Failure Imminent

There was a challenge to not LIMIT my thinking on how large the AIESEC Madison LC can be by looking at its past. This translates to ONE meaning: Don't set a limit on how many members can be apart of AIESEC Madison.

There was also a challenge/realization that even with the "large" growth of the local committee in the last year, the committee found a way to SUSTAIN all of these new people. And so if the committee continued on a strong growth rate, the existing members would be able to come up with a structure to SUSTAIN the membership.

And so the only logical conclusion to how many new students must be accepted into the organization next semester, should be a fairly large number, as the LC can most definitely SUSTAIN them.

Then there were some concerns raised about growing the local committee, but only as far as could be SUSTAINABLE, as if the LC would explode into nothingness when that one extra member was accepted into the organization. Based on the above logic, all growth is sustainable (so long as someone miraculously came up with a structure to support all those people).

Well, right now, I guarantee I would be able to find a structure that would SUSTAIN over 400 members of AIESEC Madison. And I would even help implementing it, if I needed to.

And so, unlike the title of this post, I do not believe growing AIESEC Madison to 400 members will doom the LC to complete failure.

And yet, I still believe in a recruitment drive of -10 (yes negative) new members. I challenge you to find my logic.

Raymond K Hessel

When a software(or SaaS/PaaS/any other jargon) company advertises that their product is FULLY customizable even for those people with no IT background, I, as the consumer, would expect the product to be fairly easily customizable.

So when I download all of the source code for all of the pages/modules/databases, why would it take 3300 edits on just the pages to change ONE title. WHY was ONE variable not carried throughout the entire site so that if someone didn't like the title, they could change it ONE time? WHY??? Hard-coding is the OPPOSITE of customizable.

Every other second I get the urge to lay waste to this monstrosity of a platform and create a new one from scratch. But then I stop and realize it would take months to include all of nice functions already available. Then I think, well, someone else must have already thought of this problem and DID create their own. Then I search all of the other providers and find that they're all the same.

And so I battle on, tediously changing the structure that supports the entire platform while hoping I don't forget one simple semi-colon or dollar sign and mess everything up.

Moving in the Forward Direction

As I was in the a bookstore buying my brother's and sister's Christmas presents, I stumbled upon The Little Red Book of Sales Answers. I've heard many people talk about this book and how much it has helped and motivated them, so I bought it.

About 20 pages in, I stopped. I couldn't read it anymore; it was boring. Everything was redundant; I heard it all before. For the past year, I have been trying to strengthen my network. I would go to social events and ask questions like "How do I grow my network?", "How do you meet influential people?", etc. AKA stupid questions. And so I would get the response, "You should read [name of a trendy book]. It really helped me learn all about it." So I would go to the store and buy this trendy book. And then I would read it and I would feel all happy. And then I would go to a networking event, get scared, and ask the same dumb questions. Rinse, recycle, repeat.

Out-loud and to my empty room I exclaim,
"Why the hell am I reading these books? I know how to sell. I've been selling my entire life. Before college, I fundraised well over $4k for adventures that only benefited my personal growth. In college, there isn't a close friend that couldn't tell you exactly what @ is, does and what role I have in the organization. Fcuk. I can sell whatever I want to."

Now I just needed something to sell. I needed a company. I didn't have a company.... well, back to reading the TechCrunch posts about all the companies that were created in the last two years that are being shoveled millions of dollars.

SugarCRM closes a $14.5 million series D financing.
CRM ... that sounds familiar. Oh wait, that's what I just spent the entire last semester researching for possible implementation into @s management system.
SugarCRM ranks #3 Open Source Company Set to Dominate 2008 by TechIQ.
For my report, I explained how Saleforce or Netsuite could alleviate many of the problems members have with @NG, except that either company would cost @ millions more dollars than it has, not actually allow full customization, AND would strap @ to the company's roller coaster and not let @ off.

My business plan for winter break: Use SugarCRM's platform to create an @ customized management tool.

Then I noticed the this: Google releases videos on how to use the many Google APIs.
My new business plan: Incorporate gmail, google calendar, google reader, and maybe even nomadlife into a modified SugarCRM package. Then customize this package further for use by @Madison and possible integration into @NG. Then I would have a package I could sell on SugarCRM's domain.

Do I think no one else has thought of this? No. Do I think mine will be the best? Probably not. But I'm still doing it: one, there really is nothing else to do right now. and two, this is my way of creating something useful and more importantly getting the practice doing it.

For the next week I will be hopping between libraries and coffee shops in downtown Madison, writing code on a check-out laptop and hopefully changing the world.

Week (or two) in Review

In celebration of getting my highest GPA ever in college, I ran through my bedroom door. Don't ask, 'cause I don't know.

I went home to Random Lake for Christmas. I received the following DVDs, which I highly recommend:
1. Lewis Black: Black on Broadway
2. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
3. Riddick Trilogy
My sister also gave me Superbad, which is slowly growing on me. In a change of pace, I decided to give my siblings books for Christmas. I gave my sister Never Eat Alone and my brother Can I Keep My Jersey?. They both were very surprised, but seemed to like the taste in writing.

I took a bus to Milwaukee. I took another one back to Madison to drop off all of my presents and get a change of clothes. I headed back to Milwaukee on another bus to meet up with Maerz and Alfredo. We had a couple brews following the Badger men's bball victory and the tip-off of the Marquette bball game. It was the first basketball game I had attended in two years.

Then the three amigos drove down to Chicago for an unofficial @ reunion. The group's @ involvement ranged from '98 till now. No one knew everyone directly, but everyone knew one person that connected them to every other person. At some random point in the night Craig crowned me "Brodie". Yet another weekend where my name has temporarily changed with very little logic taken into consideration. The other nickname of the weekend was given to Mike from Purdue: Mapquest 2003, as he's from Chicago and was repeatedly throw off by the "new" downtown. After rings were tossed about like hot potatoes and Alf missed his winning and tying putts in Golden Tee, we headed back to the downtown Hilton. It should be noted that the bad-ass, Maerzie, was the one pushing the bottle and the length of the party 'tll we finally went down.

I then took the Metra to Crystal Lake to meet up with an old dormmate. We celebrated the New Year with some poppers, champagne, and lots of Flight of the Conchords. Her mom also made some awesome chocolate, pecan cake. I was eventually dropped off in Janesville and took the bus back to Madison.

And all returns to normality.