____________________________________ The Magic of Repetition By Robert Ringer People who can never seem to grab the brass ring are often guilty of nothing more than overlooking the basics. By basics, I’m talking about fundamental skills and activities such as time management, reading, organization, and developing an accurate perception of reality … the list goes on and on.

But perhaps the most consistently overlooked basic of all is an innocuous little item called “repetition.” Repetition is how you become good at any sport, artistic endeavor, math, writing … just about any activity one can think of. We’ve all heard, many times over, the truism that “practice makes perfect.”

Repetition is how I became a certified Microsoft Word expert. In the late nineties, I spent a year and a half writing a Microsoft Word reference guide, a project that required my learning, then repeating, every conceivable Word function hundreds of times.

As a result of all that repetition, today I can perform most Word functions very quickly and without consciously thinking about it. My Word expertise is not because I’m a computer whiz, but because of the enormous amount of repetition I invested in the program.

It’s the same with writing. I’d like to think I’ve improved a great deal as a writer over the past twenty-five years, and I attribute that improvement to having written millions of words during that period of time. In this regard, I often quote Mario Puzo, who summed it clearly nicely when he said, “Rewriting is the whole secret to writing.”

An interesting paradox of repetition is that if you practice something slowly, you’ll actually learn it more quickly. I can think of many instances in my life where this was obvious to me. One in particular that comes to mind is when I was in my teens. Though I wasn’t a great athlete, I loved basketball and practiced it hours on end.

Like most right-handed kids, I couldn’t shoot a left-handed lay-up worth beans. I was having a terrible time not only shooting the ball with my left hand, but also trying to figure out how to push off with my right foot. If you’ve played basketball, you know how awkward this maneuver can be.

I vividly recall practicing the correct technique hours on end in my backyard, where my dad had installed a basket for me. (This was long before the days of Huffy, so it was a big deal to have your own backboard and basket setup.) I would walk through my approach to the basket, literally thousands of times, making certain I ended up on my right foot just as I was about to lay the ball up with my left hand. Little by little, I increased my speed, until I finally was able to make left-handed lay-ups at full throttle.

As a result of having the technique ingrained in my head, I ultimately was able to make left-handed lay-ups in the heat of games, even if a defender was breathing down my neck. The reason I was able to perform under game conditions was because I didn’t have to think about it. I had done all my thinking thousands of times in practice, which allowed my brain to go on autopilot once a game began.

I have since found that this same strategy produces results in just about any area of adult life. For example, any professional speaker will tell you that repetition is the key to becoming a good speaker. A professional speaker is well aware of the importance of practicing his lines slowly until they become indelibly stamped on his forebrain.

From time to time, every speaker comes across a sentence – or even a whole story – that causes his tongue and brain to become tangled. The best solution to this obstacle is to practice the material slowly – a hundred times or more, if necessary – until you get it right. Then, it’s like riding a bicycle: You never forget it.

In practical terms, what all this means is that virtually anyone with average intelligence can become an expert at just about anything by employing repetition. It’s one of those basics that are so essential to success, yet so often overlooked.

When all else fails, make sure that you’re not forgetting the importance of repetition in your business– and personal-life strategies. More often than not, so-called overnight successes are really just people who have endlessly repeated the same actions – over a period of many years – usually very slowly in the early going and increasing their speed as they progress.

As advertising legend Claude Hopkins put it nearly one hundred years ago: “Genius is the art of taking pains.”

[Ed. Note: If you’re ready for a treasure chest of proven ideas, strategies, and techniques that are guaranteed to dramatically improve your dealmaking skills - and, in the process, increase your income many times over - you won’t want to miss Robert Ringer’s bestselling audio series, A Dealmaker’s Dream.

Robert Ringer is a New York Times #1 bestselling author and host of the highly acclaimed Liberty Education Interview Series, which features interviews with top political, economic, and social leaders. His recently released work, Restoring the American Dream: The Defining Voice in the Movement for Liberty, is a clarion call to liberty-loving citizens to take back the country. Ringer has appeared on numerous national talk shows and has been the subject of feature articles in such major publications as Time, People, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Barron’s, and The New York Times. To sign up for his e-letter, A Voice of Sanity in an Insane World, visit www.robertringer.com.] Read more at www.earlytorise.com

The erosion in the paid media pyramid

Since the invention of media (the book, the record, the movie…), there’s been a pyramid of value and pricing delivered by those that create it:

Starting from the bottom:

Free content is delivered to anyone who is willing to consume it, usually as a way of engaging attention and leading to sales of content down the road. This is the movie trailer, the guest on Oprah, the free chapter, the tweets highlighting big ideas.

Mass content is the inevitable result of a medium where the cost of making copies is inexpensive. So you get books for $20, movie tickets for $8 and newspapers for pocket change. Mass content has been the engine of popular culture for a century.

Limited content is something rare, and thus more expensive. It’s the ticket that everyone can’t possibly buy. This is a seat in a Broadway theater, attendance at a small seminar or a signed lithograph.

And finally, there’s bespoke content. This is the truly expensive, truly limited performance. A unique painting, or hiring a singer to appear at an event.

Three things just happened:

A. Almost anyone can now publish almost anything. You can publish a book without a publisher, record a song without a label, host a seminar without a seminar company, sell your art without a gallery. This leads to an explosion of choice. (Or from the point of view of the media producer, an explosion of clutter and competition).

B. Because of A, attention is worth more than ever before. The single gating factor for almost all success in media is, “do people know enough about it to choose to buy something?”

C. The marginal cost of one more copy in the digital world is precisely zero. One more viewer on YouTube, one more listener to your MP3, one more blog reader—they cost the producer nothing to produce or deliver.

As a result of these three factors, there’s a huge sucking sound, and that’s the erosion of mass as part of the media model. Fewer people buying movie tickets and hardcover books, more people engaging in free media.

Overlooked in all the handwringing is a rise in the willingness of some consumers (true fans) to move up the pyramid and engage in limited works. Is this enough to replace the money that’s not being spent on mass? Of course not. But no one said it was fair.

By head count, just about everyone who works in the media industry is in the business of formalizing, reproducing, distributing, marketing and selling copies of the original creative work to the masses. The creators aren’t going to go away—they have no choice but to create. The infrastructure around monetizing work that used to have a marginal cost but no longer does is in for a radical shift, though.

Media projects of the future will be cheaper to build, faster to market, less staffed with expensive marketers and more focused on creating free media that earns enough attention to pay for itself with limited patronage.

Posted by Seth Godin on December 03, 2011

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Didn’t get the joke

The secret of good reviews and positive word of mouth is simple: if people get the joke, feel like insiders, finish the book, grow, learn, and are part of what you make, you win. If they don’t, if your product or service makes them feel dumb or poor or excluded, they won’t talk about you the same way. You don’t need everyone to talk about you. But obsessing about making a target group feel smart and successful is a great way to make those conversations happen. The flip side: if someone outside of the target group doesn’t get the joke, don’t worry. That’s not why you made your art in the first place.

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Posted by Seth Godin on December 02, 2011 Read more at sethgodin.typepad.com

Preparing for the breakthrough/calamity

That’s what we spend most of our time doing. The breakthrough speech that will change everything, or the giant insight that opens every door. We fret about the apocalyptic ending, the big crash, the slam climax as well. Of course, it almost never happens that way. Products and services succeed one person at a time, as the word slowly spreads. Customers defect one person at a time, as hearts are broken and people are disappointed. Doors open, sure, but not all at once. One at a time. One at a time is a little anticlimactic and difficult to get in a froth over, but one at a time is how we win and how we lose.

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The World Needs Female Entrepreneurs Now More Than Ever

Written by: Jean Brittingham

Women can slowly change corporate culture from the inside, or they can change the world by starting their own companies.

Over the past 100 or so years, we have been solving the problems on our planet as if they are linear, independent, and containable—in other words, as if they are largely technical challenges. And in most if not all cases, our solution is another technical intervention which often creates a new set of problems. Examples abound: The focus on making cars more energy efficient with fossil fuels slowed the introduction of true electric vehicles by decades. Or the current discussion of nuclear as the solution to fossil fuels. It’s technology trumping technology with not nearly enough attention to the unintended consequences for future generations.

I have nothing against technology. But if, as Einstein said, the problem-solving skills that get you into a mess are not the skills you need to get out of that mess, we need more people with a different perspective on the problem and a new set of skills and abilities.

Becoming an entrepreneur doesn’t require any shifts in corporate culture.

What’s needed now is a better grasp of (and comfort with) relationships of all kinds. And this is the kind of thinking and problem solving that is most natural to women:

Women are intuitively systems-thinkers Women seek balance Women care more about solutions than who gets credit Women are the worlds’ experts on collaboration When they are passionate about something, women never give up

While I am supportive of any and all efforts to move women into the C-Suite, the boardroom, and the President’s office, it’s hard to ignore the fact that in these traditional places, women are making slow progress, if any at all.

But something began to crystallize as I interviewed hundreds of women entrepreneurs for my book and website The SmartGirls Way. No matter what business they were creating and running, I found that there was a thoughtfulness and intention to their design and operations approach that was different. These women entrepreneurs were intuitively creating businesses that would be better for themselves, their families, their employees, their communities, their customers, and the world.

Take Amra Tareen, a successful venture capitalist, entrepreneur, and a mother of two boys. Her passion and integrity to address the media bias she saw in the world led her to found AllVoices.com, the world’s largest citizen-journalist website. And there’s the story of Michelle King Robson, whose personal health challenges led her to found EmpowHER, an online community promoting women’s health issues so that no woman would ever have to suffer the same way she did.

These aren’t entrepreneurial myths; they’re real-life examples of women-led ventures taking shape right now. The beauty of it is, unlike with getting women into corner offices of corporations, these ventures don’t require any shifts in corporate culture. In the developed world, the rule of law supports women’s rights to pursue their efforts and maintain the wealth they create.

The Dalai Lama definitely had it right when he recently said “Western Women will save the world.” And my money is on the entrepreneurs. Read more at www.fastcoexist.com

6:18 am 54° November 24, 2011 | Valley & State

D’Adamo: Baby Boomers’ skills benefit non-profits

Help Wanted: Passionate volunteers who want to make a difference. Need adults, ages 50-plus, to share their experiences and wisdom. Training provided. Full- or part-time. Compensation will exceed expectations. To apply: www.experience mattersaz.org.

More than 1.2 million Arizonans answered this call for help last year. Volunteers have always been critical to the social sector, but the need is even greater as non-profit agencies are experiencing an unprecedented increase in the demand for services while financial contributions are staying flat or decreasing.

Like never before, these groups are relying on volunteers to help them carry out their missions.

With more than 15,000 public charities in Arizona, there is literally an agency for every interest, and you can devote as much — or as little — time as you want, from single projects to yearlong programs.

Without a doubt, volunteers of all ages are needed, but the social sector is looking for more Baby Boomers, who have years of experience and critically important skills to share.

Enter Experience Matters, an organization whose mission is to connect those of us in our encore years, age 50 and older, with civic and non-profit organizations. And with more than 1.5 million Boomers in Arizona, there’s a lot of human capital waiting to be harnessed for the greater good.

Through a program called Your Experience Counts, people like Carlos Garcia are making a huge difference in our schools. With contagious enthusiasm, Carlos volunteers four days a week at Shaw Elementary School in downtown Phoenix.

“Those kids light up my day,” he told me, but I’d say it goes both ways as the school’s third-graders eagerly await his visits so they can practice their reading.

Your Experience Counts matches “experienced talent” (aka, people 50-plus) with third- through seventh-grade students in under-resourced schools to give extra help in reading, writing, math or science. With at least 30 years of professional experience of some kind under our belts, Boomers have a wealth of knowledge that makes us a huge asset in the classroom. You don’t need teaching experience, just a desire to give back.

Want to volunteer but not sure the classroom is the place for you? Experience Matters has you covered with a new program called Service by Design. This project-based volunteer opportunity matches your skills with the unique needs of a non-profit.

As Nora Hannah of Experience Matters says, “It’s impossible to find someone who’s 50-plus and doesn’t have a skill that can be shared with an agency.”

The Service by Design professionals are experts at uncovering your unique skills and placing you with an organization that has been trained to maximize what you bring to the table.

Linde Harned, the go-to person for this program, can be reachedat Lharned@experiencemattersaz.org.

Tutoring, collecting/distributing food and mentoring youth are three of the most popular volunteer activities in Arizona. The fourth is fundraising, which is always a critical need for non-profits, particularly in this economy.

If you spent your career in sales, business development or marketing, fundraising could be a natural fit for you now.

The spirit of generosity is heightened during the holiday season, evidenced by agency waiting lists to serve food on Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Because of the overwhelming generosity of donors like you, The Arizona Republic/12 News Season for Sharing campaign (sharing.azcentral.com) distributed $2.66 million last year, and more than $46 million over the past 18 years. The challenge for all of us is keeping that passion and commitment alive 365 days a year.

For more information, go to www.experiencemattersaz.org or www.handsonphoenix.org.

Gene D’Adamo is vice president of community relations for The Arizona Republic, 12 News and azcentral.com. Read more at www.azcentral.com

Friday, November 4, 2011

What Makes A Great Curator Great? How To Distinguish High-Value Curation From Generic Republishing

Today content curation is “sold”, promoted and marketed as the latest and trendiest approach to content production, SEO visibility, reputation and traffic building. But is it really so? Is it really true that by aggregating many content sources and picking and republishing those news and stories that you deem great is really going to benefit you and your readers in the long run? Is the road to easy and effortless publishing via curation tools a true value creation business strategy, or just a risky fad? How can one tell?

Let me clarify a few key points:

1. Curation can be effective only as much as it effectively provides a quality filtering mechanism that can replace my need to consult multiple sources. When such need is forgotten and a curation channel becomes another broad aggregation and republishing venue, the end result is more content to go through and little or no insight gained.

2. Shallow curation efforts, where the main goal is to republish selected content with the minimum effort and time, are going to be effective only for the very short term. As soon as quality, value-creation creators start to emerge and gain authority, the gap between them and the others will be very hard to fill.

3. Curation is an effective means to build a strong relationship with a niche audience of passionate people to engage, not a marketing strategy that caters to gain a broad audience of readers by virtue of quantity and breadth.

4. The key element that makes curation work is the competence and focus of the curator and of the topic he has selected. Repeated efforts to create curated channels that mix and match broad and highly competitive topics are bound to see a very short life.

For these reasons, I think that much of the apparent new curation work being done is bound to be soon disappointed by the results it will gain. Though the apparent new curation “leaders” are working around volume and breadth, I have a strong feeling that within a year this panorama will have already evolved significantly in its natural direction.

Highly specific news and content channels, curated by passionate and competent editors will gradually become the new reference and models for curation work.

This article is all about starting to identify some tentative reference points that can be used to anticipate these changes and position one’s own curation channel in a way that it will guarantee the greatest return on investment, over-time, possible.

My goal, is to help you understand how you can start to evaluate and distinguish value-creating content curation, from shallow aggregation, noise-making republication and pure content regurgitation before it is too late or someone else in your same niche will have done it before you.

Here’s is my official checklist, to identify value-creation curation, from everything else.

How Do You Recognize a Quality Content Curator

If I was asked to evaluate the curation work of different people, without being able to know who these authors are and for which reason they were doing it, I would use the following criteria to identify the best curators among them.

In my personal experience a good, value-creating curator, can be easily recognized by looking at the work he does. If he does one or more of the following he is likely to be a true, value-creation, sense-making curator:

Optimizes Optimizes titles as to make them relevant to his/her audience. Tites are often still badly written, by using either a classic journalistic approach or by using tricky psychological approaches to make the titles appear more interesting. The curator’s task should be the one of make titles relevant to his specific audience-tribe, by making the title highlight and explain what the content is truly about.

Edits Edits / rewrites titles, descriptions and more, to further customize the message relevance, language and focus for a specific audience-tribe.

Formats Formats curated content with microscopic precision by utilizing character styles, chunking, use of bulleted/numbered lists to provide greater legibility and to communicate more effectively the key concepts present in the original content.

Selects Selects and adds relevant images, photos, illustrations that fully complement and reinforce the content they are associated to.

Excerpts Excerpts selected text and passages from the actual content, to help the reader understand as rapidly as possible what the content is about and why it would be relevant to read it.

Writes Writes his/her own intro, to contextualize and explain the relevance of the content to his specific audience-tribe. Brings in a “personal voice” that threads together news or content coming from many disparate sources. Threads and guides the reader through it like a museum guide.

Classifies Curates his channel and content  metadata. Provides comprehensive tags, titles and classification categories for the content curated.

Links Integrates extra links to extend-expand the scope of the article or to provide further reference to specific concepts.

Personalizes Personalizes each curated item differently for each social media channel/audience when needed / appropriate.

Vets Vets and verifies original source for quality and integrity (by reading all of the original content) and exercising a critical role in deciding what to publish and what to censor.

Credits Credits and provides full attribution to all sources used. Goes out of his way to reference and cite personal sources (when appropriate) and credits always for received leads, tips and suggestions as to make of this activity a new virtue (as it truly is, by providing access to new unknown sources and showcasing the transparency of the author-curator).

Filters Spends most of his / her time vetting and filtering out most of the incoming content, not approving and publishing most of the incoming stuff.

Taps Taps frequently into a personally selected circle of trusted curators in related, complementary, or similar topics.

Suggests Suggests and recommends in turn to other curators specific stories for their newsradars.

Searches Spends time looking for more content / context to add to any item when this can help enrich, or make more interesting valuable an existing story. Looks for additional references, reviews, citations or stories that can help complement the existing view.

Scouts Is always looking for new, credible and interesting content sources. Is never happy with the sources he has and loves to discover new ways, tools and networks where useful sources can be found.

Hacks Filters and Searches Engineers filters and specific persistent searches to help himself find always highly relevant and useful content to curate.

Is Transparent Publicly states focus, target-tribe, communication objective(s) and criteria by which content is selected or excluded on his newsradars or curated channels.

Recommends Publicly recommends other newsmasters, curators and specific newsradars.

Crowdsources Crowdsources recommendations, tips and suggestions from his readers always acknowledging their contributions.

The more of these activities you incorporate in your content curation workflow, the higher the quality and the value that you will be creating.

I myself strive to gradually master and integrate all of these actions in my daily curation work. It is not easy, nor fast, but it is something meaningful for me and it makes me feel I have truly contributed to “make sense” of the information and resources available out there.

How Do You Recognize a Wasteland-Filler - Aggregator - Republisher?

On the other hand, if I was asked to rapidly identify “zero-value” curators, such as those who are simply republishing other people’s content, have a relatively broad focus, mix multiple topics together, and who provide no other additional value, or those using curation tools to produce a constant flow of blog-like content without much thought about its editorial quality or depth, these below, would be the traits I would use to easily identify them.

No Additional Value Republishes news / content without contributing any additional value. Such curators feel or have learned from others that their job is to aggregate, pick and republish what tickles their fancies. They are happy and content with this and miss to see that the contribution they believe they are making, is in reality a burden for most anyone else.

No Editing Republishes content without editing any part of it. Stories, news, content of any kind is republished “as is”, often officially justified as an effort to act as “keeper” and “defender” of the original content as originally published. In reality such “no editing” approach is son of a drive to use these curation tools to generate some type of new content with the least effort possible. This in reality does not help make greater sense of content originally prepared with a specific goal or audience in mind, or to repurpose it or contextualize it for a specific community of interest.

No Selection Republishes content simply because it includes keywords that are “on topic” or contain certain keywords. The selection is therefore driven by a software aggregation filter, and when the checking and vetting gets also to be very light, then you start seeing regurgitation of content that should not have passed through the largest net. Keywords drive over meaning.

No Filtering Republishes any content independently of intrinsic value. As long as a news story, article or report “talks” about a certain topic, it is selected and included. Little attention is given in questioning and scrutinizing what’s being said or communicated inside of it. The goal appears more one of catching and republishing anything that is “out there” and which “mentions” a certain topic, rather than a mission to unearth, distill and illustrate-explain-organize any content - even that which does NOT mention that keyword - that can be relevant to our “specific” focus of interest.

Quantity Wins Goes for quantity of content published rather than quality. Feels good the more content he is able to “re-publish”. Is unhappy when there is little or no content coming in to “curate”. The effort / goal is clearly toward quantity, persistence and volume rather than on quality, timing and precision perspective.

Time-Saving Attraction Is in for the time-saving benefits, the amazing ease of doing it and the super-short time-to-publish. Nothing wrong for having those desires. Let’s just not call them “curation”. Time-saving publishing and “content curation” are actually at the opposite extremes of the same continuum. There can’t be no curation when the key goal is to publish “quality” content in the shortest time possible.

Broad Focus Utilizes very broad newsradar titles often integrating two or more wide topics instead of a specific one. Lacks specific, strong focus. Approaches curation as mass media broadcasting, with the idea of trying to capture the widest and broadest audience possible.

No Tribe As a consequence of his “broad focus” lacks awareness of which tribe he / she is communicating to, and is therefore unable to use a consistent language, or one that has strong affinity with the “tribe” being served.

No voice Lacks a personal “voice”. Does not add, comment or write. When he does he does so informally and without making his personal style and views influence it.

No Viewpoint Lacks of opinion, viewpoint. Does not take a position. Acts as a ticketmaster at a movie theater. Takes no risks, and doesn’t make string comments. Likes to think he is an “objective”, detached “selector” of the best content passing in front of him.

No Synthesis Lacks ability to synthesize the key parts of a curated content. Makes no effort to facilitate the emergence of core ideas, concepts and factual information from the content he curates.

No Language Lacks a unifying, constant, coherent language. The one that he uses is mostly borrowed from the curated content itself.

I think this recent article by Forbes clearly highlights the driving force and mentality behind the idea of curation as a smart alternative to blogging and as a shortcut to achieve SEO visibility, traffic and reputation-authority with minimum efforts and time.

Winning The SEO Battle Through Content Curation by Pawan Deshpande - HiveFire

On the opposite side stands this excellent video introduction to the type of “curation” I like to talk about, which clearly explains the difference between those who collect, republish and re-share existing content, and those who take existing content and “curate” it to generate new, additional meaning and value from it, on very specific topics.

Why Curation? by Idiocreative

Finally a word on “scoring systems” that attempt to help readers identify supposedly better curation work.

I am very skeptical that any such system can work, especially when the criteria it utilizes are kept secret, and when some of the users of the system have access to them.

My advice is this: Beware of any system that attempts to “score” or rank your curation work unless it transparently states the criteria and formulas it uses. Use your head to look at any curator’s work and evaluate personally its usefulness and ability to satisfy appropriately your information needs.

Most of the reputation scoring systems now available online, tend to measure some parts of your activity and engagement online, with mixed results.

In my humble opinion the only reputation system that has any value today is the public endorsement by other people, stating specifically why they do appreciate your work.

It’s easy to get thousands of followers, likes or shares, if like it is the case today, there are tons of people wanting to game such systems and many services selling such things for very low prices.

On the other hand it is very, very hard to get someone that is reputable and respected to openly endorse someone else unless he/she has good very good reasons and motives to do so. The risk is in fact evident, as providing easy endorsements to people or work that is not of true value will only lower anyone’s credibility and reputation. And you can’t use or buy fake endorsements as even if you did, they are worth nothing.

I look forward to social networks and curation tools to embrace more credible approaches to authority and reputation scoring soon. Read more at www.masternewmedia.org

Boomers Look to Create Jobs, Meet Community Needs

Study finds many aspiring ‘encore entrepreneurs’ undeterred by current financial risks

By Michael S. Fischer

November 11, 2011

A sizable number of American baby boomers are considering starting businesses or nonprofit ventures over the coming decade, according to new research released Tuesday by Civic Ventures, a think tank on boomers, work and social purpose.

Nearly half of the 25 million women and men who expressed such interest want to be encore entrepreneurs, making a living while having a positive social effect. Three-quarters expect to create small, local organizations that employ up to 10 people.

The study, “Encore Entrepreneurs: Creating Jobs, Meeting Needs,” which was funded by MetLife Foundation and conducted by Penn Schoen Berland, shows that although potential encore entrepreneurs are daunted by the economic risk in starting ventures now, half are still eager to move forward:

58% said the current economic crisis makes them more likely to start their own businesses or nonprofit ventures.

54% said they were “very likely” to start their ventures within the next five to 10 years.

47% of encore entrepreneurs believed they would not be able to obtain adequate financing. The same percentage expected to tap their personal savings to launch their ventures.

52% said they had delayed launching their ventures because they did not feel secure enough financially at present.

Civic Ventures noted in a statement that the findings reinforce consistent research from the Kauffman Foundation, which shows that for 11 of the 15 years between 1996 and 2010, Americans between the ages of 55 and 64 had the highest rate of entrepreneurial activity of any age group.

The new study included findings in several areas.

On experience:

37% of Americans in the 44–70 age group have already started businesses or nonprofit organizations; of these, 42% are still actively involved in their ventures.

Aspiring entrepreneurs reported an average of 31 years of work experience and 12 years of community involvement.

85% reported having management experience, averaging 15 years.

On the motivation and interests of potential encore entrepreneurs:

More than 80% of encore entrepreneurs said they wanted work they “are passionate about” and that gave them “a sense of meaning and a feeling of accomplishment.”

Encore entrepreneurs expressed interest in social services (37%); poverty alleviation (28%); working with at-risk youth, economic development and health care (all at 24%); the environment (19%); and human rights or social justice (18%).

On the goals and needs of potential encore entrepreneurs:

68% of potential encore entrepreneurs said they would consider their businesses or nonprofit ventures worthwhile if they earned less than $60,000 a year.

67% said that they would need $50,000 or less to get started, and only 20% said they would need more than $100,000.

67% planned to have a positive effect on the local, state or regional (as opposed to national or international) level.

The research found that compared with aspiring entrepreneurs in the

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Insights: Starting a Business Later in Life

May 19, 2011|

‘Don’t listen to: ‘You’re too old to do this,’ ’ says entrepreneur Sheldon Zinberg. ‘Go for it.’ Read more at www.entrepreneur.com

What good interview questions are actually trying to discover

How long are you willing to keep pushing on a good project until you give up? How hard is it to get you to change your mind when you’re wrong? How much do you learn from failing? How long does it take you to learn something new? How hard is it for you to let someone else take the lead? How much do you care? The rest is merely commentary, either that or they’re interviewing you for a job that’s not as good as you deserve. For those jobs, the only question they’re really focusing on is, “will she fit in around here?”

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