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Yesterday I was fortunate to have attended the Jefferson Innovation Summit hosted by the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business. This was the inaugural event that Darden hopes will aspire to TED-esque event, bringing together America’s brightest and creative thinkers. The lineup of delegates comprised of many leading visionaries in the fields of education, science, and technology. From my observations throughout the day,  I was pleased to notice two things: Objective thinking on the state of the American entrepreneurial culture, and a lively discussion of action steps to foster entrepreneurial culture in schools.

Over the course of a lengthy two hour debate, the panelists discussed a question looming over the heads of so many technologists and institutional leaders: How can we foster innovation in America? How can we identify the innovators and match them up with the resources they need to succeed? What’s the role of government in subsidizing private enterprise?

The answers were often thought-provoking, often times making me wonder why this type of dialog, immune from self-congratulation, does not occur more often in politics. One particular thought that left me hanging was the discussion of the remaining closed monopolies in the U.S.. Education is included among the few, and it happens to underpin the consequential thoughts and careers of highly capable young Americans. Should we be teaching entrepreneurship alongside math and science? I think so. And should we reward experiential learning? Definitely.

After all, there aren’t any degrees in “App-making” as one delegate put it bluntly. One of the fastest growing segments of the economy is the market for apps on smart-phones, and hardly anyone creating the new software has had formal training in app development. The classes that are being offered in mobile app-development are filling quickly, and this is a sign of widespread interest in de-centralized education outside of formal institutions. Prospective developers aren’t looking for the credential on their resume with another degree or stamp of approval, they’re cashing in on the growing demand for apps.

Entrepreneurship education has been limited for most individuals to the latest stages in their academic careers. Phillipe Sommer, director of the incubator at Darden, mentioned that he recently initiated an entrepreneurship class for freshman students. From his observations teaching upperclassmen, he noticed that the single thing blocking student interest is fear of failure. We now live in a society where many of the students at top American universities are the sons and daughters of doctors and lawyers. In these unchanging professional fields, a degree promises long-lasting success, and failure is rare. Startups by nature are the exact opposite, and thus students are more likely to choose the sure bet when it’s time to make things happen in the real-world.

The panel concluded with thoughts on whether or not we can even teach entrepreneurs to act on their ideas. The answer remains open-ended, but we do know what a promising innovator looks like when we see one. To get a sense of a smart and determined entrepreneur, consider a quote by Paul Graham:

“There are some people who just get what they want in the world. If you want to start a startup you have to be one of those people. You can’t be passive and wishy-washy,”

For the schools that recognize the importance of binding entrepreneurial experiences with traditional coursework, they are likely to begin to churn out more graduates who get what they want. Take a look at a glimpse of shining hope: The most popular minor at Wake Forest is entrepreneurship.

We’ve got the brain power to be competitive for years to come, and we have the resources to support our most promising entrepreneurs. We need more people encouraging our most talented youth towards the thinking that you don’t always have to do what you’re told to do in life. Challenging authority stems fearless minds, and that’s what will empower creative solutions to our most difficult problems.

Online advertising and marketing  tactics have strained outdated Federal Trade Commission guidelines for endorsements. Anonymity on the web has made it easy for nearly anyone to pretend to be something they are not. Just think about how often you may see “Featured on CNN, New York Times, etc”, and then you seriously begin to consider the advertiser’s claims.

In the past couple years, the FTC has investigated many severely misleading advertising campaigns with the aim to protect consumers from deception. Here are the main highlights from the most recent update in 2009:

The revised Guides – issued after public comment and consumer research – reflect three basic truth-in-advertising principles:

• Endorsements must be truthful and not misleading;
• If the advertiser doesn’t have proof that the endorser’s experience represents what consumers will achieve by using the product, the ad must clearly and conspicuously disclose the generally expected results in the depicted circumstances; and
• If there’s a connection between the endorser and the marketer of the product that would affect how people evaluate the endorsement, it should be disclosed.

Unfortunately startups tend to put everything on the line in the hope of converting each visitor on their landing pages. From my personal observations, I’ve seen false press mentions or misleading product claims more than anything else. The recently updated guidelines indicate the trouble is easy to avoid. For example, if the advertiser shows that they’ve been mentioned on any media or press outlet, they must actually prove this claim with something like a link or a quote. Secondly, if the advertiser quotes a customer, the experience conveyed must be typical for any customer to expect.

An undesired situation could arise if the guidelines are repeatedly not followed, both for the misleading advertiser and the organization for which they are misrepresenting. While disclaimers can relieve some responsibility to the consumer, the advertiser should understand the potential long-term damage to their brand.

Looking for a company that documents their press coverage very well? Check out Airbnb.

Don’t be afraid to advocate for other consumers at risk: https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/

The Federal Trade Commission Act allows the FTC to act in the interest of all consumers to prevent deceptive and unfair acts or practices. In interpreting Section 5 of the Act, the Commission has determined that a representation, omission or practice is deceptive if it is likely to:

• mislead consumers and
• affect consumers’ behavior or decisions about the product or service.

In addition, an act or practice is unfair if the injury it causes, or is likely to cause, is:

• substantial
• not outweighed by other benefits and
• not reasonably avoidable.

The topic of academic honesty is a repetitive lecture subject on every college campus around the world. In the modern academic setting, students are have access to nearly infinite information sources thanks to the Internet. It’s not uncommon for a student to search on the internet for the high quality sources before opening any books. Access to an increasing array of reliable information on nearly any topic makes the task of identifying non-cited research much easier, and it also creates increasing complexity when documenting your research process. The Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media has lead an effort to build an academic tool for collecting, organizing, sharing, and citing resources right in your browser. Zotero is primarily funded by the Andrew H. Mellon foundation.

From a high-level, the tool is so simple, but so critical to the academic research process. Among the many preliminary sources you may use to debrief yourself on any subject (Wikipedia, Quora, etc), it’s important to document all of those sources, and then be able to easily determine which pieces of information necessitate a citation. Groups working on research as a team can collaborate to share or organize their resources together. In just one-click, you can cite a source in one of many different styles. The clean and simple UI functions like an iTunes playlist, but for research sources.

Zotero is preinstalled on all Wake Forest issued student ThinkPads. I’m anxious to use it and see how Ingenic can be adapted for scholarly use.

For my entire duration of high school, you could often find me at a computer during my free time, but not once did I ever bring a laptop or tablet into the classroom. The old habit of pen and paper was satisfying and always seemed to be good enough. For any typical class, I would accumulate hundreds of pages of hand written notes or assignments each semester. Before each exam week, I would prepare for each lengthy test by reading reading over all of these pages of notes. Towards the end of my high school career, nearly all of my teachers developed tolerance for  students using computers to take notes in class, but for some reason I never made the leap to going paperless.

My first class at Wake Forest is on August 31st, just about two week away. For this upcoming fall semester, I’m going to try to move as many of my academic habits onto the web as possible. This does not mean taking notes in Microsoft Word (stored locally on your hard drive), but instead on Google Docs so I can access my information anywhere. It also means replacing my traditional academic planner with an internet based project management solution. I’ve been using the visually oriented tool AgileZen for my work, it’s based off the kan-ban workflow strategy:

The solution tracks “stories” as from left to right, allowing you to drag them across the board and see your progress visually.

Perhaps the most common symbol of academia is a stack of books. My plan to go paperless means buying the e-books that are available for the courses I’m taking. Oh and what about all of those PowerPoint presentations? I’ll be using web-based Prezi.

The result is a flexible lifestyle enabling you to access your information from a variety of devices. I will be able to access my documents on my on my laptop, library computers, smartphone, iPad, and anything else with an internet connection. For the occasional class such as Math that requires pen and paper, I will be prepared with my notebook. But for now, I’m moving my “book bag” into the cloud.

Steven Blank outlined the strategy of customer development in his book The Four Steps to the Epiphany back in 2007 after a career as a serial entrepreneur. His detailed thoughts on understanding customers before building products have become known as the bible for startup businesses. Founders who are in touch with his thoughts fully understand the need for market validation before product development. Customer developmentis challenging because it’s difficult to automate and receive quality feedback. How many times have you clicked diligently through a 10-minute survey? How many times have you beta tested a product and expressed your distaste with a particularly annoying experience? If you’re like me, then it’s not too often.

The process of collecting honest and anonymous  feedback was a tedious task, often leaving the founders without the most crucial feedback they are seeking. The service offered by KSSinsights changes the dynamic of customer development by only asking users simple but pivotal answers. The users are given few options to choose on the survey and you have the ability to ask questions that are relevant to the page they are on.

An example survey we’re using on Ingenic for logged-in users only is the short answer prompt: “Is there anything on this page not working the way your expected it to?”. In addition to the short response, KI reports the User Agent (Browser and Operating System) to make troubleshooting much easier. We’re getting more data from our users, and that helps us make better product development decisions for our immediate and long-term success.

Bottom line, it’s quick, targeted, and specific feedback.  The burden on the user becomes minimal because the short feedback does not interfere with their experience using the product. No more will I have to settle for a generic question and receive generic feedback. And the installation doesn’t take longer than a couple minutes.

I’ve installed the code on this blog post. Take a look on the bottom right of your screen.

View the feedback report*

*Note a 2-hour reporting delay due to Amazon Web Services!

Click the image below to take a look at a few survey questions that might generate valuable customer insights for your product development:

What’s the cost for KissInsights, and are there any benefits for the premium account? It’s $29/month, so about $1 per day. And with the premium account you can create unlimited white-label surveys and receive unlimited responses. Each successful feedback submission then calls the user to follow your Twitter account or like your Facebook page. It’s an elegant solution to a complicated and continuous customer development challenge. 

Courtesy of Denver Post

Yesterday’s stage 13 of the Tour de France was a thrilling sight as a gutsy climber named Jérémy Roy and the chase pair Thor Hushovd and David Moncoutie battled out the final 15km. The middle part of the stage included a lengthy mountain climb, and Roy broke free from the peloton early in the climb. From the bottom of the mountain, Roy decided it was going to be his day, and he went for it. By the time he crossed the top of the mountain, he was in leading a full minute ahead of the nearest rider, and exactly eight minutes ahead of the peloton. When Roy crossed the final peak 120km into the 152km stage, he was over a minute ahead of the nearest rider Moncoutie. Roy had made his move, and it was bold test to see if anyone was willing to chase him through the valley.

What’s more, Thor Hushovd, the defending road-biking world champion, was pushing for his first win in the mountains. Up until yesterday, no one believed the lethal sprinter had the stamina to push through the mountain stages with the same speed he has over more forgiving terrain. By the time the riders neared the finish line, it was Hushovd who had successfully chased down  Roy.

The attitude embodied by both riders is an excellent model for audacious behavior. On one hand, you have a terrific climber, Roy.  He  muscled out absolutely all of the energy he had in hopes of beating the entire field on one of the toughest stages. Roy decided early that he wanted to win, and he was going to give everyone a run for their money. On the other hand, Hushvod is a world-champion on the road, refused to let his title define his capabilities when he was outside of his comfort zone in the mountains. The relentless pursuit of speed with hopes of victory was incredible.

I believe Roy will eventually find the additional energy to finish strong the last five minutes of the race because he’s already accomplished in the toughest part, the climb. In other words, be a climber. Attack without hesitation and relentlessly pursue your goal. If you can get through the climb, the finish will come over time.

This week I’ve finally purchased my first real e-book. The Filter Bubble by Eli Pariser.

After my high school graduation last month I was fortunate to receive an Apple iPad. Am I much of a laggard? Maybe. I tend to hold off on the first iteration of any new product release. During the past few weeks I’ve been navigating my way around my iPad 2 wifi version. Just a couple days ago I downloaded Kindle app with the hope of finding real productivity on my tablet device.

I’ve been happy with the Kindle app for my reading. A few observations of things that have been most useful:

• Mobile ads are big business, they are installed on almost every free app.
• My book comes with me wherever I travel.
• Ability to highlight lines and search for definition of obscure words.
• Kindle app syncs my progress across all devices, android, iPad, and desktop.
• Instant access to more books!
• Reliable battery life. (This is crucial.)

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I didn’t expect to be using my iPad as my primary e-reader. Although, I think the iPad is so appealing because it’s low maintenance and it only requires one or two unique user experiences (e-reading) to make it worthwhile.  There are a few other important apps which are nagging at my attention, such as the recently released ShowMe App which is enabling teachers to flip the classroom. It will be interesting to see if any other excellent content creation mechanisms evolve on the iOS platform.

I’m looking forward to posting more about my thoughts on The Filter Bubble, and why we need to be cautious about a world that revolves around our likes and interests.

During the past couple days the Thiel Foundation hosted a retreat for the 20 Under 20 Thiel Fellows at the Headlands Institute in Golden Gate National Park, California. While it’s ironic the camp area could hardly support cell phone technology, the fellows flew in from around the country for a special bonding trip and enriching entrepreneurial talks.

The fellows were announced last month, and have been granted $100,000 to forgo college enrollment during the fellowship and devote full attention to their project. We are working with the purpose of making scientific breakthroughs and technological advancement for the increased quality of life of humans, which leads to continuous economic growth. The projects can are mostly a combination of making intensive progress by building new technology and then extensive progress through globalization and scale. Contrary to the popular debate around this program, hardly any of the fellows disagree with the social or experiential value in attending college. The common belief among those participating in the program is that the time to pursue a new venture is now, because it may be either too late or not possible in the rapidly evolving word of technology. Simply waiting for society to accept that you have dedicated an extended period of time pursuing greater intelligence is unnecessary.

To put this in perspective, consider the evolution of humans. The first modern human skeletons appeared on earth over 200,000 years ago. The pace at which innovation occurred was extremely slow, tens of thousands of years. Even during the time which some of the first revolutionary thinkers Isaac Newton or Galileo lived, they were unable to witness innovation within a lifetime. Applying their findings and spreading innovation simply took too long for them see while they lived. Now jump forward a few hundred years and consider Facebook. The longest Facebook friendships are just seven years, and this social revolution makes us wonder what the “old” days must have been like without a social life online. Today, with only a handful of years and technical innovation, visionaries can change the world.

Jim O’Neil, President of the Thiel Foundation, made the interesting comparison to a young adult during the Middle Ages: A boy at the age of 14 would leave home to work as an apprentice to a skilled worker. Eventually he would master his craft and develop tangible skills for him to be productive in the workforce. Thus, the notion that a young adult must experience several costly years pursuing work unrelated to their future work is unnecessary. And the cost is steadily increasing: In the past thirty years the average cost of attending college has risen twice as much as the rate of inflation. Has the value obtained from attending college increased? No.

So, the common question arises: Where and how are these 24 audacious college dropouts going to obtain the intangible social benefit of attending college? There is of course some sacrifice with this answer, but with the help of this movement and Thiel Foundation network, each of the fellows have support in one of the toughest emotional aspects of leaving a safe and comfortable setting.

In the typical college environment, students have easy access to professors during their “office hours”, some of the smartest people in their fields of study. In the real business world the reality is that people are busy, and it’s rare for anyone to have hours set-aside during their workweek to provide help. If you’ve prepared yourself with the necessary “Street Smarts”, then its inherent that you would go out and select the – mentors – who are helpful for you, and then arrange time to meet. Yes, the myth is absolutely true: “It’s not about what you know, it’s about who you know”.

The closest comparison to formal education that can be made with the Thiel Fellowship is a student pursuing an independent study and surrounding themselves with self-selected teachers who have experience to guide them. However, in the real world our customers decide the grading criteria, and the evaluation is determined by one of two outcomes: Profitable or not profitable.

Getting to profitability is no easy task, and it’s not uncommon for a new business to be unprofitable for over two years. A few of the speakers in the past couple days had a few practical tips from their experience building successful businesses and managing life as a startup founder. Here are some thoughts from my conversation with Peter Thiel:

His speech contained a number of personal anecdotes about building PayPal and entering a market with relatively few competitors for the highest probability of domination/monopoly. He advises that you offer a unique value to customers that’s so compelling they would not go anywhere else, even if they became just a little bit dissatisfied. And being “unique” means much more than simply defining your own small niche that is attractive to only a few customers. Here’s an example he used:

Starting a restaurant is relatively easy. If you have $50,000, you can rent your space and start selling food. However, it’s incredibly difficult to be “unique” in the market for food. Being the only Peruvian restaurant in New Jersey is not unique, because the market is for food, not Peruvian cuisine.

Other interesting activities included the team-building hike through the park and camera-less memocracy social. (A documentary team and the 60-Minutes film crew tagged along to most other events.) It was a really great experience to get to know the personality of the other fellows and share quick tidbits of information that help drastically increase productivity and efficiency. For example, the hike was great for understanding the necessary traits to lead a team through unforeseen challenges. The social talks provided valuable insight into daily time and goal management.  There was plenty of practical information shared to get started on the right foot everyone begins their journey in the next few months. I’m looking forward to learning along the journey, and officially begin my unofficial education.

This post was inspired by the words of Nicki Minaj:

This one is for the boys with the boomin’ system
Top down, AC with the coolin’ system
When he come up in the club, he be blazin’ up

If you’re like most 18 year-olds anticipating an adventurous summer after graduating from high school just days ago, then you’re probably in search of fresh new tracks to heighten the mood of your summer escapades. Leave the dirty work to a number of music blogs and file hosts that aggregate the most popular recently released tracks. The real fun music exploration lies in the curation of your own playlists. Quite a few new music sites have gained significant traction and have become my source for new music in the past year. FratMusic.fm pioneered the crowd-sourced playlist strategy in 2010, and now they simply assemble playlists from 8tracks.com made mostly by college students. Personally, I’d rather use the crowd-sourced mixtapes as inspiration for my own playlists.

To describe the best part of music playlist curation, I’d like to borrow a quote from Tom Preston-Werner, founder of GitHub:

I could craft it however I pleased, and there was nobody telling me what to do. This feeling of control and ownership of something you own is intoxicating.

Yes, believe it or not, the feeling of having your own perfectly relevant playlist can possibly prompt you to hit the loop button many more times.

Here are a few services that I frequent in search of new music:

SoundCloud has the best music player on the internet, period. (Thanks in part to their $10m in funding from Union Square Ventures.) The music consumption experience is better on SoundCloud than anywhere else on the web. You can play, download, and share the track all in the same spot. Take a look yourself and play a track by one of the users that I check for updates regularly, FreshOnCampus.
Till The World Ends (Mixin Marc & Tony Svejda Midwest Mix) by Fresh On Campus

FistInTheAir.com is the most routinely updated music blog that I know of, and it often rakes in a lot of the best new music and remixes on a daily basis. My experience on the site can be summed up into the two playlists on the top right of the screen: Top New Tracks and Bangers. Visit each of these playlists often for easy to find ear candy.

Finally the last gig on the music discovery tour is ThisSongIsSick.com. From my previous experience on the site, they prefer to have quality music over quantity. They seem to be a bit more conscientious about what content is being added to their blog, which will make it perfect for you if you just want to quickly grab a new song.

Perhaps one day Spotify will finalize their negotiations with the US record labels and we will never have problems with music access ever again. Until then… get rolling with your new mixtape on that boomin’ system!

Today I would like to elaborate on a fortunate opportunity that I have earned in the past few months. Here are my plans for the near future as I graduate from high school next week:

Peter Thiel announced the selection of 24 fellowship recipients for his new program 20 Under 20. The Theil Foundation has granted each fellow $100,000 to purse technological advancement over two years while they stop out of school. I am honored and proud to be selected for the Thiel Fellowship, and I will officially begin in December 2011. In the mean time, I plan to continue the development of my new venture in education as I enroll at Wake Forest University for the fall semester. To be clear, I am currently working on Ingenic and plan to do so for the remainder of the year, and beyond.

There has been a lot of speculation and discussion regarding the risks of dropping out of college to participate in this program. Lee Ann Womack describes the final dilemma of this fellowship proposition the best: “If you get the chance to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance.” In other words, the reality of this program is that if you are capable of executing on a technological innovation now, then now is the time to get started. Among the other fellows, most are already enrolled at our nation’s elite colleges. My decision to manage my startup and take classes at Wake Forest this fall stems from a variety of factors. Given that my startup aims to tackle an education problem, I believe that it is important to fully understand and experience all levels of education before setting out to transform it. I am excited for the opportunity to be on a campus that has initiated leading efforts to integrate technology in the lives of teachers and students.

The most incredible part of this journey thus far is the wide-ranging feedback and support offered by nearly everyone who has learned of my opportunity. I would describe the series of events during the past months as a welcomed kick-start on my plans to change education. Peter Thiel’s program is living proof that credentials are merely a small part in the success of the most capable innovators in our past. Instead, the will to tackle a worldwide problem with creativity, passion, and enthusiasm will propel you farther than any undergrad, masters, or doctorate degree from Princeton University.

In my upcoming future, I am working tirelessly to build a web-based tool for educators to bring their classrooms up to date with the instantaneous digital age. During my high school experience I witnessed first hand the social media revolution and transformative nature of mobile devices. However, I am certain that the digital experiences that kids live and breathe today have not made an effective transfer into education. Instead, the rise of digital media in every facet daily lives has compounded the problems of unengaged and unmotivated students. The same can be said for nearly every teenager in America.

From a high level, learning is best summarized as a continuous feedback loop. Due to the repetitive nature of a teachers job today, the limited feedback that they offer to students is inadequate. Ingenic will shorten the learning feedback loop through online lessons and visual learning management. As nearly every aspect of our lives adapts to the digital age, Ingenic will help fulfill the need of effective and inexpensive educational technology in our schools today.

Please follow my progress on education entrepreneurship on this blog and specific product developments on Ingenic.com.

P.S. I am a triplet with two sisters going to college during the next four years. It’s going to be interesting to observe the contrasting experiences among my siblings.

To get an idea of my personal thoughts and reactions to the Thiel Fellowship, please watch this TechCrunch TV interview: