Almost Famous; Now What?

Tuesday, I received a letter in the mail from the New Pittsburgh Courier, addressed to "Elwin Green, Publisher, Homewood Nation." It opens with this:

Dear Elwin,
Congratulations! We are pleased to inform you that you have been chosen as one of the New Pittsburgh Courier's 2014 Men of Excellence.

That means that I will be featured, along with other Men of Excellence, in the Courier's July 23rd edition. It also means that I'm invited, along with the others, to a cocktail reception to receive an award on July 24.

Meanwhile, the June issue of Pittsburgh Magazine has a two-page spread about Elwin Green in their monthly feature, "You Should Know." So all this month, people who have never heard of Elwin Green will be reading about him, and next month some folks will read about Elwin Green some more.

All of which is seriously cool. Now the question is, can I turn it to a higher purpose?

As Homewood Nation's tagline suggests, I'm working to elevate the conversation in and about Homewood.

To put it another way, I want to facilitate transformative conversations.

Can I use this newfound fame somehow to do that?

The answer may depend on figuring out why that isn't happening already. Most of my posts receive 0 comments. They ignite no conversation.

Is that because I come across as being hard to talk to?

Are the design and layout of Homewood Nation so uninviting that they turn people off from commenting?

Or is it a matter of who is reading?

On Saturday, I met three Homewood Nation readers for the first time at the OpenPittsburgh Open House held at the Homewood Carnegie Library as part of the National Day of Civic Hacking.

I always love meeting readers; what made Saturday's encounters especially interesting was that one of the three has commented on Homewood Nation. I recognized her name, and gave her a hug (with her permission) and felt comfortable with her right away.

The other two have not commented, so I had no sense of them as people. I was more tentative with them, even while encouraging them to chime in online.

And I've just thought of something: the reader who has commented is 1) Black, and 2) a Homewood resident. The two who haven't are 1) White, and 2) non-residents. And both of them, when I encouraged them to comment, said they don't feel qualified to do so.

I find that deeply interesting. Maybe the majority of my readers are non-residents. Heck, maybe the majority of my readers are white. Maybe the ones I met Saturday are following a good instinct, and should keep quiet and learn.

But from whom? If those people should keep quiet, who should converse? Who is likely to engage in transformative conversations?

My bias says, "Begin with residents. The best use of your newfound fame would be to get more residents using Homewood Nation."

Is that a valid answer? If it is, how might I go about it? I would love to hear what other people think - especially you :)

A Shift In Being - To Be A Neighbor (2 of 2)

In recent years, my work on "My Homewood" and "Homewood Nation," and with the Save Race Street Committee, have led to the fulfillment of a goal - to live in such a way that people ask me why I do what I do.

I worked out an answer which I have used consistently, with slight variation. I have told people that I have two reasons:

1) I have a King, and He has issued a command - not a suggestion, not a request - to love my neighbor. Working together with some of my neighbors for the good of all is a way of doing that.

2) I am a homeowner, and I want to increase the value of my house.

I gave that two-part answer (leaving out the second sentence of the first part for brevity) just a few days ago to Lauren Davidson of Pittsburgh Magazine, for a profile that they are publishing in the June issue.

After speaking with her, I remembered Jesus' conversation with "an expert in the Law," in which he told the parable of the Good Samaritan. Most people focus so much on the parable that they overlook the conversation, which is a shame, because Jesus does something pretty mind-blowing here. He responds to the question, "Who is my neighbor?" by refusing to answer it. Luke says that the very reason for the question was that the questioner wanted to justify himself - by having Jesus say who his neighbor was, he would then know who was not his neighbor, and therefore, whom he was not obligated to love.

Jesus sidesteps that completely, refuses to answer the question, then....trumps the Law itself. He basically says, "Forget about loving your neighbor. Just be a neighbor  - to whomever you encounter." Be the one who draws near.

****************

Dr. John M. Perkins said it years ago: "The highest calling of God is to be a neighbor." That immediately stuck in my memory, but I didn't get it for a long time, until I noticed the conversation surrounding the parable of the Good Samaritan.

I want to be the one who draws near. I want to become a great neighbor.

Three Priorities For 2014: 2 - Growing Businesses - Luminaria Productions

Luminaria Productions LLC owns this blog.

It also owns Homewood Nation, the internet-based community news service headquartered at www.homewoodnation.com. For the first couple of years after its launch in April 2010, I made the mistake of identifying the website as Homewood Nation. But Homewood Nation includes a Facebook page, a YouTube channel, and a Twitter feed (you can use the green bar above to check out all of those elements).

I declared the intent a few years ago to build Luminaria into a company whose April 2017 IPO establishes its value at $1 billion. Not because I personally need the levels of money involved, but because I imagined that it would feel amazing to have the world say that I have created that much value.

I still think that that would feel amazing, but I've misbehaved badly enough so that I now need to either push the timeline back, or shrink the number.

I'll keep the number, because I like it, and shift the timeline as appears needed. Meanwhile, I must learn to work harder AND smarter AND more consistently at building a billion-dollar enterprise.

So what else is cooking in Luminaria's pot, besides ReVisions and Homewood Nation? Multiple projects in various stages of development...

A VIDEO GAME: PeaceBuilder: Homewood

A SCREENPLAY COLLECTION: QuickFlicks - a collection of short screenplays for fledgling filmmakers.

SHORT FILMS to be produced from the QuickFlicks scripts: "coda," "Message, Not In A Bottle," "No Dessert," and "End Run."

FEATURE FILM SCRIPTS: "The Nature of Love" - a dissatisfied wife falls for one of her husband's employees, not knowing that he intends to kill her family; "The Moses Effect" - a small town sheriff's life is turned upside down when a satellite-based system begins enforcing all of the laws on the books, including the most absurd ones.

A REALITY SHOW about the rehab of a building in Homewood - most likely 1015 N. Homewood Ave.

A NEWSLETTER for Homewood.

HNTV - A TELEVISION CHANNEL devoted to Homewood

HOMEWOOD NATION MERCHANDISE - branded apparel and gifts; a tablet computer (which may be manufactured/assembled in Homewood.)

A Homewood Nation hoodie could help you 
make it through the final brutal weeks of winter!

EVENTS:

• Building A 21st Century Journalism Enterprise - a discussion series for writers, editors, designers, photographers, videographers...basically, anyone interested in the possibilities and challenges of doing what the title says, with the tools now available.
• An event honoring writer John Edgar Wideman
• An event honoring Lou Scheimer, founder of Filmation, the animation company that produced "He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe."
• Communicating for Community - a discussion, or series of discussions, on enhancing communication within Homewood and enhancing Homewood's communication with the world (and wow, this is the first time I have said it that way - I like it!).

PUBLISHING, under the Greenhouse Publications banner:

• Book, working title, "Black Man In A Suit" - a collection of posts from "My Homewood"
• Book, "Homewood 2013" - a review of the year.
• Magazine, working title, "Homewood Quarterly Journal," (blech)
• Posters
• Other books

And that's the list of projects, each of which will require work by other people, and all of which together will require the work of lots of other people. The key to Luminaria's outrageous success, is, as I said in December, attracting and retaining great talent. And getting myself out of the way.

Do you see a possible place for yourself in this list? If so, drop a line to luminariaprod@gmail.com, and I will email you updates as they are issued.

***************
Three Priorities: The Complete Series
Three Priorities For 2014 - And Beyond
Three Priorities For 2014: 1 - Encouraging The Body Of Christ
Three Priorities For 2014: 2- Growing Businesses.
Three Priorities For 2014: 2.5 - Why Build Businesses?
Three Priorities For 2014: 2 - Growing Businesses - Legal Shield
Three Priorities For 2014: 2 - Growing Businesses - Homewood Capital Partners
Three Priorities For 2014: 2 - Growing Businesses - Luminaria Productions
Three Priorities For 2014: 3 - Redeveloping Race Street
Three Priorities For 2014: Closing Thoughts

Building A Billion-Dollar Enterprise, 26: A lovely milestone

At 1:28 a.m., it is technically Friday morning. But in my consciousness it is still Thursday night, so when I say, "Luminaria Productions passed a milestone today," "today" means Thursday, January 9, 2014.

Luminaria Productions passed a milestone today.

The company executed its first sponsorship contract, with Urban Innovation 21, the public-private partnership that sponsored the grant competition for Homewood-based businesses that Luminaria participated in last year. Luminaria didn't win a grant then, but Urban Innovation president and CEO William O. Generett (he prefers "Bill") expressed a desire to advertise on "Homewood Nation," the community news website that is Luminaria's flagship product. After I explained that Homewood Nation offers advertising only for my own lines of businesses - a Cafe Press shop, an Amazon affiliation and being a Legal Shield representative - we agreed on sponsorship as a way for UI21 to support Homewood Nation.

Over the last month or so, I created a sponsorship package that offers businesses, nonprofit agencies or individuals to the opportunity to be listed as sponsors in exchange for levels of monthly support ranging from $50 to $500.

Today, in a meeting at the Homewood branch of Carnegie Library, Bill Generett and I signed off on an agreement for UI21 to sponsor Homewood Nation for six months at $180 a month (a 10% discount extended-run discount on the $200/month sponsorship).

This is not only Luminaria Productions' first sponsorship contract, it marks the company's first instance of recurring revenues. In and of itself, it will not make Luminaria profitable; indeed, it will not even enable Luminaria to break even. But it does bridge the chasm between 0 and 1 in recurring revenues.

The bigger news is that creating the sponsorship package gives me something to offer others who have expressed an interest in supporting Homewood Nation (I love creating re-usable stuff!). I need to schedule meetings with those folks within the next week. When I do, Luminaria could gain additional revenues within the next week.

In recent weeks, Luminaria has taken on expenses that would normally be covered by Capital Synergies (specifically, gas for the car), but in the normal course of things, it would take only one more $200/month sponsorship to make Luminaria profitable. So, Luminaria could become profitable within the next week.

And even if it doesn't happen next week, there is now a good probability of it happening this month. Woo-hoo!

Finally, the biggest news may be that Bill Generett spoke about replicating Homewood Nation in other communities - i.e., helping people in other communities to set up websites after my model, and charging them to do so. We are going to talk about how that might work.

Thank You, Lord.

It's not just the prospect of being able to pay bills that is gratifying here. It is the affirmation that Homewood Nation is truly worth doing, because by doing it I am truly creating value. People have given me lots of verbal affirmation, but those words ring hollow when the number of people who demonstrate the willingness to help me eat can be counted on one hand. Obviously I need a better way of asking.

Today, sponsorship proved to be a better way.

Forward!

Building A Billion-Dollar Enterprise, 25: An ugly milestone; a way forward; a huge question.

A couple of my Facebook friends shared links today to an article in the New Pittsburgh Courier about the disappearance of black-owned television stations in the U.S. (not "reduction," not "decimation" - disappearance. There are now none.)

In the article's comments section, reader Rob Wilson, after acknowledging "the power and influence of the mass media," says:

"My suggestion would be to quit lamenting the fact that we don't own old technology and instead leverage new technologies that have no barriers to entry."

In so saying, Mr. Wilson is preaching what he practices as the owner of a blog (like me!) and a YouTube channel (like me!). For him, the death of Black-owned televisions stations marks not a dead end, but a change in direction.

His comments led me to think about how to make best use of Homewood Nation's YouTube channel.

I decided to see what the most popular YouTube channels do.

The first response to my Google search for "most popular YouTube channels" was a list of the top 100 most subscribed channels, at vidstatsx.com.

According to that list, here are the top 10:

One Hundred Most Subscribed Channel Rankings List by Subscribers

Video Producer	Sub Rank	Subscribers	24 Hour Sub +/-	7 Day Sub +/-	Videos	Views
Video Producer	Sub Rank	Subscribers	24 Hour Sub +/-	7 Day Sub +/-	Videos	Views
PewDiePie	1	19,230,846	2,453,631	2,453,631	1.6K	3.19 B
YouTube Spotlight	2	19,035,715	2,258,500	2,258,500	187	384.3 M
Movies	3	15,966,415	38,988	247,302	0	0
Smosh	4	15,038,347	30,038	217,959	337	2.87 B
HolaSoyGerman	5	14,255,691	30,286	205,617	95	949.2 M
JennaMarbles	6	11,943,560	17,390	106,135	175	1.33 B
RihannaVEVO	7	11,913,795	14,950	121,570	83	4.54 B
nigahiga	8	11,278,526	14,345	96,604	173	1.67 B
TV Shows	9	11,139,532	3,544	28,040	0	0
OneDirectionVEVO	10	11,007,255	17,799	142,322	83	2.34 B

Quick observations:

1 - The #1 channel, PewDiePie, is listed as having just under 19,231,000 subscribers. As of this writing, there are 19,242,643.

2 - During the week of Dec. 9, according to Nielsen, the most-viewed series on primetime network TV, NCIS, drew 19,297,000 viewers.

3 - Three of the top 10 channels are YouTube-branded channels - Spotlight, Movies, and TV Shows.

4 - Two channels, Rihanna and OneDirection, belong to celebrities.

5 - Half of the top 10 channels - five of 10 - belong to seemingly ordinary people who set out to make people laugh. Comedy is big. Very big.

I have always envied people who can make people laugh.

Hm. Could Homewood Nation produce satire?

For some time, I have envisioned a weekly video series (working title, "Homewood Nation Week in Review") - perhaps one segment of that, which could stand on its own, would be a 3-5 minute clip satirizing some aspect of the week's news.

Or maybe not: the 14th ranked YouTube channel, Epic Rap Battles of History, does not seem overly dependent on the news for its content, which I will not even attempt to describe. Just watch.



In any case, the idea is there: short, funny, topical videos could provide value.

Another thing worth noting. ERBH posts new episodes every two weeks. YouTube producers have flexibility in when to broadcast their content. I like the idea of a weekly broadcast, but not everything has to follow that schedule.

There's lots more to think about - the differences between stations and networks, the opportunities afforded (or not) by new digital networks, the increasing ability to watch YouTube on TVs, the possibility of a channel hosting subscriber-created content - but I don't want spend ALL of 2013's final hours on this. I will end with just one question of gigantic importance to my 2014 - and maybe Homewood's:

What type of content would you like to see on Homewood Nation's YouTube channel?

(AN HOUR LATER) - WOW. I just realized that I should ask a second question, which may be more powerful than the first: Would you like to provide content for Homewood Nation's YouTube channel, and if so, what kind?

(GOTTA get past that do-it-all mentality; it's not about me, it's about the work, and the work includes releasing/unveiling the potential of other people.)

What happened on June 27

Annnddd...I lied.

No, that's a little strong. When I made a promise at the end of my last post, I meant it; I was not deliberately deceiving.

I just forgot to follow through. I'll blame the holiday for that. But I don't have anything/one to blame for not having posted since then.

I was supposed to talk about what happened on June 27. To put it simply, on June 26, I became a witness to unplanned hard news. I attended a community meeting, and as the meeting was winding down, one of the men there who had stepped outside, rushed back in and said something like, "Everbody in the building needs to come outside right now."

When we went outside, we saw a photojournalist and a schoolteacher, both of whom I had spoken with just minutes before, on the ground, in handcuffs.

I took a picture:

...and posted it on Facebook, with this status: "RIGHT NOW a journalist and a schoolteacher who just left the meeting are in handcuffs. Call all media! Share!"

I knew that this was a breaking news story that deserved a larger audience than my Facebook friends. And I began shooting video. And I took more pictures, and posted them to Facebook, and posted more verbal updates as the evening progressed, and by the end of the night, I had an account up on Homewood Nation, which became the go-to spot for the story - which, on June 27, more than 4,000 people did go to.

That was, to say the least, very cool for me. Even more cool was that all three major TV stations wound up using both my photo and my video and crediting Homewood Nation as they did - over and over.

It's been two weeks now, and I haven't kept all of those readers, but I hope that some are sticking around, or coming back, or that they will come back.

BUT - I haven't posted anything THERE since July 2.

Sigh. This whole fear-of-success thing, or whatever the heck it is that's going on, has got to go.

Mysteries of the Internet

Well now, this is interesting:

I wrote my last post here on June 9.

I have not linked to or otherwise intentionally promoted this blog since then (at some point I created a link on Homewood Nation; I don't remember whether that was before or after June 9).

According to Blogger's chart for all-time stats, in June this blog received 822 views, one less than the record set in January.

How can that be?

Well, fully ONE-FOURTH of those views were for two older posts "Internet journalism and The Black Church" (106 views), and "How to make yourself pass out, in four easy steps" (105 views). The popularity of the first pleases me. The popularity of the second scares me: it is in fact, my most popular post ever, with 588 total pageviews, more than twice as many as the second-place "Racism (or something like it) in the media," which has garnered 280 views.

I envision teenagers finding their way to that post in their search for a thrill. And worse yet, doing what it says.

Like Stephen King pulling his novel "Rage" from publication, I may wind up taking that post down.

But back to my point  - the popularity of those top two posts, aside, I have no idea what is driving current traffic. After a certain point in June, I gave up any hope of tallying a decent count for the month.

But you folks showed up. I wish more of you would say, "Hi," because I'd love to know where you're from, how you got here, and what you think about anything here.

Especially since you're still showing up, getting this month off to a good start in that regard:

July 1
ReVisions pageviews - 41
Homewood Nation visitors - 330 Average time - 1:22

July 2
ReVisions pageviews - 150
Homewood Nation visitors - 234 Average time - 0:57

About those Homewood Nation numbers - they are high for a website that has mostly had fewer than 100 visitors a day. I ascribe that to the continuing ripple effect of the fact that on June 27, Homewood Nation had 4,981 visitors.

I'll say more about that tomorrow.

Building a Billion-Dollar Enterprise, 22: In search of "ne plus infra"

Today (Friday, 6/7) was weird; it seemed to be all distraction.

I woke up late, cancelled a meeting. Went to lunch with Andrew Butcher (of GTECH). Had a hard time focusing this afternoon, until the repeated appearance of a particular video in my Facebook news feed led me to write this blog post about it.

The evening was actually a little scary. I think I'm paying too much attention, or the wrong kind of attention, to pageviews and visits. I'm feeling too much.

As the evening wound later, I kept thinking that I needed to do something Luminaria-related, because I want a chronicle of doing something Luminaria-related every single day (shades of "Julie and Julia"). But my motivation and focus were shot.

"Any little thing," I told myself. "What's the smallest thing you can think of to do?"

Draw a sketch of what I want Luminaria's office to look like? Do some research reading? Compose a musical motto? Email a graphic artist about ideas for new products on which we could collaborate?

Everything seemed like too much. I wanted the ne plus infra of action - the opposite of ne plus ultra, or the thing which nothing could go beyond. I wanted the thing which nothing could go below, the smallest possible action.

Finally, I thought of something that seemed like the smallest possible thing I could do. The thing that I can always do. The thing that may be the biggest thing I can do.

I prayed.

"Lord, please grant me wisdom to build the Luminaria the way You want it to be. Or take away the desire for it."

************
Only after beginning this post did I remember that I had promised Greg O. last night (see the comments section) that tonight, I would explain why I am sending out links to these posts via LinkedIn.

Here's why:

1. I have more than 600 1st-degree contacts on LinkedIn. That's more direct contacts than I have on Facebook, Twitter, G+, or any of my email lists.
2. LinkedIn is more business-oriented than the other networks. Over time, I want this chronicle to provide greatest value to people who are most interested in business, as a learning tool.
3. When I am ready to begin hiring people, people who have followed the development of the business may constitute the best hiring pool.
4. When I need to partner with someone, people who have followed the development of the business may make the best potential partners.

************

I want to continue reporting daily stats, even as I learn to avoid attaching emotion to then. I've learned that I need to wait a day for complete information. So here are the final numbers from Wed., June 6:

ReVisions pageviews: 55

Homewood Nation visitors: 64, average time 1:34

I am nowhere close to being in a position say whether any of those numbers are good or bad. For me, now, they simply are. And are subject to improvement.

************
Today, for the first time, I thought seriously, if only briefly, about creating a nonprofit to publish a neighborhood newsletter. Or more precisely, revamping a nonprofit that I formed years ago but never used. The newsletter and "Homewood Nation" could feed each other material, and the newsletter and its nonprofit could attract funding that for-profit Luminaria could not.

************
I did do something else today for Luminaria Productions, come to think of it - if "for" is the appropriate word.

I talked about it. With Andrew. Not at any great length, but enough to make me realize that I need to talk about it more, to hear myself say out loud what is in my mind and in my heart - and sometimes, even, to discover what some of what is in my mind and in my heart by saying it out loud, like "Making Homewood a hub of Pittsburgh's film industry." That goes a bit beyond wanting to make a movie or two.

Maybe I should not only do something for Luminaria every day, and write about Luminaria every day; maybe I should talk about Luminaria every day, too.  

Building a billion-dollar enterprise, 21: a new media experiment

This evening's update on my work to build Luminaria Productions into a billion-dollar enterprise:

1. I promoted last night's BBDE post via Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and G+.

2. I also promoted last night's Homewood Nation story about TechShop coming to Homewood Library, via Facebook and Twitter.

I did all of that by noon or so, on the belief that people might be more likely to browse social media then during lunch. I also used my new spreadsheet to keep track of what I had posted where.

According to Google, "ReVisions" had 3 pageviews today, after 77 on Monday, 59 on Tuesday, and 42 on Wednesay.

According to Clicky, Homewood Nation had 59 visitors today, with an average time per visit of 1 min, 31 secs. That would include people who visited to read about Shimira Williams...

3. I wrote a story about Shimira Williams creating and registering a new hashtag for people to share and find information about local youth activities - #youth 412.

The last gave me special pleasure, and I consider it especially important, because it was, as I said to Shimira, "a new media experiment."

We were chatting on Facebook, and at 2:45, I got the idea of doing a story about the hashtag. I asked if I could interview her, right there on Facebook, she agreed (with the caveat that she was multitasking), and we were off.

The chat itself served as notes, and I began writing while we spoke. At the end of our convo, she sent me a pic of herself to use.

At 4:35, I posted the first link to the completed article on Facebook, quickly following with posts on Twitter and G+.

It's not great journalism. But I'm certain that it is the fastest story I have ever done. And I think it is also serviceable, as opposed to being downright bad. It accomplishes the not-grand purpose of sharing a little bit of information that some people might find useful.

And it even has two - not one, but two - pictures.

I am downright proud of having reported, written and published a serviceable story in less than two hours. The better I get at producing serviceable stuff faster - the better.

This post marks the beginning of me tracking visitors/pageviews on a daily basis. First results don't look good for my use of LinkedIn to promote my content. Is the very title, "Building a billion dollar enterprise" off-putting for that audience? How can I make this more interesting and useful?

Thoughts for another day.

Building a billion-dollar enterprise, 20: refining reporting

So, this work may go better if I have some sort of system for reporting.

First, some clarification - I have created legal entities for at least a dozen businesses through the years, of which I am now focusing my attention on two - Homewood Capital Partners LLC and Luminaria Productions LLC.

Homewood Capital Partners is a for-profit LLC, created to invest in Homewood real estate.

Luminaria Productions LLC, of course, is the media production company behind "Homewood Nation" - and, it occurs to me, would make a perfectly sensible owner for this blog. Duh!

Three other entities relate to Luminaria in some way. I have a long-dormant sole proprietorship, Greenhouse Publications, which I have mentally, but not formally, moved from being an extension of me to being a subsidiary of Luminaria - its arm for print products. I see the first print product being a book derived from four and a half years of the "My Homewood" blog; the working title is "Black Man in a Suit."

There is a real estate partnership, 529 N. Homewood LP, created to purchase and hold the eponymous property. I mention it here because I may place it under Luminaria. As of now, it stands separate.

Finally, there's Capital Synergies, Inc., predating all of the above except Greenhouse Publications. The purpose of Capital Synergies is to own and manage entities that own assets. The original idea was to have it be general partner of real estate limited partnerships, and it is the GP of 529 N. Homewood Ave. It also owns and is Managing Partner of Luminaria Productions. So it will show up in posts about building a billion-dollar enterprise, as a background player; but not much, I think. Most of what I write about BBDE will be about Luminaria.

So, what did I do today (Wed, 6/5) for Luminaria?

1. I promoted Rob Jones' piece on Homewood Nation about coaching Homewood.
2. I scheduled a room at the library for TechShop's presentation on June 18, then wrote, posted and promoted a piece on Homewood Nation about it.
3. I conducted an interview with RaShall Brackney that I think could provide material for at least a couple of stories in Homewood Nation.
4. I promoted last night's BBDE post on both LinkedIn and G+.
5. I created a spreadsheet to decide which venues to use to promote which types of content that I create online. This is a small thing that could have a big impact because I have caught myself wasting time deciding which venues to use to promote which content. I have also wasted time trying to remember which venues I had used and which ones I still needed to use. It is curious how I sometimes simply lose track of what I'm doing, mid-task. As a type of checklist, the spreadsheet should help. Never underestimate the power of a good form.
6. I emailed Eric Brown, president of Hybrid Learning Systems and ImpactGames, about PeaceBuilder
7. I emailed Kilolo Luckett, primarily about Homewood Capital Partners, but also about meeting.

That seems like it. On the one hand, that doesn't look like a full day's work; on the other, I feel as though I kept busy. Except when I was nodding off. Gotta exterminate the night owl.

Tomorrow morning, Pomodoro. Task #1 - update entities and projects list. Going forward, that list will provide the basis for both planning and reporting Luminaria activity.

I've just come up with tweaks on the LinkedIn./G+ experiment:

• share these posts twice: upon completion, then about 12 hours later, or between 12 - 1 pm,
• early in each post, link back to the preceding one.
• always link to new Homewood Nation content (don't just say, " I wrote/posted so-and-so.") 

Building a billion-dollar enterprise, 19: Brick by brick

Today (i.e., Tuesday, 6/4) I worked mostly online.

I enrolled in the eService program for Legal Shield associates, snagging my associate website. I then went back to yesterday's post and inserted a link to the website there. I also rewrote my Google Plus profile, which appears here to the right, to link to it, as well as to Luminaria Productions' YouTube channel. You may have noticed that I also added a Chatroll chat window - I'm not sure why, except as a whim. I am more likely to use a chat window on Homewood Nation than here.

On Homewood Nation, I added an ad for Legal Shield that links to my Legal Shield website. And I created a sidebar module that links to both this blog and to Quick Flicks, my site for selling my short scripts to aspiring filmmakers.

Homewood Nation, which has so far generated only $50 in a one-time donation, now contains these channels for potential revenue:

• the Homewood Nation Cafe Press shop
• a sidebar link to my Amazon shop
• a sidebar link to Quick Flicks
• a sidebar ad for Legal Shield
• a donation button

It just occurred to me that, besides the having the sidebar link that invites people to search for books on Amazon, and besides inserting a link to my Amazon shop when I mention books in my Homewood Nation posts (something I should do more often), I may be able to create a "Recommended reading" sidebar module that highlights a particular book, such as my most recent favorite, Influencer: The New Science of Leading Change, (the link is for the 2d edition; I read the original.)

While reviewing my stats for this blog, I noticed that my May 17th post, "Internet journalism and the Black Church's $420 billion," was receiving comments from people saying not only that they appreciated it, but that they were sharing it with others. Bad effect: I became overly preoccupied with checking to see how many times that post had been viewed. Good effect: I redistributed the link to it via G+, Twitter and Facebook.

Result - the numbers went up yet further. Yay!

Also today, I reviewed +Rob Jones'  piece for Homewood Nation, about coaching a community. That will go in tomorrow.

I am writing this because I want to post something here every evening for the remainder of this month. I don't think I've done that here for such an extended stretch, and I believe that doing so could produce dramatic results - with my definition of dramatic being something like, "having 50 readers daily" or "starting to make ANY money with this."

Wow; I've forgotten what may be the most important thing I did today. I posted a LinkedIn status linking to last night's post. I think it was the first time I've promoted a blog post on LinkedIn, despite having more 1st-degree contacts there (619) than I have Facebook friends (450).

But not only did I post the link on LinkedIn. I posted it ONLY on LinkedIn and on G+. Not on Facebook, not on Twitter. As an experiment.

I think I'll keep the experiment going, with these parameters: 1) write a BBDE post every evening for the remainder of the month, reviewing that day's activity; 2) promote it only on LinkedIn and G+.

I can write non-BBDE posts at will, and promote them everywhere EXCEPT LinkedIn.

On a separate note: I've tried to use AdSense here, but have never gotten it to work. Gotta get that going.

Success tip #47a - make like a broken record.

It just occurred to me that one reason I have not achieved more is because I get tired of my own voice, especially when it's saying the same thing over and over.

As a result of being tired of hearing myself say the same thing over and over, I sometimes stop saying that thing. That weakens me because sometimes achievement depends on saying the same thing over and over. The power of persistence and of consistency largely lies in saying the same thing over and over.

What brought all of this to mind was reading about the primary election that wrapped up a few hours ago, in which Bill Peduto won the Democratic nomination for mayor. In Facebook comments, Homewood Children's Village president and CEO Derrick Lopez noted that the voter turnout was an abysmal 22 %.

That made me think that perhaps I should have used Homewood Nation to urge people to vote in this election. And if I ask myself why I didn't, the immediate answer is, "Because I've said that before, to the point that I got tired of hearing myself say it.. So I stopped."

But people still need to vote. And if I had kept saying that, then maybe by now I would have sparked some action, some collaboration, something that would get more people voting.

There was a period, a few years ago, when I said with some regularity to whomever would listen long enough to let me, "Buy a house in Homewood while you can still afford it." I got tired of hearing myself say it, and I stopped.

There are still people who would benefit from buying a house in Homewood.

Those examples highlight ways in which my persistence in saying the same things over and over might benefit others. But that persistence could also benefit me, directly, by helping me to do things I need to do, when I am not inclined to do them. Or even before that, by simply reminding myself of what I trying to accomplish during my remaining time on Earth.

Lord, let me love the sound of my own voice speaking truth. Let me never tire of hearing myself speak truth.

Building a billion-dollar enterprise, 17 - a mega-deal sparks questions

Well, we haven't have had any "They're-spending-a-billion-dollars-for-WHAT??" deals lately, so I guess we were due for another one:

"Yahoo to buy Tumblr for $1.1 billion." 

Tumblr, like Instagram, the last billion-dollar acquisition in the tech space, is not making money. Will Yahoo make money with it? Who knows?

I don't even have a response for this. Well, actually I do: deep skepticism, fueled by the simple fact that I don't see Yahoo being smart with what they already have, so I don't see any particular reason to believe that they will be smart with Tumblr.

But I still have a Yahoo account or two, so I will keep up with what they're doing as a user.

For me, the news of the deal sparks a conversation with myself that I've never really had before, fueled by questions like:

1. How much would an investor pay for Homewood Nation?
2. Would an investor pay anything for Homewood Nation?
3. How can I get a credible answer for either of those questions? - and the real biggie:
4. How can I make Homewood Nation more valuable to an eventual buyer?

I call #4 the biggie because while I don't particularly intend to sell Homewood Nation itself, Homewood Nation is part of the package that I do want to sell in - a little less than four years now. Or that I iwant to sell pieces of between now and then.

I think #3 is the place to start.

These questions are not just mathematical. They pierce. I have spent countless hours on Homewood Nation (and its predecessor, "My Homewood,") but my bank accounts suggest that in the end, I have only created stuff, without creating value. I am broke. As in, "Can I make it through the month without overdrawing my accounts?" As in, "Do I need to tap my IRA to keep going for another three months?" (It's a tiny IRA. I've made many mistakes.) And being broke pierces, because it says to me that in my 61 years, I have in sum taken more value from the world than I have created for the world. And I don't wanna be that guy. On the contrary, I want to be the guy who creates insane value. I've always wanted to be that guy; why haven't I become him yet? Is it too late to become him?

I believe I have created value. Perhaps I need to believe that I have created value, in order to keep breathing.

But so far, no one is saying so with dollars.

A friend said on Facebook once that every man woman and child in Homewood should give me $5 a month for Homewood Nation. I took that as a great compliment, and as encouragement to place a "Donate" button on the website, and to run my first donation-seeking campaign.

Over the course of a month, one person donated $50. He does not live in Homewood.

I am self-conscious about talking about my finances, but it seems important to note where I am now, as part of the story. Let it go on record: in February 2013, Green entered a prolonged period of something that he said might have been depression. For months, he was haunted by the failure of his PeaceBuilder game, which he had hoped would be Luminaria's first moneymaker, and would fund the further development of Homewood Nation.

During this time, every item that he posted on Homewood Nation "seemed like an exercise in futility. Who was reading? Who cared?" This was despite the fact that the website had attracted new contributors such as C. Matthew Hawkins and Joshua Devine. While he dreamed of growing the website, Green despaired of ever being able to pay writers to produce the robust content that he felt Homewood deserved.

When he wrote the blog entry on May 20, the first draft of which included a section written in the past tense that ended by describing the shutdown of Homewood Nation at the end of that month, "I told myself that this needed to be part of the record, too, so that when people came along later to see how to build a billion-dollar company, they would see that sometimes it meant just slogging through my own internal shit. In fact, it meant that A LOT of times.

"Make no mistake about it," he said. "Building a business of any size, from the ground up, will absolutely turn you inside out."

Building a billion-dollar enterprise, 10

Today I did not do anything specifically to make money. But I did work on building a billion-dollar enterprise, by talking with my wife about it.

I described to her the general steps I intend to take to move PeaceBuilder forward - reconnecting with people I know at Pitt's business school, reconnecting with people I know in Pittsburgh's tech community, and connecting with people I don't know yet, but should -  and told her about the three things I am working on now to generate income: placing a "donate" button on Homewood Nation, setting up a Cafe Press shop on Homewood Nation, and publishing "Quick Flicks."

I also told her that, while it is possible for someone to accumulate significant wealth without anyone knowing about it, reaching my goal of an April, 2017 IPO valuing Luminaria Productions at $1 billion would automatically make the value of my Luminaria shares a matter of public record. And even before the IPO, the very process of building such an enterprise in Homewood would attract the attention that would make me a public person.

I told her those things because - as I also told her - I have long believed that she has a fear of becoming rich, partly coming from a fear of other people knowing about her wealth, and making her a target for them to get some. She didn't disagree.

I apologized for going broke, and asked her if she forgave me, and she said yes. I told her that I am bound and determined to get out of the place that I've come to, and to never come back to this. Ever.

Odd that so far, thinking about making money has focused my attention almost exclusively on Luminaria Productions, when Homewood Capital Partners might actually produce income sooner.

There's a lot of damage to repair. I believe that tonight was a good start.

Building a billion-dollar enterprise, 8

Spoke with Andrew Thornhill today, who alerted me to the fact that the "fiscal cliff" deal worked out by Congress last night includes the extension of Bush-era tax credits for film and TV productions.

I had not known about such credits. This is the sentence from the Hollywood Reporter's story that jumps off the page:

"As extended through 2013, the credit allows deduction of production costs up to $15 million and as much as $20 million for shoots that occur in sites that meet the bill’s criteria for an economically disadvantaged area."

An economically disadvantaged area? Um, yeah, that would be Homewood.

That news nicely capped a day that started out rough, but got better.

The rough start was me having trouble sleeping last night, being highly congested and suffering fits of sneezing that caused my entire body to seize up (resulting in a kink in my lower back that still hurts). Then spending a really long time in the tub trying to steam bad stuff out of my body.

Finally got down to work some time this afternoon. I think I spent a couple of hours working on Homewood Nation's Cafe Press shop, trying to understand how Cafe Press works in its entirety. I have a couple of accounts with them, and a couple of shops. One is a beta shop; the one for Homewood Nation is...well I'm not sure what it is. I need to read their documentation again to get clear on the options they offer.

In any case, I was pleased simply to discover that the Homewood Nation page featuring the shop contains items that I created before going to Louisville, because at the time it appeared that they were not being saved.

It's time to make money. Now.

I need to do something this month to get momentum going for this year. Maybe I should make it a goal to publish "Quick Flicks," my collection of short screenplays, by Jan. 10. 

That certainly seems more doable than writing a novel in a month (sigh), just by working at it every day. And working at it every day would help to train me to work on building Luminaria Productions every day, period. Which is what I have to do to build it into a billion-dollar enterprise - work at it a minimum of six days a week.

But publishing "Quick Flicks" by Jan. 10 is not a goal just yet. I spent some hours this evening assembling and printing my masterplan for 2013. Or more precisely, the draft of said masterplan. Tomorrow (and perhaps the day after that), I will focus largely on updating it. That updating will determine what emerges as the strongest near-term goal. And what emerges as long-term ones.

A movie or TV series, set largely in Homewood and employing as many Homewood residents as possible in its production - that would change things.

That will influence the masterplan.

Renewing my energy for energy. And for my whole life.

It has been a year and nine months since I left my job as an energy reporter at the Post-Gazette. Since then, I have read very little about energy. Just now, while flipping through the current issue of The Economist, I came across a story about how financial firms that engage in energy trading are beginning to resist fines from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

And I read it. Just out of interest. Just for fun.

And it was interesting, and it was fun, to read about FERC, and Constellation Energy, and regional transmission organizations.

Which makes me feel that I could get back into energy reporting as a freelancer. Which would help me to feel like that all the relationships I established within the industry during my time at the PG, and all that I learned, would not be going totally to waste.

I need to make better use of all the stuff that has accumulated in my brain during my 60 years on this rock. Freelance energy reporting might be a good start. In fact, writing about energy on Homewood Nation might be the best start.

Memo to myself: generate a list of energy-related, Homewood-based story ideas.

**************

Meanwhile, I am going to invent a phrase: self-mining.

Self-mining means digging into oneself and extracting value from everything that one finds. Or at least, digging into oneself with that intention.

The value may be in lessons learned. The value may be in something marketable. The value may be in relationships forgotten, but renewable. At the core of self-mining is that the proposition that it's all worth something, somehow. Self-mining is first and foremost about honoring one's life.

I want to excel at self-mining. I mean, it wouldn't do for the guy who invented the term to suck at it, right?

So here's a question for me to work with: What parts of my life have I tended to disregard or to think little of, and how might they be valuable?

The answers of the moment are "energy journalism" and "I could resume it as a freelancer."

It will be interesting to see what other answers I come up with.

What about you? What experiences, skills, relationships, knowledge are you sitting on that you haven't used lately?

Where am I? What am I doing?

I am strangely positioned these days. Or to put it more precisely, I am in a position which seems strange to me.

I am publisher of "Homewood Nation," which I have most commonly described as a community news website.

I am chair of the Save Race Street Committee, a block association for my street, composed of residents who are bound and determined to make our street better.

I am chair of Block Watch Plus, a monthly gathering of all of Homewood's block associations, as well as individuals who are not members of block associations but who simply want to do positive things on their street, or who already are.

I am on the board of Operation Better Block Inc., which is the non-profit agency that assists residents in forming block associations and stands behind Block Watch Plus (somewhere, Block Watch Plus is described as a program of Operation Better Block).

I am co-founder of Creative Local, which has an agreement with Operation Better Block for OBB to act as our fiscal agent in receiving funds for "Hidden Gems: The Architecture of Homewood."

The Save Race Street Committee, Operation Better Block and Creative Local are all in the news, and Block Watch Plus has the strong potential to be.

Holding these positions inevitability places me at the intersection of news and PR, and raises the question of which I am doing, when. When I participate in something that I believe to be newsworthy, and I write about it, is that news or PR?

When I reach out to the media for coverage, is that...ok, no need to ask...

But if they write about it, and then I write about the fact that they wrote about it, what is that?

Finally, do my memberships in all these groups compromise my ability to write about them?

I believe that it has, but not in the way that may seem most obvious. I already did a post on Homewood Nation about this; here, I am trying to think things through a little more.

The journalistic compromise that most people might expect is a refusal/failure to report news that reflects negatively on any of the groups with which I am involved.

What I have been more strongly aware of is the refusal/failure to report even news that reflects positively on said groups, because I am not comfortable writing about stuff that I am involved with. I would rather leave myself out, and I would definitely rather not be photographed.

But my rathers are rather irrelevant. More important is that people deserve to know about some of the stuff I am doing (none of it by myself, by the way, so it's not as though when I write about it, I am merely writing about myself).

In order to become a more thorough journalist, I need to become a better blogger. That is, I need to report more fully on my own life in order to report more thoroughly on OBB, SRSC, BWP and CL. For starters.

I think I reported more fully on my own life in the early days of "My Homewood." But the more that I moved  from the "pure observer" end of the participant-observer spectrum toward the "pure participant" end, the more uncomfortable I became with describing events that involved me.

Gotta get past that. I am doing things that are important to Homewood. People deserve to know.

Having said all that, not every story or post will involve a group that I am part of, but readers should be able to know about those affiliations every time they read. So I need to list them somewhere on "Homewood Nation," and probably make some basic statement of beliefs.

When one does not even feign objectivity, transparency goes a long away - especially when joined with thoroughness and accuracy (which, again, require that I write about myself sometimes. Oh, well.).

For any journalists or citizen journalists out there - or people just committing acts of journalism, without any particular title - do you ever find yourself "strangely positioned?" What ethical challenges do you face, and how do you navigate them?

Knots

Kilolo Luckett and I are in the home stretch for "Hidden Gems: The Architecture of Homewood," which happens Sept. 15.

I sent out an email asking for volunteers, and Kiva A.Fisher-Green, from Homewood but now in Atlanta, said that I could post the info on her Facebook Timeline.

I just did.

It took me an hour.

Actually, it took longer than that if I count the time I spent last night thinking about it and making my first attempt before deciding to wait until this morning to post.

My first attempt didn't work because I tried to post a PDF, when I needed to post a JPG.

It took me an hour this morning largely because I was tied in knots about posting to someone else's Timeline.

I know: that's utterly common on Facebook. But I have never been comfortable with the practice; it has always seemed to me an odd thing to do. A person's Timeline, I have felt, is THEIR platform for what THEY want to share, not an open platform for anybody to come along and post anything. Which is what often seems to happen.

The fact that Kiva gave me permission made it bearable for me to post to her Timeline, but it didn't make it easy.

Does anybody else share my queasiness about Timelines? Is it just me?

*******************

Hold on. Can it be that I haven't mentioned "Hidden Gems" here?

I forget that I have different audiences, that a reader here might not have seen references to "Hidden Gems" on Facebook or on "Homewood Nation."

So, what is "Hidden Gems?" A panel discussion about architectural treasures to be found in a neighborhood where most people would never look; followed by a reception. All free and open to the public.

It is also the first event in the Homewood Arts and Culture Series, a series of events celebrating Homewood's artistic and cultural legacy, being created by Kilolo and myself, working together as Creative Local.

It's going to be a great event. The question is, how well can I avoid tying myself in knots over it?

*****************

Maybe I can't. Maybe it's necessary for me to be perpetually nervous over the next few weeks, because I've not done this before. The next time, I'll do better. The next time, I'll be better.

It's already time to start on the next time. Gotta pick up the pace, operate in a higher gear.

Hah - fifth gear. (That's a joke to myself, about Level 5. I'll explain later.)

Upward!

Building a billion-dollar enterprise, 5

Just for the record, I have felt like crap today.

I think it started with a Facebook post, and the responses to it. The post included a link to WTAE's story about the Wheel Mill, the indoor bike park coming to Homewood.

Actually, two of my FB friends posted the link, and in each case, the status was followed by a long string of responses.

Meanwhile, I wrote a story about the bike park TWO WEEKS AGO for Homewood Nation, and only one person has responded.

And that one person's response was more than the vast majority of my Homewood Nation stories get. Most Homewood Nation stories get no responses. None. No indication that anyone, anywhere, is reading.

The people who posted the link to the WTAE story are Facebook friends, so unless they are blocking me (which they have every right to do), my status linking to the Homewood Nation story showed up in their news feeds on April 25. So...I'm doing original reporting, I'm linking to the stories from Facebook, and my Facebook friends are not reading Homewood Nation, and when WTAE reports on something that I wrote about two weeks ago, it's news to them.

That stinks.

(a half-hour or more later, still aching...)

I feel like Homewood Nation doesn't matter.

But I know that it does.

It matters because Homewood matters. Because the people of Homewood matter. And any and every thing that I can do to help the people of Homewood to get accurate information about what is happening in their world, matters.

Neighborhood journalism matters. It matters enough to deserve better promotion that I have ever given it.

It matters enough to deserve a staff.

It matters enough to deserve money.

Right now, it's either quit, or get better. I feel like quitting.

Building a billion-dollar enterprise means, it's time to get better.

MY 100TH POST: Surveying my empire

When I sat down to write this, I didn't realize that it would be my 100th post here. But my topic seems appropriate for that sort of milestone - namely, that I've come up with a system to help me do a better job of managing my digital empire.

Maybe "system" isn't the best word; maybe I want the word "construct," or "schematic" - i.e., a way of thinking about my digital assets that connects them.

The key word of the construct is tiers. I have until kept my digital assets separate enough so that a person engaging with one might never know about the others. My rationale was that someone who is in interested in the primary topic of one wouldn't necessarily be interested in the primary topics of the others.

I still believe that, but the qualifier is "necessarily." What strikes me now is that they might be, and that I ought not to deny them the chance to be. I should give people who follow me in one context the opportunity to decide whether or not follow me in another.

So, I will now work at connecting the dots, by having assets in one tier refer to assets in one or more other tiers.

Here's the list, with links so you can take a look at things and bookmark or follow whatever you like. I'm just learning about RSS feeds, and hope to begin using them soon.

[The following has been updated. The original version had ReVisions listed as the only item in the second tier, and all the following items one tier higher. Doing this exercise helped me recognize ReVisions as one of my core digital assets.]

The first tier consists of four core digital assets. My current thinking says that each of them should link to all of the others, even if they don't all refer to each other:

• The Dumasani Network - a website dedicated to liberating the ecclesia among the pan-African diaspora.
• Homewood Nation - news from Homewood and reflections on journalism. There is also a Homewood Nation YouTube channel, which for now I will include here.
• PeaceBuilder: Homewood - an online game based on Homewood.
• ReVisions - this thang raht hyar. It refers to the other three core assets.

Second tier:

• Twitter:

1. @elwin15208 - refers to Dumasani, ReVisions, Homewood Nation
2. @HomewoodNation - refers to Homewood Nation

• Facebook:

1. Elwin Green - refers to Dumasani, ReVisions, Homewood Nation
2. Homewood Nation (page) - refers to Homewood Nation

Third tier:

• Elwin Green Online - an overview of all my projects (it needs updating) - refers to Dumasani, ReVisions, Homewood Nation; invites people to partnership
• Google+: Elwin Green - I haven't figured out what to do with Google+ yet, but I'll say for now that it will refer to Dumasani, ReVisions, Homewood Nation and Peacebuilder: Homewood.

Fourth tier:

• LinkedIn - refers to Homewood Nation, Elwin Green Online
• Email lists - I have a bunch. Most of them are internal, for communications within/among a group, and are Homewood-based. Therefore, they refer only to Homewood Nation.

1. Save Race Street Committee - internal, refers to Homewood Nation
2. Race Street 2020 - internal, refers to Homewood Nation
3. Race Street residents - internal, refers to Homewood Nation
4. Block Watch Plus - internal, refers to Homewood Nation
5. Citizens Leadership Initiative - internal, refers to Homewood Nation
6. Issue Based Team - internal, refers to Homewood Nation
7. Homewood residents - combines all of the above lists except Race Street 2020 - refers to  Homewood Nation
8. Homewood Nation - for members of the website - refers to Homewood Nation, Elwin Green Online
9. Personal opt-in list - Homewood Nation, Elwin Green Online

And that's it - I'm going to try this out for at least a month, and see how much life I can pump into everything.  The primary strategy for pumping life into everything is doing systematic updates of everything. The primary prerequisite of doing systematic updates is writing like a fiend.

Fortunately, there's a lot about which to write. For updates of all my projects, email me at elwin@elwingreen.com, with "9" in the subject line. Thanks, and I welcome your input!