I have been seeing prospecting pages with videos of people talking about how great their program is and how I should just enter my name and address to be sent information valued at $198.99. Hey, with about a week’s worth of time I could make a two minute video also… but I can also type just as fast as I think so I’d really rather give out the best information I can and hope that people read it. I was also thinking that I am really old (45) and that people really aren’t interested in seeing my non-photogenic face. If I had abs of steel, perhaps I could go on camera shirtless and get some attention… but if I went on camera shirtless now people would run for their lives.
I also really kind of wonder if I have anything unique to say. I think I know stuff that might be helpful, but there are so many people out there saying stuff they think they know, how do I know that my stuff is better than theirs? Well, one thing, I am really, really old (remember-45) and I have done stuff. I have been professionally employed for 26 years. I started out programming 6502 assembly language for Apple II computers in 1984, creating editors and compilers, and writing code that ran on programmable controllers in robotic plants. Yes, in fact, there was computerized robots and machines back in 1984. I moved on to writing ‘C’ language by 1986, then taught myself AS/400, RPG/400, APPC in 1988. An AS/400 is a midrange computer created by IBM, previously called Silverlake. It replaced the System 38 in 1989. I wrote banking software at the time.
I moved on to business software in 1989, working first for Pansophic Systems, then SSA when Computer Associates purchased Pansophic Systems in October of that year. I wrote software for personal computers and the AS/400 to communicate between computers. In 1993, I went to work for a consulting company to modify business software. I was a consultant off and on (mostly on) until 2003. In 1997 I went to work for J.D. Edwards, purchased by Peoplesoft and then Oracle… but I have worked on Oracle’s JDE EnterpriseOne (One World) product since 1997.
I started back to college in 2002. I had received my AAS as a Systems Analyst in 1984, but I started my Bachelor’s Degree in 2002, finishing it up in 2005. After a break I started taking classes towards my MBA, finishing it in 2009.
Among all of my career accomplishments, I have accomplishments in my personal business life. In 1989 I began learning about mail order marketing, trying a few different things. In 1990, I learned about multi-level marketing and applied what I knew about mail order to it. With life being so busy by 1992, I gave up on the idea of having my own business until 1997, when we learned about the weight-loss dietary supplement and I began using web pages to promote the product. Although we gave up our personal web activities by 2002, I continued programming in HTML and ASP for my employer. I haven’t used perl since probably 2000 though, and I miss programming server-side code.
I took a long break from personal business, but I was really busy and I needed time to cope with the loss. What I had done in my career helped my business, and what I did for my business helped my career. In 26 years, I have learned so much about business, life, and technology, and I really hope I can pass it along. This blog is my attempt to capture what I know and share it.
So I really don’t want to make a video. I’m not selling snake oil.
Since I originally wrote this article, I have made a couple of videos and have posted them on my YouTube site. What a hypacrite!?!?!?
I just tried Facebook Live over the last couple of days and it is so easy to use. Why would you want to use it? Because when you do, you are producing a video of yourself, but you also get feedback from people who watch. You can customize your message and respond to questions. I will bet you are wondering how to do Facebook Live…