Elwin 3.0, Year One

I am approaching an anniversary, and I don't know how I feel about it.

February 21, 2011, was my last day as a reporter with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. I had started there in September, 2004, so I was just shy of six and a half years there when I left.

When I took the buyout being offered by the PG, I told myself that I was finally gaining the time I needed to do some things that were crowding my plate. Things like:

• publishing my first book
• publishing my second book
• completing and distributing my first short film
• completing and distributing my second short film
• shooting my third, fourth and fifth short films, and getting them completed and distributed.
• building my website, "Homewood Nation," into THE primary source for all Homewood-related news.
• completing my first feature film script
• completing my second feature film script
• becoming competent enough at day-trading stocks to make a modest living from it
• launching and managing an LLC for investing in Homewood real estate
• selling memberships to Pre-Paid Legal (now Legal Shield)

...and other stuff, but at this point the list becomes kinda embarrassing, becuase I have done none of those things. Not one.

What have I done?

• I have become chair of the Save Race Street Committee
• I have become chair of Block Watch Plus
• I have joined the board of Operation Better Block
• I have joined the Bridging the Busway steering committee

In short, I have accepted pretty much any invitations that came along that I thought would help me to serve my neighborhood.

That hasn't worked well economically (I could also question how well it has worked in other ways. One thing at a time.). Nearly all of the things in the first list would have been done with the expectation of making money. None of the things in the second list have that expectation.

I'm not rich enough yet to spend all of my time not earning money. Or more precisely, not even trying to.

Which brings me to PeaceBuilder: Homewood, an online game based on Homewood. It has been in development since July or August, and we're just about to do the public rollout. I am nervous because I've pretty much placed all of my marbles in the PeaceBuilder bag - savings, home equity. If it takes off, I pay off credit cards, replenish savings, pay off the home equity line of credit and then begin to experience genuine profit. If not....

Well, if not, I publish my first book, then my second. I complete and distribute my first short film, then my second. And I keep building "Homewood Nation" into THE primary source for all Homewood-related news. And I day-trade stocks. And I manage an LLC for investing in Homewood real estate. And I sell memberships in Legal Shield. Not necessarily in that order.

In other words, I get back on track to do the same things that I set out to do, and the same things that I would do if PeaceBuilder succeeds. I refuse to go broke again.

So, the anniversary simply means that time has passed. I have not achieved intentions within their desired timeframes. I have allowed myself to get distracted. Sometimes, I have not merely gotten distracted, I have sought out distraction.

The anniversary reminds me that I must work to learn un-distraction. I must keep asking, "How can I create value today?" Asking that question, and living the answer, will lead to making the money I need, and then some. Just like it says in Ephesians.

Becoming the Solution

I'm eagerly/nervously awaiting the phone call that will let me know that PeaceBuilder: Homewood has gone live on Facebook. I was going to say something like, "I expect it to change everything," but it has already changed a lot. Last night I became known among Greens, Grahams and affiliates as the uncle (primarily) who has a game coming out on Facebook. That's a big ol' change.

I began reading a new book last week: "The Coming Jobs War," by Jim Clifton, chairman of Gallup, the polling company. Clifton describes how in 2005, Gallup took their work global, polling people from around the world on a series of issues, and says that all of their results pointed overwhelmingly to one surprising conclusion. He puts it this way:

Six years into our global data collection effort, we may have already found the single most searing, clarifying, helpful, world-altering fact.

What the whole world wants is a good job.

Defining a good job as "a job with a paycheck from an employer and steady work that averages 30+ hours per week," he goes on to say:

Humans used to desire love, money, food, shelter, safety, peace, and freedom more than anything else. The last 30 years have changed us. Now people want to have a good job, and they want their children to have a good job.

The assertion that people all over the world want a good job more than they want peace or freedom is startling, especially in light of the Arab Spring and the Occupy movement (if "movement" is the right word). But Clifton says that's what the research shows.

Unfortunately, while there are 3 billion people on the planet who work or want to work, there are only 1.2 billion full-time, formal jobs in the world. That shortfall of 1.8 billion jobs may be the world's biggest problem.

As I continued reading, it suddenly occurred to me that with PeaceBuilder: Homewood, I created work for guys that they didn't have before. I don't know how much time specific people spent on it at specific points, so I don't know if it ever became anyone's full time job, even if only for a week. But creating work has moved me in the direction of creating jobs. I am becoming a jobs creator.

That is hugely satisfying to my ego. For decades, I have wanted to help other people to put food on their tables. Now I've begun doing that. Yay, me!

As the game makes money, I do want to create one full-time job for sure: the position of editor at Homewood Nation. Creating that job and filling it would take Homewood Nation to an entirely new level.

And it would take me to an entirely new level personally.

Reading "The Coming Jobs War" reminds me that, for all of my community involvement, perhaps the best thing I can do for Homewood is to build a company that creates good jobs.

I think I'm on my way toward that. And that feels mighty good.

A day of seeds

So, today was not a day of big actions. Today was a day of small actions on things that could become big.

Meetings, mostly.

A meeting with a young woman with Americorps who is working at Westinghouse H.S. over the summer and who wanted help in thinking about setting up a WHS Facebook page. That was fun because she's smart and energetic and cute and has a kind of huggable openness (no, I didn't hug her).

From what she said, I think WHS admins are way off in their approach to using Facebook: they want to not allow kids to comment, and to be able to update it about once a week. I think that such a page will lose kids' interest almost instantly. And I said so.

Then I met with James Brown and Phillip Thompson of the Lighthouse Project, the afterschool program at Westinghouse, and we laid out a basic framework for students to work over the summer on producing a series of "I Am Homewood" videos. That's pretty exciting.

Then I had a phone meeting with Andrew Hughes, president of Designing Digitally, about creating an MMORPG based on Homewood. That was pretty exciting too, for a couple of reasons: first, because online games have the potential for generating revenue at least three ways - upon initial purchase, via subscriptions, and through the sale of in-game accessories. Second, because it still sounds like something Mani Saint-Victor said earlier is still true - namely, that a prototype could be produced in time for at least a soft launch at the National Association of Black Journalists convention, a little over a month from now (Aug 3-7). Third, because online games commonly have multiple iterations and fourth, relatedly, because the Homewood game could grow through iterations to become progressively richer and deeper. Fifth, because if it takes off, it could make me enough money to live on (say, $3,000/month), or even enough money to buy investments that produce enough money to live on (say, $250,000). Finally, it could help a bunch of people learn to think differently - holy cow, this could be the path to my fantasy of coaching a community toward success - build in insights from Tony Robbins, Paul Zane Pilzer, Scripture, and everything else I'm convinced of.

(How do I learn how to run a computer game company?)

Anyway, that was fun...and this evening Janet and I met with Gene and Dee, for a relaxing and uplifting conversation in Highland Park while the girls played in a playground. That was nice.

There's much more happening. I must prepare to have my life simply explode.