’s why I’m trying multiple things. Experiment 1 already has positive cash flow for the other experiments, but obviously - experiment #1 is just a stepping stone.
In all my previous posts, I’ve laid out for you the mind-hacks and analytical techniques which drive me forward, albeit at a plodding pace. You will notice, however, that I have yet to post much in my ‘Results’ section of this blog. Ultimately, this will reflect the effectiveness of these techniques, at least for my case. I should add that this is what irks me about blogs, in general. There’s all this advice that is given, but no feed-back loop that indicates if any of it is worth anything. Many of the ideas that I present, admittedly, are in ‘beta’. I have no idea if they will be useful and actually derive results. I know they get results in my profession as an engineer on the manufacturing line, but can they be used to systematically drive entrepreneurial efforts?
Acknowledgements
Much thanks to Sam Crockett for introducing me to Drupal, which appears to be an optimal platform for the Online Mistakes Database. One of Drupal’s taglines is ‘Community Plumbing’. True story: my dream job as a child was to become a plumber. As a chemical engineer, I’m already a high-tech plumber, of sorts. Maybe this is a sign.
Much thanks to all readers, especially Alik Levin, whose blog I stumbled on months ago. Upon reading just a few of his posts, I said to myself: this is a guy who gets stuff done.
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10 Responses to “Behind the Scenes at Blogrlab”
By Rx4Life.info on Mar 28, 2008 | Reply
#2 sounds promising.
I’m sure #3 will be revolutionary. Good luck! Funny, because I also got an idea for an invention 2 weeks ago. Any good websites on where to start?
By blogrdoc on Mar 28, 2008 | Reply
@Rx4Life.info,
Here’s a link for patent search:
http://www.uspto.gov/patft/
Another excellent resource is my book on how to convert your inventions to reality and make millions. You will need to wait until I actually do these things, however, and then write about it. :)
By Alik on Mar 28, 2008 | Reply
Can i have a signed copy of the book when it is out? LOL!
Thanks for nice words, BTW.
I am looking forward to seeing your reflection on effectiveness of your experiments.
I see you reverse engineer your professional life techniques into entrepreneur life – correct me if I am wrong. That is too cool, that is my current approach too, in fact I am writing a post on this right now.
When reflecting on the effectiveness please reflect on efficiency too. The results will be there – no doubt, but how “easy” you got it? I think ROI is key.
By AJC @ 7million7years on Mar 28, 2008 | Reply
Hey Doc,
#2 sounds good, but you don’t want any ’scientific editorial staff’ … what you want are ‘guest posters’ (i.e. anybody who is willing to submit a ‘mistake’) and you want some ‘commenters’ who will provide the analysis and feedback for free … sounds like a blog to me, or perhaps a Social Network of some sort (I have a small team working on one of these right now in Ruby On Rails).
Good Luck.
PS of course, you can’t tell ANYONE (except under NDA) about #3 because then it is in the Public Domain and, by definition, unpatentable!
AJC.
By blogrdoc on Mar 28, 2008 | Reply
@Alik: I like to think of it more along the lines of ‘transcending’ my profession :) I seem to be cursed in that every penny I earn is not easy. With that metric, I do not expect to be successful in the short run.
@AJC: Thanks for the warning about the IP issues. I’ll definitely keep my mouth shut. I’ve got a big mouth, so it won’t be easy for me :)
By Shilpan | successsoul.com on Mar 29, 2008 | Reply
On Mistakes, remember that word means mis-takes !
Ask any sound recorder and you will find answer.
Artists often sing several times before they hear word “final”. Those variations in between were takes that help improve the song. Makes sense ?
There are no failures as Tony Robbins says, there are only different ways to do things.
BTW, I like your blog. I just subscribed. I’d love to have you join my blog.
Please take a look and see if it is worthy.
http://www.successsoul.com/blog/
Happy blogging.
By blogrdoc on Mar 30, 2008 | Reply
@Shilpan: thanks for checking me out and subscribing. I just checked out your blog. I’m fairly impressed actually with the way it’s laid out.
I have to disagree with Tony Robbin’s statement. ‘different ways to do things’ in many cases, will yield different quantifiable results. On the other hand, Tony Robbins is one massively successful person, so I he’s obviously on to something!
By Sam Crockett on Mar 31, 2008 | Reply
I’m really interested to see how experiment #2 takes off. It’s often hard to analyze our own failures without emotions interfering with the process.
And good luck on #3. Just getting something started is often the hardest part.
Oh, and thanks for the reference!
By blogrdoc on Mar 31, 2008 | Reply
@sam:np about the ref. I’m actually going to have to scale back my blogging activity to work more on the mistakesdb.