There's a little known cafe in Santa Monica, CA where one of five people in line for a mocha, or an americano wears big dark shades and low fitted baseball caps. It's pretty crowded so they sit where they can. They grab a paper and if they happen to kick you under the table, they say, "excuse me."

The other four of five people don't wear camo.

One out of these four speak into cell phones loudly, "Yeah, Yeah, Absolutely! He's definately a mentzch, he's the guy who got Pitt and DiCaprio attached to my script. No, no, I'm gunna decline that offer for two (million) bucks as soon as I get off the phone with you... No, ofcourse not! I'm gunna have my attorney draft it for me... No, he's not going out with that super model anymore. Svetlana knows which boat to catch. She came over to MY pad last night... Yeah, she ____'d me dry!"

Then, the second one of the four stares at the first one of the five. He stares until the one looks and says, "Hi. How are you?"

The second one says to the first of five, "Oh My Gawd! You're Leonardo DiCaprio!"

The first of the four realizes that everyone in the cafe realizes that he's full of shit and walks out wishing he too was in camo.

The second one continues, "I'm not done with acting lessons yet but I do have a script! Will you please, please, please, read it? Stay here, It's in my car. I'll get it. Wait, if you're leaving I'll bring it to your car. Which one is yours? No, never mind. It's not really ready. My acting is better anyways. I'll do my favorite line for you right now. In fact, I'll auto DM it to you."

The third of the four out of the five quietly reads thick packets of paper bound by copper tacks, signs official looking documents and takes phone calls outside. They have to pause their conversation when another AMG or Lambo drives by because for the most part, they are whispering.

As the first one of the five hurrys to leave the cafe, he notices the third of the four and stops to appologize for leaving without saying hello. The third just nods a paternal nod and goes on with his conversation, quietly.

There is one more member to this cast. The fourth of the four. He incidentally also happens to be the fifth of the five. He is dressed just like the third to whom the first showed respect. He walks outside to make a phone call just like the third. He smiles politely at tourists trying to figure out if they recognize him just like the third. But he's not. He's the fourth of the four and the fifth of the five.

The third just nods a paternal nod and goes on with his conversation, quietly.

But sure enough, after a bit of time, firsts and thirds start remembering our fourth-fifth. Sure enough, they pass by and offer hat tips lest they accidently fail to pay homage to an even bigger third sporting even lower DL status.

Before long, the fourth-fifth gets invited to house parties in the "Bu." Before long, the fourth-fifth gets invited to yacht excursions down to Baja. Before long, by doing nothing more than showing respect, being cool, and being close, the fourth-fifth becomes a third or first as he wishes, while the first and second of four get eighty-sixed.

Now all you need to know is where that cafe is. Well, if you are a math teacher, that cafe is right here: Math. If you are an ESL teacher, your cafe is here: ESL. If you teach yoga try this cafe: yoga. Sit next to them. Mind your own business. Follow them. 20% will follow you back. If you dress your Twitter bio well, 50% more will follow you back making it a full 1:3 ratio.

But what ever you do, remember to be four and five.

Recommend that you're friends follow @journik because it will make all of us feel good.

continued: HackEDU

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I was just recently in a Gyro shop in Trenton NJ. This is the same place where the city and feds fought over gun control laws due to gang violence.

I stopped into a gyro shop on the main drag. It was not a sociology experiement. It was not an anthropological study. I was hungry.

I ordered a Gyro for $4.77. I handed the Middle Eastern register person $5.00. He gave me 23 pennies in return.

I sat down awaiting my lamb meat Gyro. A young man, about high-school age walks in and orders two chicken legs. It comes out to $2.14 cents. The young man wearing low hanging jeans over exposed plaid boxers and a white wife beater hands the man $3. The man hands him back some change. The young man starts screaming, "You rippin me off man. Why you gotta do dat? I look like a foo? You ripoff all your patrons man?"

The register man does not look surprised. He calmly explains. "If it was $2.20, I would have given you 80 cents. But since it was 6 cents less than $2.20 and you still gave me $3.00, I give you back 86 cents. See? Three quarters, a dime and a penny."

I get my Gyro. I douse it with a cucumber cream sauce then a spicy chicken sauce. The cucumber cream sauce was so good I had to squirt on more. But then it toned down the fire so I added more of the spicy chicken sauce too.

A young woman, in her teens walks in. She orders a hamburger and a diet Pepsi. It comes out to $3.84 cents...

To Comment: Include, RT @journik http://bit.ly/1a2WAf  and tweet

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I was going to copy and paste this article from where I originally wrote it... but let's just get you your link CLICK!

PS. These 5 sins, I've paid for with my own blood sweat and tears

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No. This is not propriety information. What I meant was that I just got back from taking a piss.

Nevertheless, the entire MIT computer science and engineering creative commons course load is online here.

I just found it reading about an innovator who is pushing for globally free college education with the UN.

Like I said yesterday. A degree doesn't necessarily give you a high paying job like this one. You do.

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RT auto retweet via web

I just got THIS tweet.

Go on. Read it.

It perfectly executes on all the key "How to get your lazy ass followers to do your shit for you," bullet points.

1. The question itself offers you an immediate ability to be funny
So you can yourself be RT'd and followed.

2. The mid term benefit is implied in the "free t-shirt"

3. The long term benefit is implied in the nature of @edufire
Education = economy = karma = sleep well at night = etc

THIS is how you go about inspiring your followers to act. NOT like this (notice the begging and the total absense of any personal value proposition, then the guilt tripping by saying thanks in advance? - wink ;o).

Continued: HackEDU

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"Tell me of the conquest oh Arjuna, and not of the battle."

Yeah, I couldn't decide which title would get more attention so I used both. (When you come to the fork in the road, take it! - Yogi)

Anyways, So how do you get an investor to pay you? Simple. You differentiate yourself from everyone else who is grubbing at my money.

I'll tell you what I hear, "Blah, blah, I have no idea how I'm going to pay you back, blah, blah, in fact, I'm not even worried about it cause, blah, you're rich, blah."

Now comes the hard part. You thought everyone else was also differentiating. You think everyone who wants venture capital finds a way to differentiate. And yes, from your perspective, this is 100% true. Each competitor wrestling for the same dollar you need has a different approach than you do. But not so from my perspective.

Writing a business plan that needs external venture capital is like setting out on a one month journey with only one day's water - Ancient Master of the Obvious

"We simplify communication through advanced networking."

"We accelerate complex negotiations with experience."

"Confident selling through knowledge ownership."

"Live video learning"

"What are you doing?"

Now imagine you are the guy that the above five companies are trying to squeeze money from whom the above companies are trying to squeeze money. Don't they suddenly all sound like they are saying the same thing?

I'll tell you what I hear, "Blah, blah, I have no idea how I'm going to pay you back, blah, blah, in fact, I'm not even worried about it cause, blah, you're rich, blah."

Venture capital funding is just like sex. I'm not gunna put out unless you can get some elsewhere! - Ancient Master of the Obvious

None of the above value statements tell me what I am most interest in. They all them me what YOU are going to do. Let me explain this more directly, I don't give a flying fuck what YOU are going to do! (It's ok. I'm sure that's from a movie.)

So how do you craft a five word value statement? This is the hard part. Identify all of the main people you are trying to squeeze money from and tell each of the different groups exactly how THEY are going to get paid using the same five words in each case.

In kung fu, let's say you're going against a monkey style master, a snake style master, and a tiger style master. Sadly, you can only pick one style to overcome all three. Which style can defeat all three? Monkey style is high, snake style is low, tiger style is medium. So use dragon or crane style! Dragon flys above them all and crane can do all three levels! DUH! (To any real kung-fu masters, I know this is pure bullshit. It just fits so well!)

http://edufire.com's "live video learning" sm is perfect for students. But it doesn't tell me, an educator that I want to join because I can actually "get paid bitch!" To survive and thrive, edufire must do both. Edufire must bring students and teachers together the way eHarmony brings xenophobic, antisocial, balding men and (balding) women together.

Any idea why everyone including Time Magazine thought Twitter was nonsense for years (which actually turned out to be a good thing since they are still having infrastructure issues)? "What are you doing?" Sucks! I mean why do I care what you are doing? (See above "flying fuck" movie reference). If Twitter changed their SM to, "Doing something different?" or "Doing something confidential?" or even just "Doing something naughty?" The world wide masses who have all had their imaginations slurped out by watching five hours of TV a day (and now hulu) would actually be able to make the chasm-like cognitive jump in reasoning, "Oh!, I get it!, I'd be able to get the highlights of what's going on with everybody!" Ding! Ding! Ding! "Wait, that means that I would know what's actually happening in my field/industry/keyswappingring"

Finally, @Whiteboardsell seems to have a powerful message and product. But based on a 2 second glance at their website or mocked SM, I couldn't make it out. I'll tell you why. Let's imagine i'm a client. "Confident selling..." tells me that the Whiteboard guys are going to help me sell confidently. 1. THAT already makes me defensive. "I AM confident!" I'd say as I cross my arms and take a step back. The "selling" part tells me I may not make a penny. It tells me that I'll sell confidently but no guarantees as to whether I'll actually get the SALE.

You see? You MUST talk to my own personal interest. All I want is the SALE. The selling part is the worst part of it all. Selling is my nemesis. Selling is where I fail most often. Selling is just a necessary evil. "Tell me of the conquest oh Arjuna, and not of the battle."

I was going to go to town on the second half, "through knowledge ownership." But I'll leave it here. Suffice it to say that I don't give a (insert movie reference here) HOW YOU do it. I just want to know HOW I get paid, bitch!

Now, the trick is, crafting a message in such a way that your investor, your employees, and your clients all see how, "I'm gunna get paid!"

Ask for help. Ask Shanna or Kevin to point you in the right direction. They are professional writers

How to know if your Twitter PR and marketing is going to kill you (in a David Caradine kinda way)

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1. It is the only smart implementation of remote teaching I've ever seen.

2. It is totally democratic.
Bad teachers don't get paid and good teachers can get richer than the guys who invested in http://edufire.com

3. It is interactive in real-time.
The first few times I visited http://edufire.com I couldn't tell what it offered over youtube.com. Maybe it was just a vimeo for teachers. Or maybe it was for Chicago area teachers who got fired. Couldn't tell. I was going to write a pointed, ok, ok, scathing blog post on how edufire management was mismanaging their investor dollars with unclear market positioning.

As much as I would have enjoyed each supple keystoke, stroke, stroke, I can no longer go down that path.

Sadly, and happily, I must ardently recommend, no, wait, I don't do recommendations. You SHOULD follow @edufire and join edufire.com because it is the ONLY vehicle I have seen that gives the best teachers on the planet the opportunity to shine over the whole world the same way Youtube celebritates kittens, fugly Scottish women, guys that do era dances, and lonely 15 year old girls.

PS. I will say one scathing thing @edufire (gotta stay true to form): Make it clear on the homepage that teachers can name their price and actually get paid for doing the most valuable thing a human can do, more valuable than saving a life, teaching one.

http://journik.posterous.com/how-to-educate-old-old-old-school-style HackEDU

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