Several of you have told us about the problems with the blog — we’re aware of them, and working with out blog’s hosting provider — we hope to have them fixed in the next few hours (but, we hoped that last night as well!)
If you want an easy way to return to the TeachStreet homepage, click here.
UPDATE – It seems like all of the issues are resolved. If you still see any problems with the blog, let us know in our new TeachStreet help section.
For other aspiring Pro Members, you really should check our her profile — she not only uploaded a great looking banner (that incorporates one of her paintings) but has also added 3 showcase listings, more than 20 reviews from past Chicago art students (twenty plus!), has great classes (with prices ranging from $170 to $285) and is enabled for TeachStreet payments. I especially like her description, that talks about how her grandmother got her started painting at age 4 — it’s always great to hear how people’s passions were ignited. If you’re in the Chicago area and have had a hankering to learn how to watercolor and/or paint, Ingrids Originals would be a great place to start!
Thanks to the folks at Zillow for being so inviting — a few weeks ago, they released the new Local Market Explorer Wordpress plug-in, making it really easy for real estate agents and other locally-focused bloggers to add hyperlocal information to their blogs with the click of a button (or, more precisely, with the installation and activation of this spiffy Local Market information plug-in).
To see how it can work, check out this realtor’s local class and real estate results — it includes home and market activity from Zillow, local K-12 school information from our friends at Education.com, the ‘walkability’ information from WalkScore, restaurant reviews from Yelp, and voila, now new local class information from TeachStreet!
p.s. We’re still wrestling with some PHP5 upgrade issues with our own blog, else we’d point you to a nicely formatted example here — those issues have nothing to do with Local Market Explorer, but rather with our budget-constrained Web Hosting Service!
Have you always wanted to learn how welding works? Me too! So, last weekend, 5 of us (including Twitters Courtney Johnston (@c_johnston), Jason Vonnieda (@vonnieda), and Jeff Smith (@JeffreySmith), plus my wife and I) took a Seattle Welding Intensive class to learn about welding, and to get get hands-on experience and practice with several different types of welding equipment. In three words, “it was awesome!”.
Class was held at the Hazard Factory, in South Park (a neighborhood south of Seattle, near the Georgetown neighborhood), and it was amazing how fast the 5 hours flew by — we learned about the different types of welding (MIG, TIG and Stick) and got to practice with different machines — we were actually welding things together in the first 1-2 hours, and I’m actually feeling competent enough to do some work around the house — really, I highly recommend it.
The teacher, Rusty Oliver, has been welding for the last 13 years, and is also a sculptural artist — he was a fantastic instructor (he said that his mom was a teacher, so he learned the skills from her), and made it a fun day that I’m pretty sure I’ll never forget.
This video was from early in the day, as he explained the differences between MIG and TIG welding:
And, here are a few photos of us decked out in our gear:
I have the benefit (or curse) of having been a CPA in a prior working life, having started out my career with Arthur Andersen after I graduated from college. I quickly (it only took me 7 short years) figured out that the life of debits and credits wasn’t for me, but now that I’m working as an entrepreneur, I’m thrilled that I have that background under my belt.
For many other entrepreneurs with backgrounds in engineering or marketing, it isn’t so easy to quickly digest financial statements and projections — for those who live in Seattle, help is here — I met Diane Renihan last year, and she has awesome financial experience working with Avelle (formerly known as Bag Borrow or Steal), and many Seattle startups, and she’s now offering Financial and Accounting Boot Camp classes to Seattle entrepreneurs.
Wow — if my Mom knew what NPR Morning Edition was, she’d be really impressed — I told her that we’re going to be on the show tomorrow morning, and she asked what NPR was (sigh). But, for the rest of the world beyond lovely Leesport, PA, we couldn’t be more excited — I mean, NPR Morning Edition is the pinnacle, right?!? Or, at least, it’s a pretty darn good basecamp!
NPR’s Yuki Noguchi and Wendy Kaufman reached out in the last few weeks to ask for TeachStreet’s response to Chris Anderson’s new book, ‘Free: The Future of a Radical Price’ — they noticed that we very recently moved from an all-free model to one where we charge performance-based fees for teachers. In short, we’re big believers in the power of free — that is, we always expect that there will be a free experience for teachers and schools, to add their teaching profile to TeachStreet, and a few classes. But, we also think that having performance-based fees helps to make the TeachStreet student class/learning/discovery experience better for everyone — students will get faster response from teachers who have skin in the game, and everyone will know that reviews and ratings have more credibility, because we’ll be able to verify that a paid transaction happened between that buyer and seller.
There are many benefits to having a vibrant economic system, where a few dollars are being exchanged, and value is being created, for everyone — we hope you enjoy the TeachStreet NPR Free radio segment — you can hear it here!
NPR Morning Edition - TeachStreet Free (Chris Anderson Book)
Many people who work at larger companies think about starting companies of their own, especially those who work at larger technology companies like Microsoft, Amazon.com, Real Networks, and more. I was one of those individuals, having worked at Amazon.com for more than six years, and then at a smaller internet company, JibJab. I had many personal opinions about how people should run their organizations, and I had a lot of exposure to small companies and their problems, but I admit that there were many unanswered questions, and many things that I thought I knew a lot more about than I actually did.
Before starting TeachStreet, I threw around terms and concepts such as pre- and post-money valuations, best practices in naming of companies and products, how to conduct product development sessions, and more. But, most of my ideas weren’t fully thought through, nor had I carried them out from start-to-finish on my own. I learn now that I wasn’t alone — most startup founders just leap in at some point, and we shared many of the same questions.
It’s because of this that Marcelo Calbucci (host of the popular Seattle20.com blog) has planned the first ever conference focused on pre-entrepreneurs, those who have yet to join or found a startup. And, what I like about it is that all of the speakers are current and past founders of companies who once harbored these same questions and concerns. You’ll hear from successful, and not-yet-extremely-successful founders, on topics ranging from How to Pick an Idea, How to Identify Co-Founders, Raising Money, What to Do When You Fail, What It’s Like to be Acquired, and more.
I’m personally excited, and humbled, to be talking about ‘Building the Product‘ — it’s a topic that I have a lot of experience with, but feel like I’m still learning a massive amount about every month (and day) — I look forward to hearing what the audience thinks about our process.
So, if you’ve ever thought about starting your own company, I highly encourage that you attend StartupDay 2009 — it’s an affordable and highly-concentrated introduction to startup life, from those who are living it!
2009 is racing by — I can’t believe it’s been ~5 months since I was fortunate to attend the Hacking Education gathering in New York City, assembled and hosted by the amazing team at Union Square Ventures. I really don’t have much to add to the summary that the USV team has posted, but if you are interested in helping create the future of education, I couldn’t more strongly recommend that you take 20-30 minutes to read it complely from the first words to the end of the comment thread (it may be the best comment thread I’ve eve read!). While present in the room, I was clearly aware that I’m incredibly ‘new’ to the world of education transformation, but that doesn’t diminish my excitement about the contributions that TeachStreet will make in opening up the world of lifelong learning to the Web and beyond — taking the time to re-read the summary only gets me more excited about the potential impact of our work, and the fellowship of innovators that we’re proud to be among.
Our friends at Biznik are creating a movie called SHINE, that’s all about entrepreneurs — what fuels their passions and gets them out of bed every day — it’s pretty awesome. Here’s the trailer for it, and if you’re interested in getting involved, more information is below:
SHINE is the untold story of entrepreneurs struggling to build the businesses of their dreams in the depths of recession. Based on 250 interviews with mostly small entrepreneurs conducted on May 6, 2009, SHINE introduces us to a wide spectrum of entrepreneurship. From a toothless cowboy poet to a Stanford engineer who sold his business for $500 million, we learn that growing a business is more often about passion than it is money, and why entrepreneurs work long hours for low pay, few benefits, facing great uncertainty. Dozens of interviews, including a rare conversation with iStockphoto founder Bruce Livingstone, reveal the high personal price that some entrepreneurs are willing to pay for success in this sober yet inspiring look at the brave thinkers and creative doers at the heart of the economy.
Where is SHINE headed?
When complete, they’ll be entering SHINE into film festivals, and winning awards will help get them distribution for the film. That’s why they need your help to make SHINE the extraordinary film it has the potential to be.
How can I help?
They’ve created 3 great incentives for you to help raise the remaining $ they need to complete the film:
1. $40 gets your photo in the SHINE title slide, on the SHINE website and and unsigned copy of the SHINE poster.
2. $100 gets you all the above plus a signed copy of poster and invitation to exclusive screening wth the filmmakers.
3. $250 gets you all the above plus a limited-edition signed copy of the DVD with festival packaging designed by Anvil.
