Dan Blacharski

Stories By Dan Blacharski

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  News By Dan Blacharski

  New Gatekeepers of Small Business Entrepreneurship

  When is the last time you opened a phone book? As recent as 15 years ago, if your company name and address didn't appear in a local or regional phone book, you simply didn't exist in the market. Print is dead right? Not exactly, it's just going through fundamental changes that are redefining its role within an increasingly digital environment The internet and the rapid creation of digital technologies has flung open the doors of opportunity and provided exciting, groundbreaking tools for small business owners. These tool help to bypass the traditional gatekeepers of business worldwide, giving smaller entrepreneurs new opportunities that were previously unavailable. With the emergence of digital small business, owners, CEOS, and new entrepreneurs have all been given an alternative path to creating success in their business venture in regards to making profit and participating in the economy in general. These innovations – and the new digital services that allow small businesses to compete alongside much larger enterprises – are firmly rooted in cloud computing. Cary Landis, one of the original creators of NIST's cloud computing reference architecture and founder of SaaSMaker, said, "The cloud has become the new gatekeeper of small business entrepreneurship. The ready availability of low-cost, reliable and secure infrastructure, along with platforms that now allow for the creation of market-ready apps, has created vast new markets. App development, and the consequent marketing, sales, and maintenance of those apps, were once the domain of a small high-tech community. Today's platform-as-a-service offerings that allow non-developers to have a seat at the table, are responsible for a new wave of entrepreneurship." Tools like SaaSMaker are at the forefront of a new "dotcloud boom," marked by a new wave of entrepreneurial opportunities that are much more accessible – making today's imminent boom in development much more far-reaching than the dotcom boom of the nineties. A Digital Storefront One way entrepreneurs are taking back their business is by redefining the most profitable revenue streams and utilizing new cloud-based and accessible technologies like SaaSMaker, and the Square Reader. How does the average customer interact with your business at the point of sale? Are they located locally or globally? Square successfully changed the rules for who can accept payments, where payments can be accepted, and why we would even pay for a service in the first place. Though the story of Square is far from over, their most recent stock prospects seem to be failing to gain efficient profits in 2016. Current CEO Jack Dorsey, returned to manage both the Twitter/Square brands simultaneously and opened up the company for IPO in 2015. Their public shares have been steady, but Dorsey's famous words still ring true, "The strongest thing you can cultivate as an entrepreneur is to not rely on luck but cultivating an ability to recognize fortunate situations when they are occurring." Last year, Square processed an estimated 30 billion in transactions for its merchants, many of them small businesspersons and brand new entrepreneurs who launched their businesses on a shoestring. Square's team is still fighting vigorously for market share from the PayPal giant, and went one step further by creating an open-sourced environment for outsiders to create integrated apps to fully take advantage of their rapidly growing technology. Despite low earnings reports, Square is continuing to diversify and recently began breaking into the field of small business loans to successful merchants. This technology gives entrepreneurs an alternative route to financial independence apart from the big banking models of decades past. Benefits of bypassing the established institutions include reaching a wider, global audience as well as changing the rules of communication and even corruption. According to a recent Marlincash blog, "A digital receipt doesn't lie and we might take them for granted but many global consumers really need them. For families that rely on remittances sent home by expatriate loved ones, that Internet access is a lifeline, and it's also the solution to countless billing and logistics challenges when buying foreign goods." Social Media: The New Gatekeeper of Small Business Marketing Social media is everywhere and it surely seems like there's no end in sight. Luckily, small businesses can ride the backs of tech firms by applying their professional image and message to a very personal medium. The average social media consumer is content to spend countless hours searching, liking, posting, re-posting, and sharing content. This digital "word-of-mouth" is perfect for any business to utilize because it is the digital equivalent of having a solid reputation. With any new opportunity, there are benefits and drawbacks. In the realms of social media, the danger comes when entrepreneurs fail to convert their real-world reputation into an accurate digital counterpart. A Facebook page is one of the most basic internet presences available, its free and widely used by business and non-business owners alike. This "local and global" approach allows marketing to bypass physical location and reach as far as an internet connection can travel. Current Facebook operations can "boost" posts for a fee. On the other hand, un-boosted posts are by default suppressed from reaching their full potential. Nothing in life is free. Furthermore, if there is not a dedicated information manager, the continuous outpouring of digital information is likely to swallow up a business and suppress its reach to consumers permanently. Take SEO for instance. Because every business wants search engine optimization, small businesses are forced to keep pace with larger, worldwide names who are also trying to turn up at the top of the search results. Visibility mistakes are made by exclusively focusing on a single source of online presence. Exposure can be effectively limited or outsourced as inaccurate information by other search engines fighting to be current. For instance, when updating core information ( i.e. address, phone number, business hours, etc.) Yelp, Manta, and other business minded networks will borrow accessible information and post on the owner's behalf despite the possibility of that information potentially changing or being inaccurate in the first place.

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  Entertainment

  Entertainment By Dan Blacharski

  Hip Hop Artists Reinventing the Music Video

  There exists a romantic, if slightly inaccurate image of the poor bluesman living in a Louisiana shotgun house, paying his dues by playing in dive bars for low pay, simply because he loves the music. In fact, "Artistic works have value and the artists, music publishers and record labels should be fairly compensated," said Shelly Liebowitz, CEO of SRI Label Group, a Los Angeles record company that specializes in jazz, blues, country and rock. But musicians have always struggled to find a way to earn money from their art that doesn't involve waiting tables – and there have always been plenty of people ready to take advantage of a hit at the musician's expense. "Take for instance, televised political events – artists and labels have had to issue cease and desist orders for unauthorized use of their songs," said Liebowitz. "Too often, advertisers and other marketers try to use songs that they believe will touch the emotions of their target audience without having to pay for them." The online download phenomenon hasn't helped, leaving newer and untested artists to struggle without the possibility of yesterday's model of signing with a label and selling vinyl records, or even CDs. That is, until hip hop started to emerge during one of the most challenging times in the music industry's history, and they figured out a way to make it work by partnering with brands for product placement within the context of music videos and lyrics. Hip hop artist Boogz Boogetz, in his music video "Bodega," has found the perfect setting for a product placement-driven video. With the entire scene shot inside of an inner-city market, there are plenty of opportunities to show product. And while presumably the thousands of products on the shelves are incidental to the video and not promotional – including some strangely lingering shots of two boxes of Arm & Hammer baking soda – there are a few standouts. Boogz is wearing a "Born Fly" shirt from the New York company's streetwear collection throughout the production, an urbanwear brand that specifically targets hip hop, graffiti, and skate subcultures. Most prominent in the Boogetz video however, are multiple intentional placements of KandyPens vaporizers, one of several brands that use product placement in hip hop video as a marketing strategy. Within the video, there are two separate close-ups of the vaping device with prominent logo, as well as a shot of Boogz wearing a KandyPens bill cap, followed later by one of his female entourage wearing the same cap. Possibly one of the most prominent brands in the hip hop marketing machine is Ciroc vodka, the marketing of which is run by Sean "Diddy" Combs in an equal-share venture with Diageo. Diddy, besides single-handedly re-invigorating what was once a minor brand, has also done more to elevate the hip hop music video genre than any other artist, not just because of his talent as a musician, but due to his marketing savvy as well. Diddy understood early on what Madison Avenue didn't – that fans of hip hop would be accepting of product placement, particularly luxury brands and liquor. That understanding broke new ground, allowing the music video in this genre to flourish in an era where producers and record labels aren't ponying up the cash needed to make high-quality music videos, and even well-established artists struggle to figure out how to earn money with their work. Brands like Born Fly, Ciroc, and KandyPens are part of a growing trend in product placement that is keeping the hip hop music video genre alive and flourishing – and keeping paychecks flowing to the artists – in an era where the music industry as a whole is struggling, while re-invigorating an age-old tactic that Madison Avenue has been using ever since silent films. Hip hop artists faced several unique challenges in the early days of the genre, which began to rise up just as artists struggled to find a revenue model in an environment where revenue from record sales is at an all-time low, and online downloads provide significantly smaller royalties. "As a marketing tactic, product placement in music videos in this genre allow us to establish a connection with the artists who promote us, and allows us to actually become part of the community we sell to," said Graham Gibson, founder of KandyPens. "We become part of the music, part of the culture as a result, and it becomes more of a meaningful partnership between us, the artist, and the fans than we could ever hope to achieve through traditional one-directional print and broadcast advertising." The newfound partnership between brand and artist benefits both – and was instrumental in helping a new genre of music find a home.

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  Redefining Jobs

  There was a time, during my glory days living in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district, I and my comrades spent time every day sitting in the eclectic coffee houses that ran all the way up and down Haight Street, with our notebooks in front of us, as we created our most eloquent written pearls of wisdom, most of which would never see the light of day. And by "notebooks," I mean spiral-bound sheaves of paper, onto which we would imprint mighty words using a ball point pen. Working from home (or working from coffee house as the case may be) – once seen as the domain of wannabes and posers who pretend to be more important than they really are – has gained legitimacy and a full head of steam. Those who operate home-based businesses today are a vital part of the economy, representing not only a legitimate and rapidly growing industry, but a replacement of the traditional model of employment. Changing patterns aren't just the domain of freelancers and independent contractors, though; midsize and large companies are getting into the act, too. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the percentage of employed persons who work at home on an average workday is surprisingly high. Those who hold multiple jobs are more likely to work at home, with 37 percent of multiple jobholders working from home, and 22 percent of single job holders. And BLS shows that it's not only those who are self-employed who are working from home. Tech and new platforms are changing the game While the majority of self-employed workers, 58 percent, work from home on an average workday, 20 percent of wage and salary workers are also working from home, indicating that the prospect of wearing a jacket and tie with no pants while videoconferencing isn't just for SOHO companies and independent contractors. The trend is evident in all types of employment, and we're seeing a broad-based redefining of the very nature of what a "job" really is. Today's move towards creating one's own job is driven by the power of gig-based infrastructures like Upwork, Uber, and AirBnB, all of which allow individuals to work for themselves, on their own terms, and without a large capital investment. The heavily regulated, expensive and often inefficient taxicab model for example, operated as a virtual municipal monopoly, with a handful of cab companies fighting over a very limited amount of permits. The barrier to entry was stiff – sure, you could become a cab driver by becoming an employee of the cab company, but to run your own cab service has always been impossible due to the high cost of licensing and limited number of permits available. Companies like Uber have changed all that, and now the barrier to entry has been lifted, much to the chagrin of veteran cab companies who up until now have enjoyed relatively little competition and the freedom to hire cranky cab drivers who drive too fast and yell at pedestrians. "The taxicab model is a perfect example of how industries of all types are being forced to change – and that change is being driven from the bottom up. Until now, the taxi business has always been 'you take what you get,' and complaints have always fallen on deaf ears," said Jeev Trika, CEO and founder of CrowdReviews.com, a transparent platform for online reviews. "The presence of user-generated review platforms has changed the game for the larger incumbents in all industries, who often for the first time, must listen to user feedback or be replaced by younger, smaller, and more agile startups. Consumers today have more power than ever, and it has a democratizing effect across the board. Being the biggest isn't the most important factor for success – it's all about user feedback, and this phenomenon is letting newer companies have a seat at the table." Redefinition of job, starting from the bottom up The suits in the back office are no longer calling the shots, and they no longer get to decide what a "job" really is. The youngest generation now entering the workforce, known as the Millennials, has a different set of expectations from the workplace. They see the gig economy as a viable alternative, and if they do seek traditional employment, they demand (and receive) far more flexibility than the generations before them. Does today's employee expect to be paid fairly? Sure. Do they demand flex-time, telecommuting options, and a bigger say in how the company does what it does? Yes, they do. Do they expect to stay in the same job or with the same company for 30 years? Not a chance. "We're seeing the younger generation today redefining how they want to work," said Aaron Ledbetter, CEO and founder of LendFu, a peer-to-peer lending organization. "And increasingly, the way they are doing this is not by relying on large institutions – but on each other. Banks frankly have no interest in supporting small, work-at-home and emerging SOHO businesses, but an emerging peer-based framework is beginning to emerge, giving small startups access to microloans." Peer-based lending isn't the only option available when the banks inevitably turn you away, and send you packing with laughable advice about lining up a first round of "friends and family" funding before you return. The Internet economy has created new options, ranging from crowdfunding, to angel networking sites like AngelList, and even alternatives to borrowing such as factoring (borrowing against invoices sent out but not yet paid), and even borrowing against personal assets; to online loan comparison sites like MoneyLend.net and others which let borrowers compare terms from lenders which would otherwise be outside their geographical reach. SaaS makes it happen -- sometimes It is overly simplistic to say that the cloud and the as-a-service model have enabled the career revolution that is at hand. Sure, those as-a-service tools now make it possible for a home-based business operator to have easy access to inexpensive business services, and the inherent scalability of as-a-service move all the way up the ladder to mid-size businesses who now have access to high-end tools that were once available only to the Fortune 500 willing to pay millions of dollars for licensing fees. "What we're seeing especially in mid-tier businesses is new availability of as-a-service implementations of high-end enterprise systems like CRM and ERP," said Renat Zubairov, CEO of elastic.io, a leader in integration as-a-service. "It wasn't that long ago when rolling out an enterprise ERP system would be a multi-year, multi-million dollar project, but even the largest ERP vendors today are bringing out as-a-service versions of their systems that are more affordable and practical to mid-size firms. The next set of challenges though, especially for the mid-tier, is being faced with an often unwieldy cluster of as-a-service interfaces that are not connected." Ultimately, it is that integration layer – not SaaS itself – which will complete the ongoing redefinition of "job." Cloud and SaaS first gave us the idea of gaining ubiquitous access to services from anyplace, which gave credence to the work-at-home movement and launched the latest redefinition of "job." But the full potential of SaaS was not realized right away, and because most SaaS apps operated in a vacuum, those working from home often found themselves without access to critical data, and often with far too many SaaS interfaces. The first wave of SaaS was not scaleable. SOHO companies and independent contractors could manage it when they only had a handful of apps, but at the corporate level, there was another reality. Because of the low cost and ease of deployment, cloud became dispersed outside of the IT department, introduced at the departmental level on an ad hoc basis, and the end result was convenience on one hand, but there were unintended consequences. The Just-a-bunch-of-SaaS (JBOS) model introduced situations of data hoarding, where one department may be generating a process or collecting data through one of those low-cost apps, which might be useful to other departments or to the corporation as a whole, if only people knew what each other were doing. The emergence of Job 2.0 In the last 25 years, the nature and definition of "job" has changed more than it has in 1000 years. Categories of jobs are disappearing, certain types of labor-intensive jobs are moving outside of the U.S. and creating emerging middle classes in India and China, and the "gig economy" is rapidly replacing the traditional 8-to-5 model that dominated the landscape for so long. The late Steve Jobs, in response to President Obama's question on what it would take to get the thousands of low-tech assembly jobs that exist in China putting together iPhones, famously said, quite directly, "Those jobs aren't coming back." It's a common battle cry: "Bring back our jobs!" There was a time, when men wore pomade in their hair and women donned poodle skirts and sweater sets, jobs requiring unskilled labor were plentiful and paid enough to support a middle-class lifestyle, Eisenhower was President and all was right with the world. And there is a contingent which naturally wants those glory days to return. But the fact is, as powerful and insightful as Steve Jobs was, neither he, nor the President, nor Donald Trump nor anyone else can make it so. It's no longer a matter of political will or Congressional maneuvering. The reality is this: Low-skilled manufacturing is being replaced (1) by overseas shops, and (2) by domestic higher-tech alternatives and automation; and the traditional employment model is being replaced by the gig economy, self-employment and emerging SOHO businesses. Politicians and demagogues can and will debate for years about whether that is a good thing, but that debate is meaningless – these realities are not going away, and we must get used to living in this new Job 2.0 world, lest we relegate ourselves to being the 21st century equivalent of a nation full of elevator operators and full-service gas station attendants.

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