The Titans are finally starting Vince Young tomorrow against Dallas, replacing the truly-horrid Kerry Collins at QB. Great move...let the Vince Young era begin!
About a week or two ago, the iTest Board of Directors had a long discussion about whether we should continue to run our student logo-creation contest, our side event where students create logos for the next year's competition from which we select a winner to actually use. I was on the side of continuing to do the contest for the long-term, but am beginning to change my mind.
While the nature of the iTest and the way we implement new features every year - in essence, almost making it an entirely new event every year, to some extent - could call for changing the logo every year, I am beginning to think it may be more powerful and more effective to be able to have a unique visual identifier that stays constant throughout the life of the iTest as an organization.
I got to thinking about this today when I was in Academy Sports and Outdoors with Lori, looking around for some exercise equipment, when I noticed the Nike "swoosh" and got started thinking about what simple symbol the iTest might be able to use like that. I think the "i" in iTest, perhaps with the dot colored like in our current 2006 logo, might be a good fit...
Time to play some Halo. Later.
Saturday, September 30, 2006
Friday, September 22, 2006
"Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer, in the long run, than outright exposure. Life is a daring adventure, or it is nothing."
- Helen Keller
I have had a couple of strangely unrelated conversations recently pertaining to the concept of risk. If you look at anyone who's accomplished anything of note in this world, risk was involved.
People love to stand on the sidelines and criticize risk takers. It happens in countless ordinary situations - a girl taking a chance and violating social norms to ask a guy out, for example - as well as in the most extreme situations, such as a daredevil jumping the Grand Canyon or something. There is no shortage of people ready to line up and ridicule someone who takes a risk, and (gasp) fails.
I'd prefer to use a more established business person as an example, but in this case, let's go young: the guy who created Facebook.com now stands to have more personal wealth than he can possibly ever spend because he went out on a limb and followed his intuition in building the Facebook concept and pursuing a passion. And he's only 22 years old.
I love stories like that. I really enjoy hearing about people pursuing what they enjoy, as it usually ends up successful. On the other hand, people who simply don't get it are cancerous. Negativity is like a virus...it spreads and kills everything it touches.
Of course, you have to love those people who confuse reality with pessimism. Those are absolutely not interchangeable terms. Those people are also to be avoided.
Why not face this world with confidence? We were all put here by God. And for a reason. We were all given unique talents which we use to face the world. We were all given the ability to conquer demons and pass tests in front of us.
The greatest reward I've received for taking on risk was meeting my wife. She is so special and incredible that I can't imagine life without her ... but looking back, it was just one lazy decision (among hundreds) that could've altered the future.
There's another individual I know who is working right now to open up his own bar / restaurant / coffee hangout type of place, and I always make a point to ask him how he's progressing. This is a guy who seems to me to be incredibly determined, so I always know there's progress to hear about. And one day, if that's what's meant to be, I know that will happen for him.
The bottom line point I suppose I'm trying to make here is that there is no one on the face of this planet who should stand in your way of making your dream a reality. It doesn't matter what relationship someone has to you - if they are negative and preventing you from realizing your vision, your aspirations, your great huge super-big plans for the world - then ELIMINATE them from your world, either permanently or temporarily, and get back to being and thinking positively.
You are worth far too much to tolerate interference in living a fulfilling, gratifying life. Take a risk ... and another ... and another ... and one day you'll be wondering how it all got started.
- Helen Keller
I have had a couple of strangely unrelated conversations recently pertaining to the concept of risk. If you look at anyone who's accomplished anything of note in this world, risk was involved.
People love to stand on the sidelines and criticize risk takers. It happens in countless ordinary situations - a girl taking a chance and violating social norms to ask a guy out, for example - as well as in the most extreme situations, such as a daredevil jumping the Grand Canyon or something. There is no shortage of people ready to line up and ridicule someone who takes a risk, and (gasp) fails.
I'd prefer to use a more established business person as an example, but in this case, let's go young: the guy who created Facebook.com now stands to have more personal wealth than he can possibly ever spend because he went out on a limb and followed his intuition in building the Facebook concept and pursuing a passion. And he's only 22 years old.
I love stories like that. I really enjoy hearing about people pursuing what they enjoy, as it usually ends up successful. On the other hand, people who simply don't get it are cancerous. Negativity is like a virus...it spreads and kills everything it touches.
Of course, you have to love those people who confuse reality with pessimism. Those are absolutely not interchangeable terms. Those people are also to be avoided.
Why not face this world with confidence? We were all put here by God. And for a reason. We were all given unique talents which we use to face the world. We were all given the ability to conquer demons and pass tests in front of us.
The greatest reward I've received for taking on risk was meeting my wife. She is so special and incredible that I can't imagine life without her ... but looking back, it was just one lazy decision (among hundreds) that could've altered the future.
There's another individual I know who is working right now to open up his own bar / restaurant / coffee hangout type of place, and I always make a point to ask him how he's progressing. This is a guy who seems to me to be incredibly determined, so I always know there's progress to hear about. And one day, if that's what's meant to be, I know that will happen for him.
The bottom line point I suppose I'm trying to make here is that there is no one on the face of this planet who should stand in your way of making your dream a reality. It doesn't matter what relationship someone has to you - if they are negative and preventing you from realizing your vision, your aspirations, your great huge super-big plans for the world - then ELIMINATE them from your world, either permanently or temporarily, and get back to being and thinking positively.
You are worth far too much to tolerate interference in living a fulfilling, gratifying life. Take a risk ... and another ... and another ... and one day you'll be wondering how it all got started.
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
I remember the day back in March of 2004 when I first conceived of what an online math competition might be like.
On September 16, 2006, I experienced it.
The first two years of the iTest, while successful by any reasonable measure, were not true to the vision of the project. They were temporary stopgaps - a training-wheels version of the real deal.
After the 2005 test suffered some critical typos and received a fair share of criticism, it was back to the drawing board for me. Those first couple of months were difficult, but they were important...I had to re-commit myself to a project that had suddenly soured.
The long-term vision of the company has been to deliver a suite of educational competitions across a variety of subjects all for free, augmenting the US educational system through competition. A unique approach, but one that got us distracted: toying with expansion prevented us from doing what we should've focused on all along...nailing one subject cold before we expand.
So 2006 was like I was having to re-invent the company all over again. The key was to get "back to basics" - eschew designs on artificial growth and get back to real, organic expansion through word-of-mouth built around a core product. And like any good sports team, after a lackluster season, what do you do? Go out and get yourself some new talent.
Enter Thomas Mildorf, the MIT student with a profound gift for dreaming up math questions, and a highly regarded individual among the national math community. He became the 2006 iTest's heavy hitter overnight. I structured an incentive-based deal for him to write over half of the contest, and he accepted, and that was the first step in the right direction.
Next was fast-forwarding our technological capabilities in accordance with our long-term strategy. Here, I turned to Dave Cowart and Evan to get the job done. Evan handled the upkeep of content on our informational (corporate) page, while Dave built from scratch the software that would later be used to run the 2006 iTest in a way that no academic competition has ever been run EVER. How awesome is that?
Next after that was the step to change our marketing approach to a more practical, slimmed-down version of the 2005 marketing campaign. In 2005, we bombarded schools early on (in April before the September competition) with a massive folder of information that included a mousepad. The mousepad did succeed in getting us eyeballs by teachers and students using it next to their school computers, but it was too high of a cost...and it was eventually outweighed by the fact that teachers simply forgot about the competition come September, even with that mousepad sitting there, since it had been months since receiving the packet and thinking about the event.
This year, we hit schools with a nice oversized postcard with our key messages more clearly communicated than before, and we hit them right before the event. As in just 2-3 weeks before.
The result? Doubling of the number of teams that submitted tests, doubling of the number of schools signed up, and an explosion of the "reach" of the competition from 31,000 students to 55,000 students nationwide.
Those three decisions - upgrading the test, upgrading our technology, and tweaking our marketing - have helped completely redefine the brand, moving the iTest closer to the immovable object that it should become in time.
I took a lot of pride in writing the test for the event. That was probably the hardest thing about the past 12 months was ceding such a chunk of the testwriting - a big ego hit. It hard letting go of something you enjoy doing and take pride in, even when you know its for the best. I was able to write part of the test - still hanging on, at least symbolically, to part of the testwriting process - while turning over the keys to the real meat of it all to a more capable hand.
As we got students registered and logging on to our system in the days leading up to the competition, the excitement and hype surrounding the competition was palpable. And I don't think we disappointed anyone. I invented the idea of the iTest Warmups on the spot, helping us build an early buzz and get more registrants into the system quicker, and then we delivered the main event: the 2006 exam.
Students collaborated on the exam using our software, sharing their answers with their teammates and leaving ideas, thoughts, and directives for each other on the blog on each team's main page. And even better, the blog on the main page enabled students and teachers alike to correspond from all over the country, as if the entirety of the United States were congregated in a massive auditorium somewhere sharing one common experience.
As someone close to academic competitions for most of my life, I understand the sea change this represents, for better or worse: THIS SIMPLY HAS NEVER, EVER BEEN DONE BEFORE.
Now, as I prepare to restructure the company to better prepare us for the repercussions of our turnaround, I get to pause just for a brief moment and say thanks to the people who made this possible.
The iTest is an idea that has come to pass that now has tremendous value to the educational system - precisely where we wanted to go. Now as long as we don't take a step backward in '07, we should be in excellent position to capitalize on our turnaround.
On September 16, 2006, I experienced it.
The first two years of the iTest, while successful by any reasonable measure, were not true to the vision of the project. They were temporary stopgaps - a training-wheels version of the real deal.
After the 2005 test suffered some critical typos and received a fair share of criticism, it was back to the drawing board for me. Those first couple of months were difficult, but they were important...I had to re-commit myself to a project that had suddenly soured.
The long-term vision of the company has been to deliver a suite of educational competitions across a variety of subjects all for free, augmenting the US educational system through competition. A unique approach, but one that got us distracted: toying with expansion prevented us from doing what we should've focused on all along...nailing one subject cold before we expand.
So 2006 was like I was having to re-invent the company all over again. The key was to get "back to basics" - eschew designs on artificial growth and get back to real, organic expansion through word-of-mouth built around a core product. And like any good sports team, after a lackluster season, what do you do? Go out and get yourself some new talent.
Enter Thomas Mildorf, the MIT student with a profound gift for dreaming up math questions, and a highly regarded individual among the national math community. He became the 2006 iTest's heavy hitter overnight. I structured an incentive-based deal for him to write over half of the contest, and he accepted, and that was the first step in the right direction.
Next was fast-forwarding our technological capabilities in accordance with our long-term strategy. Here, I turned to Dave Cowart and Evan to get the job done. Evan handled the upkeep of content on our informational (corporate) page, while Dave built from scratch the software that would later be used to run the 2006 iTest in a way that no academic competition has ever been run EVER. How awesome is that?
Next after that was the step to change our marketing approach to a more practical, slimmed-down version of the 2005 marketing campaign. In 2005, we bombarded schools early on (in April before the September competition) with a massive folder of information that included a mousepad. The mousepad did succeed in getting us eyeballs by teachers and students using it next to their school computers, but it was too high of a cost...and it was eventually outweighed by the fact that teachers simply forgot about the competition come September, even with that mousepad sitting there, since it had been months since receiving the packet and thinking about the event.
This year, we hit schools with a nice oversized postcard with our key messages more clearly communicated than before, and we hit them right before the event. As in just 2-3 weeks before.
The result? Doubling of the number of teams that submitted tests, doubling of the number of schools signed up, and an explosion of the "reach" of the competition from 31,000 students to 55,000 students nationwide.
Those three decisions - upgrading the test, upgrading our technology, and tweaking our marketing - have helped completely redefine the brand, moving the iTest closer to the immovable object that it should become in time.
I took a lot of pride in writing the test for the event. That was probably the hardest thing about the past 12 months was ceding such a chunk of the testwriting - a big ego hit. It hard letting go of something you enjoy doing and take pride in, even when you know its for the best. I was able to write part of the test - still hanging on, at least symbolically, to part of the testwriting process - while turning over the keys to the real meat of it all to a more capable hand.
As we got students registered and logging on to our system in the days leading up to the competition, the excitement and hype surrounding the competition was palpable. And I don't think we disappointed anyone. I invented the idea of the iTest Warmups on the spot, helping us build an early buzz and get more registrants into the system quicker, and then we delivered the main event: the 2006 exam.
Students collaborated on the exam using our software, sharing their answers with their teammates and leaving ideas, thoughts, and directives for each other on the blog on each team's main page. And even better, the blog on the main page enabled students and teachers alike to correspond from all over the country, as if the entirety of the United States were congregated in a massive auditorium somewhere sharing one common experience.
As someone close to academic competitions for most of my life, I understand the sea change this represents, for better or worse: THIS SIMPLY HAS NEVER, EVER BEEN DONE BEFORE.
Now, as I prepare to restructure the company to better prepare us for the repercussions of our turnaround, I get to pause just for a brief moment and say thanks to the people who made this possible.
The iTest is an idea that has come to pass that now has tremendous value to the educational system - precisely where we wanted to go. Now as long as we don't take a step backward in '07, we should be in excellent position to capitalize on our turnaround.
Thursday, September 14, 2006
2006 iTest is underway ... I'll have a long blog post about it here after it has concluded. This year's event is going extremely well and has been improved in several significant ways from last year...but we've still got a long way to go. Students and teachers have been emailing me with praise for this year's competition and I hope that continues! Obviously people are enjoying themselves, the test, and the online software, which is great.
On another note, this story just disgusts me. I've seen some disgusting human beings, believe me, but this is just pathetic and really pretty sad.
On another note, this story just disgusts me. I've seen some disgusting human beings, believe me, but this is just pathetic and really pretty sad.
Sunday, September 03, 2006
Ne-Yo - "Sexy Love"
I first heard this song driving to work one morning here back in Nashville ... you know when you hear the way certain songs open, and you know its just going to be a great tune? BIG, driving beat, with Neptunes-esque synthesizers bouncing around...and a very simple, memorable vocal melody. Love this tune ... download it!
Students are getting registered, creating teams, and getting ready for the 2006 iTest. This is a big year for us, because even though participation may be unpredictable this year because we're trying out some new marketing tactics ... we have a brand new piece of software developed in house and a much more polished test than last year. The word of mouth after this year's event should be much better than it was last year. The emphasis on driving the core business and building the foundation of the iTest back after last year will pay off.
Enjoying a peaceful Labor Day weekend, watching some college football yesterday and getting in some Saint's Row, Dead Rising, and Enchanted Arms. Went out with Lori the past couple of nights to a couple of my favorite restaurants, Five and Diner (in Cool Springs) and Logan's, in honor of my birthday on Monday.
I'll be 26 on September 4. That's old! Since my last birthday, I've worked a solid year at the same company and have spent six of those months in Beaufort, SC ... away from Nashville. I've begun to reposition the iTest as a much more technologically-intensive enterprise, a strategic move that is not even half complete yet. And I continue to mull pulling the trigger on another opportunity that's out there.
By the time I turn 27, Lori will have passed the bar and begun work here in town, which will be a whole new adventure to add to everything else going on right now. What else will have happened by the time next September rolls around? It'll be fun finding out.
I first heard this song driving to work one morning here back in Nashville ... you know when you hear the way certain songs open, and you know its just going to be a great tune? BIG, driving beat, with Neptunes-esque synthesizers bouncing around...and a very simple, memorable vocal melody. Love this tune ... download it!
Students are getting registered, creating teams, and getting ready for the 2006 iTest. This is a big year for us, because even though participation may be unpredictable this year because we're trying out some new marketing tactics ... we have a brand new piece of software developed in house and a much more polished test than last year. The word of mouth after this year's event should be much better than it was last year. The emphasis on driving the core business and building the foundation of the iTest back after last year will pay off.
Enjoying a peaceful Labor Day weekend, watching some college football yesterday and getting in some Saint's Row, Dead Rising, and Enchanted Arms. Went out with Lori the past couple of nights to a couple of my favorite restaurants, Five and Diner (in Cool Springs) and Logan's, in honor of my birthday on Monday.
I'll be 26 on September 4. That's old! Since my last birthday, I've worked a solid year at the same company and have spent six of those months in Beaufort, SC ... away from Nashville. I've begun to reposition the iTest as a much more technologically-intensive enterprise, a strategic move that is not even half complete yet. And I continue to mull pulling the trigger on another opportunity that's out there.
By the time I turn 27, Lori will have passed the bar and begun work here in town, which will be a whole new adventure to add to everything else going on right now. What else will have happened by the time next September rolls around? It'll be fun finding out.
