America's First Female Millionaire

America's first female millionaire was a African-American, lived in Indianapolis, and should be better known than she is.

The good news is that she is getting some overdue credit for her accomplishments.  A 2014 story in TIME Magazine was recently mentioned on Reddit (which is where I found it mentioned.)

The difficulties she faced: sexism and racism among them, make the trivial setbacks and challenges I have faced in my entrepreneurial journey seem insignificant. 

Madame C. J. Walker was born on December 23, 1867 to parents who were former slaves.  She made her fortune in the hair care products business. The building where she operated in Indianapolis is still there as a testament to her success.  I've visited it often as a volunteer with Business Ownership Initiative to help other entrepreneurs succeed.

She developed a sales agent program, leveraged the power of black media (in 1890!) and developed a multi-level marketing system BEFORE AMWAY!

A black mom, widowed at 20, she was making $1.50/day as a washerwoman when she came up with the idea for a hair tonic that helped her stop losing her hair.

Her brilliant marketing strategy was founded on sharing her success with her sales agents. Not only generous, but motivating. She created a source of philanthropy that has lasted for over 125 years!

Tesla as an inventor

Odd that I came across this quote from Tesla's autobiography by scanning tech news (on Reddit) and stumbling upon the National Governor's Association video of the governor of Nevada's introduction of Elon Musk.  Despite having written a lengthy introduction (he said) he simply quoted Nikola Tesla's Autobiography.

"The progressive development of man is vitally dependent on invention. It is the most important product of his creative brain. Its ultimate purpose is the complete mastery of mind over the material world, the harnessing of the forces of nature to human needs. This is the difficult task of the inventor who is often misunderstood and unrewarded. But he finds ample compensation in the pleasing exercises of his powers and in the knowledge of being one of that exceptionally privileged class without whom the race would have long ago perished in the bitter struggle against pitiless elements. . . ."

Those words so succinctly describe the life of the inventor.  "Unrewarded genius" (in the words of Calvin Coolidge, except that the rewards are the kind of joy one receives from discovery.  Such is the construction of man that shear discovery is ample reward for years of toil.

There is a great cautionary tale included Musk's remarks about Artificial Intelligence.  Worth watching just for that.  Start about here.

What the brain is good for

I've been thinking about the brain and what a marvelous machine it is.  How did humans evolve such a powerful brain?  We don't have the largest brains in the animal word.  Even as a proportion of our body size, the human brain doesn't exceed that of some birds (where you will find a fascinating article debunking human brain myths.)

Brain size doesn't seem to matter for intelligence.  My wife is much smarter than I am despite the fact that women have, on average, smaller brains.

My recent fascination with brain function was due to an insight I made about what the brain does best: pattern recognition. This skill is at the forefront of computer science progress and is responsible for speech and facial recognition, the dominance of computers over humans in games like chess and go, medical diagnosis, technological unemployment, matchmaking, learning and music composition.

My thesis is that brains evolved to optimize pattern recognition - and they did so spectacularly.  I believe it was accidental in the way that all evolution is accidental.  It may have begun by detecting light and dark and eyes were born.  The ability to detect and ultimately discern smells, touch, sounds and taste gave us an evolutionary edge.  Then we developed motor skills to impact our environment. At one point, I believe, the pattern recognition became responsible for memory and ultimately consciousness.

All this is pure speculation and I wish I had time to research the subject more completely.  Perhaps a train ride to the West will afford the opportunity. 

Rotary invocation, October 25, 2016

Rotary Invocation

October 25, 2016

Good Will & Better Friendships

Every week we recite the Rotary 4 Way Test.  #3 is “Do the things we think say or do build good will and better friendships?”

Wow!  This election season has put a real strain on thinking about good will and better friendships between large numbers of us hasn’t it?  How can we fix that?

Sharing Rotary service projects, like Indy Do Day, bring people together.  Coming to our club meetings, where we hear from community leaders like our speaker Matt Gutwein and the good work he does at Health & Hospital Corp, when we share a common purpose and contribute to helping people, we are also sharing how we understand the world.  When you open yourself up to other people they see you on their side, not the other side, working towards a common goal.

  

The foundation of understanding is listening.  We need to listen more and talk less.  Look where talking heads have gotten us.  Challenge yourself to listen to a diversity of opinions.  Listening only to people who agree with you may validate your beliefs and make you feel smarter, but rarely uncovers the truth.

We are not so different.

1.2 million Rotarians all want to eliminate polio, doesn’t the whole world want to eliminate diseases and suffering? I believe we share many common goals: We want our children, our neighborhoods, and our planet to be healthy.  We want to keep the promises we made to the last generation and we make to the next.  We want our communities to prosper and every student to be above average.

When this election season ends – and it can’t end soon enough in my view – we Americans can hopefully begin working together again, listening to each other rather than the talking heads, and focusing on common goals and solving the problems we all care about.  Hopefully, we can be more mindful of our Rotary pledge to make all the things we think say or do build good will and better friendships.

Maker Spaces getting attention Inside INdiana Business!

I was interviewed by Gerry Dick on his television program: Inside INdiana Business.  We talked about how our 1st Maker Space business aims to put shop class back in schools!  Lots of fun as you can tell.

My calendar

Having too many meetings and appointments is a byproduct of curiosity, connections and commercial intent.  I like the buzz and the beer.  But my days are packed and they don't give me much time to reflect or think.  I understand it's a trade-off.

Sometimes I share the analogy with friends that my calendar is like a well played, but losing game of Tetris.  'Well played' because there is very little unfilled space.  'Losing' because the column is filled to the top and the game is over.

Here are the images that reflect both.

Get the picture?

Could Women Be Trusted With Their Own Pregnancy Tests?

I loved this story which appeared in the NYT today about the woman who invented the home pregnancy test.  Unrecognized, uncompensated and disrespected for decades...she finally got the credit she was due.

Margaret Crane, 1965.

Why did society make laws to prevent women from performing such tests?  What was the logic - other than exercising some power over an entire gender?  Much the same as slavery but 'gentler.'

Rotary Invocation

May 2, 2016

Shared Hope

Kim Brand

I can’t believe I’m giving the invocation on Primary Day 2016 during what will be remembered as one of the most notorious campaign seasons of the 21^st Century!  At least, I hope it stands out – because I never want it to happen again!

Here’s what I think is worth talking about in an invocation on a day like today: shared hope – or what politicians would call the ‘hope gap.’

We may have entered a time in our nation’s history when nothing is shared less than hope.  You hear about income inequality.  You hear about immigration.  You hear about terrorism.  You hear about resurgent racism, international tensions, exploding debt, and economic uncertainty.  We witness unprecedented dysfunction in Washington.  What is the link between these maladies?

I believe we are suffering from the lack of shared hope and too many of us have lost confidence in the belief that for them tomorrow will be better.

Have we forgotten that to be hopeful is uniquely human?  Do we not all hope for peace? For the success of our children? To be treated with respect? For health and prosperity? Can’t we at least share those hopes?

More than losing our status in the world, more than ‘losing,’ more than the other party winning the Whitehouse, we should fear the loss of shared hope.  Shared hope is the binding that once tied our country together, forged a powerful nation and was the source of our prosperity.

Being an American endows us with a special kind of hopefulness.  The ability to work together, to overcome problems, to look beyond differences and to see a brighter future.  The measure of America’s greatness will not be in a budget or trade surplus, or military power – it will be in the ability of all Americans to hope again.

How do we do that?  Turn off the TV.  Surround yourself with optimists and push back on negative talk when you hear it.  Be prepared with positive facts - look for positive news and you’ll find it.  Allow inspiration into your life – from wherever you can find it; whether it’s a purposeful walk in the woods or a raucous service on Sunday morning.  

Be an actor not an audience member.  Practice Service above self – Rotary is a great way to share hopefulness.  Hope is a source of strength that is multiplied when shared.  Share your hope with someone when you have it – share theirs when you don’t.

The hope gap may be a tool politicians use to sell fear and mistrust.  Don’t buy it.  Find someone to share your hopes and dreams with today.

Anyone can have a life changing idea

This video should be presented at every art, business, engineering and medical school.  It should be posted to every entrepreneur blog. For anyone who thinks that they are not 'good' or 'smart' enough to have the next great/transformative idea.  This brief talk pushes back and says: YOU CAN.  DO IT NOW!

News Porn

It seems to me that much of the growing antipathy in the nation is borne from irrational fear of anyone who disagrees with someone else's beliefs.  This applies to the fear of 'black thugs' by 'white people,' apostates by believers, conservatives by liberals, etc.  The fear ranges across all dimensions of needs and desires: life, health, wealth, liberty, security, family, lifestyle, power, heritage, etc.

I think if people were thinking rationally we wouldn't have this frenzied maelstrom.  But once triggered, an irrational response is immune from rational engagement.  I fear we now have hundreds of millions of people around the world caught in this irrational 'avalanche' racing towards some apocalypse.  Isn't that what caused the world wars, genocides, atrocities?

How do you reason with the unreasonable? Ideologues, bigots, idiots, ultra-partisans?  There are only a few of them and their numbers could be offset by the mostly sane.  But what if the media has the power to convert the sane into the insane?  Reasonable into unreasonable?  Exaggerating threats, impacts, causes, effects for profit or power; exploiting human tendencies to overreact, disproportionate response or simply intellectually lazy evaluation?

Is the media the difference?  Four TV channels and one newspaper attenuated the news to what could fit, sell advertising motivated by simple commerce and meet broadcast standards.  But now echo chambers have replaced journalism.

Are we teaching kids how to consume media?  We have restrictions on porn - is this 'news porn?'

Thinking about the JA Spark Career Fair

A note I sent to the CEO of EmployIndy regarding the JA Spark Career Fair planned for September, 2016.

I can’t help thinking that career clusters are (or will be) obsolete.

Who would have predicted IT for me when I graduated Purdue with an engineering degree?  But I took a test in high school that did predict I would be good at programming.  Maybe I was analytical.  Liked problem solving.  I also liked risk.  I could have joined the risk taking entrepreneur tech startup cluster if one existed J

Does EmployIndy do any kind of testing like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_Interest_Inventory.  The modern version is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holland_Codes

I really liked this explanation of how people pick careers – and just how old the problem of finding a place for yourself in the world is.

In "The Holland Codes," a letter or code stands for a particular "type." Psychologist John L. Holland originally labeled his six types as: "motoric, intellectual, esthetic, supportive, persuasive, and conforming."^[2] He later developed and changed them to: Realistic (Doers), Investigative (Thinkers), Artistic (Creators), Social (Helpers), Enterprising (Persuaders), and Conventional (Organizers)."^[6] Professor John Johnson of Penn State suggested that an alternative way of categorizing the six types would be through ancient social roles: "hunters (Realistic), shamans (Investigative), artisans (Artistic), healers (Social), leaders (Enterprising), and lorekeepers (Conventional)."^[7]

I think the whole cluster idea is wrong – those are assemblies of jobs.  The jobs are what someone is interested in doing.  Maybe there should be leadership, inventing, making things, working outdoors, problem solving, stress averse, helping people, art.  You can be in construction but be in HR – more like a helper than a builder.  I also think it is naive to reduce the range of human interests into eight or so government/economic job clusters.  There are lots more type of jobs, there will be many that go away (say radiologists,) some you can’t predict will emerge (like app developer in 1975) and one-offs.

Randomness, Leverage & Networking

In a recent conversation with a young entrepreneur I was asked about the word(s) I would recommend that he study.  I came up with three in a minute or so.

Randomness: Accepting the brutal reality of knowing your influence on events may be outdone by forces beyond your control.  This knowledge requires stoic resolution to accept that despite your best efforts the goal will not be achieved.  But: progress may just as likely be favored by these same random forces.  Roll with it.

Leverage: To make progress quickly with little or no power you need to create an amplifier.  Look for them - they are a gift of nature the way a natural amphitheater allows a voice to be heard 100 yards away.  Usually you need to trade risk for reward the way mechanics converts velocity for power. Entrepreneurship is the craft of leveraging ideas into movements.

Networking: All success flows from the impact of ideas on people.  People tend to share ideas within their tribes - social networks. The goal of an entrepreneur is to spread an idea among tribes using the natural tendency of the members of that tribe to communicate.  The influence of an entrepreneur is thus leveraged by the interconnections within these networks.

Another Rotary Invocation - December 2015

Rotary invocation 12/1/2015

The world seems to be coming apart at the seams.  Every day brings stories about violence, corruption, disharmony and polarization.

The news media gets paid to bring stories like these into our living rooms and to the front page of our newspapers.  Mobile consumers have this unhappiness delivered continuously to their devices a dozen or more times a day.  Bad news today travels even faster than it did when my mom warned me fifty years ago that bad news travels fast.

With this tsunami of tragedy, even the most hopeful soul could feel down by the end of the day.

Today is December 1st.  The beginning of the Holiday Season celebrated around the world by three great religions and over half the Earth’s population.  A time of joy and hope we need throughout the year but especially now.

If you are person of faith, you have these happy holidays to celebrate.

• Christians celebrate Christmas – the birthday of Jesus
• Jews celebrate Hanukkah – the Festival of Lights and Feast of Dedication
• Muslims celebrate Mawlid an-Nabi – the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad

I propose that rather than wait for January 1st to make a new year’s resolution, you make one right now to seek out and find good news every.  It will make you more optimistic, creative and energetic; even less stressful.  Doctors say it will improve your immune system!  Think of the impact on your love life!

And when you hear about polarization between peoples or politicians, I want you to think about this kind of polarization - North Polar-ization!  We can all agree that this time of year is enjoyed most by children who dream happy thoughts of gifts and giving.  We should pay more attention to them than the news.

Statistics inscrutable to Americans

This article (Politics and the New Machine) which appeared in the 11/16/15 New Yorker magazine, presented very troubling evidence that the polls with which Americans seem so fascinated are at best untrustworthy and at worst a fraud perpetrated on us by pollsters who know they don't represent electoral views.  Even worse, they may actually be corrupting the very purpose of the electoral process.

Americans are obsessed with simple measures which purport to represent complex phenomena.  To wit:

• IQ
• Credit Score
• GPA
• BMI
• SAT/ACT Scores
• Age
• Zip Code
• AGI (Adjusted Gross Income)

We don't have time for details.  We aren't interested in stories, just summaries and aggregates.

The convenience of a number trumps the work required to understand what it really represents and its potential irrelevance to an individual case.  The statistic belies the assumptions, trade-offs, biases and prejudices.

Big data gives us the ability to collect more information, but humans can't process it anyway.  Get ready for more approximations.

Selfishness or misunderstanding? The state of education today

I read Doug Stowe's Wisdom of the Hands blog often and am always inspired by his thoughtfulness.

Doug is an educator and woodworker in Arkansas and amateur education policy historian.  This week he wrote a blog post which explains a turning point in vocational education policy evolution...well worth the read!

Here is my response to his post...

I presented our vision for an Indiana Advanced Manufacturing Certification (IAM-Cert) credential to about 25 students at Atterbury Job Corps on Thursday.

Young men and women enrolled there are learning trades at this residential facility in central Indiana constructed as an internment camp during World War II and repurposed to offer vocational training to students for whom 'regular school' didn't work.

Construction & building trades at Atterbury are promoted as a pathway to secure employment, good wages and a higher quality of life.

It is ironic that very few students today are encouraged to pursue a career in Manual and Industrial Arts when the pride and satisfaction of making things so obviously leads to a 'virtuous cycle' of learning and improving one's skill and value.

I found Doug's post today recounting a key turning point in the evolution of our current education system very interesting; particularly with respect to the political compromises between the two powerful forces of industry and labor.

Today, the education industry, supported by a $73B federal DOE budget, and state budgets which in Indiana account for 63% of state spending, represent a third powerful constituency.  Nobody should be surprised that it has incredible influence over policy.

How then did Industry, Labor and Education allow the state of our schools to veer so far from what works? Was it complicity or incompetence? Selfishness or a simple misunderstanding?

More importantly, how can we change the status quo?  I'd like to help.

Fire starter or tender?

There are a continuum of jobs in this world.  Like snowflakes or fingerprints - no two are the same.

But there are categories and within them are starters and finishers.  I've always been a starter.  I love to think about the possibilities and like a bridegroom focus on the excitement of a new life together with my bride - a fresh idea.

But life is not an endless honeymoon.  The birth of a child leads to an existence which is mostly less effervescent in emotion than those first few days.  Somehow regulation and order move in to replace excitement, reality replaces possibility.

In business this notion is one of creation vs execution.  You need both, but it is widely regarded that owners and investors are better served by a good executioner than a creationer.

That's where I struggle.

At this age I'm reconciled to enjoy the start-up phase and do my best there.  Recognizing that's not for everyone means there are executioners that love the fulfilment of the dream more than the dreaming.  Good for them!

With my latest venture: 1stmakerspace.com, I hope to assemble a team with all the talents optimised for each stage and need of the business.  People do best what they love - shouldn't a start-up be filled with lovers of what they do?

An idea to share wealth

I'm an entrepreneur and believe ambition, investment, creativity, risk taking and hard work are elements of a personal success strategy.  There is no magic formula - and my friends know I believe LUCK and TIMING are the most important contributors to business success - but over time those five attributes will help start and grow a business.

So how do we share this success formula with more people?

I believe growing your network and learning from other entrepreneurs are critical too.  Home grown businesses may not be as flashy, but small businesses employ more people and can elevate more employees to employers.  As a society, how do we create more employment, self reliance and prosperity?  My answer: help more people start and run successful businesses.

Government programs can be useful, but my idea is for neighborhood businesses to help neighbors who want to start a business by contributing the capital and knowledge it takes to get a business off the ground.  With a tax break targeting those investments, businesses who are motivated to help a local entrepreneur can make a contribution to their success both financially and with nurturing advice, networking connections and tough love when needed.

Not every business will succeed.  But with a competent adviser who has skin in the game and the entrepreneur's interests at heart the odds will be much better.  The neighborhood wins.  If the new business fails - hopefully it will result in lessons learned and without the crippling debt and impact on credit scores that can happen when personal credit lines are stretched and then break.

If the business succeeds, the profits will be shared with investors and perhaps can be sheltered from income tax for a while to sweeten the deal.  Hopefully, a virtuous cycle will begin and generations of prosperous business owners will transform a neighborhood, a city or our country - just like they always have.

Notable 1st Maker Space media

We've been so busy developing the 1st Maker Space business that I haven't had a chance to post here.  The VR vs R post just written was the exception.

We've had some great press in the local media I wanted to share.  Maybe Blogger counts for something in the SEO world.

Pioneer in 3D printing has high hopes for education startup

My grandson being interviewed by Jared Council, a reporter with the IBJ.  Ethan, 9 years old, is explaining how 3D printers work.

Parts we made at the Tech HS 1st Maker Space

Students use 3-D Technology to turn ideas into reality

Rocket sled students made at the Eastern Hancock County 3D Design and Printing Summer Camp

Someday, every school with have a maker space!

The problem with virtual reality

As a member of the 'maker' community I'd like to reflect on why reality is better than virtual reality.

True, programming for apps is all the rage.  Code.org, among other organizations, like Eleven Fifty here in Indianapolis, make the case that every child should learn computer science.  I did.  Coding is cool.  It allows you to control a little machine, which, can be connected to a large machine, the Internet or even a human being.  These little machines are cheap and the software is free.  Learning to code requires study, concentration and cleverness.  What's not to love?

The problem I see is that these little virtual worlds don't have to interact with the real world.  The real world - reality - is a far more complicated place than manufactured worlds.  How do I know this?  Just try to make something.

Drilling holes, assembling components, building anything forces you to interact in a reality zone where inconvenient facts intersect with your ideal design.  Ninety degrees becomes 89.5 degrees.  Parallel isn't.  Attachments and joints wiggle.  Inertial effects impose themselves when gravity and motion affect structures.  Algebra turns into calculus.

Problems may be dismissed or their effects postponed in a virtual world.  You can ignore tolerances and stacking errors in these ideal places.  Not so in your garage.  Sawing pieces of wood intended to form the sides of a box, (a simple rectangle morphs into a parallelogram,) is humbling.  A craftsman's skill is not earned in a semester at a coding academy.

Coding encapsulates its own reality.  In the virtual world of a micro-controller the 'state-machine' executes instructions with predictable efficiency.  The machines were designed by humans with economy and utility in mind. The goal is to simplify problems and optimize predictability.

Reality, on the other hand, is anything but predictable.  'Making things' as it turns out exposes the designer to a plethora of unexpected problems: material properties, dimensional inconsistencies, variable loads, unanticipated defects, supply issues, finishing, light, shadows, static electricity.  There is no order to these problems because in the real world there is no order to the problems.  That's why it's called the REAL WORLD!

With all due respect to my friends in the software business, you deserve the billions of dollars you make moving bits around to the endless entertainment of consumers hungry for vicarious stimulation.  But as for me, I'd rather be making something.

Photo at Conner Prairie

A spontaneous photo from Conner Prairie, the local, interactive, outdoor museum that partners with our 1st Maker Space program for schools.

I was walking down the hall from our exhibit and saw these young Amish women peering over the mezzanine wall down to the first floor.  It seemed like a paradox of old and new frozen for a moment in time.  Had to share.