An old way to look at money, made new again

Hi all. For the next few weeks we are going to be releasing a podcast episode, each one covering a different way of thinking about money. In this first one, we look at why that is valuable, the types of mental models of things that people have come up with in the past, and we look at the first in the series, an "Earthy" mentality to money, taken from what we might call the five-elements model. In the future we will be looking at some totally different models of how to interact with money, etc. We hope it's informative.

I would like to apologize up front for the audio levels/quality. We don't have our normal recording equipment at the moment, so it was all done on my crappy laptop mic. We hope to rectify this in the future. Have a listen, and as always, we love to hear from you guys!

To my homies at the LHC

The first day of snowboarding season was just a couple of days ago. We had a great time, remembered how to actually do it. I even managed to successfully catch some air off of a couple of kickers without killing myself. I would say that it was a successful first day.

One of the things that I remembered is that, when snowboarding, to speed up you have to do less. In other words, if you want to go faster, you have to relax your body more, and just let the board do what the board does. In other words, a snowboarder's natural state (rest state) is constant acceleration.

My question is, does that make snowboarders really, really big tachyons?

All dogs go to Propits

I love my dog. He's the first dog that I've had that is just an unabashed dog. A lot of pets that I've known have basically been human minds, trapped in four-legged bodies, but not Max. Max is just a big, fluffy, slobbery dumb dog. And I love him for it.

The great thing about Max is that he has two modes: asleep and happy. Everything makes him happy, and he loves to show it. He finds his favorite tennis ball and just freaks out. When you come home, he's all tail-wags and licks. He's just always happy, and never afraid to show it. He gets real, authentic pleasure from just acknowledging that something makes him happy, and I think that, on the whole, it makes his life better.

We want everyone's lives to be more like Max's (maybe without eating kibble every day). Happy for being happy. Glad to acknowledge that their life was made better by something that they ran into online. Wouldn't it be cool to go through your life excited to see everything? Excited to let them know? I think it would. That's why we built Propits.

Our very first DDOS

It's official. We've made it! We had our very first script-kiddy searching for exploits followed by a distributed denial of service! Go us!

Nothing is damaged. The would-be attackers are a bunch of ninnies. No data is compromised, etc. About the only thing that it means is that the site is down for a bit while our provider sorts it out.

To re-iterate, there are two pieces of good news. 1) We are big enough for jealous minds to want to put us down, and 2) They are just as incompetent as they are jealous.

Update: We are back online.

Counting down the minutes

There's a funny thing that happens in modern business. People show up for work at earlier and earlier hours every year. They stay later and later. And larger and larger portions of time spent at work is time spent staring at the clock, counting down until they can finally leave.

Of course, sitting around not doing work, waiting for you chance to go home, decreases productivity. So what do the companies do? Require people to stay even longer, or work from home in their off-hours (and if you work for salary, you don't get extra pay for that).

What. The. Hell.

How did it come to this? We all realize that the boss is one dude, right? I mean, he can't take all of us! Okay, so that's a bit extremist, but the idea still applies. If you put in your 8 hours and go home, why should you be afraid of losing your job? If things get so bad that you want to scream, and so instead of screaming you pick up and take the afternoon for yourself, why is that such a bad thing? Would your boss really prefer that you sit and boil and stew in your anger until you blow up at someone, or give yourself cancer?

The other day my boss said he wanted me to start checking my email from home in the evening so that I can be available to fix a problem if it comes up. I said no. My argument is that if there is a problem at 3 in the morning, no-one will care about it anyway, and anyone who does I don't want to do business with. My home life is separate from my work life, and I intend to keep it that way.

He tried to be all boss-like (talking about towing the company line, blah blah). I was resolute.

Want to know how many people died? None. How many servers burst into flames at the mere insinuation of having personal time? Zero. How many co-workers were effected? Zilch. How much money the company lost? Not a cent.

What are we working for? Are we working to fill every moment we aren't asleep? "But you have weekends off". Not if I start letting my employer dictate my off time to me, I don't. Not for long, anyway. Besides, if the only time I have is the weekends, that leaves 48 hours, minus sleep, to get every single chore done that I have around the house. 48 hours, minus sleep, to spend time with my loved-ones. 48 hours, minus sleep, out of 168.

What are you working for? Is what you're getting payed worth 72% of your adult life?

What is worth that much time? What could you spend every waking moment doing, and be happy as a clam? Why not do that? Why not be supported, and support others in the process,
for doing the only thing that makes any damned sense.

Propits. Live your life. Not your boss'.

Thugged out since cub scouts

I just heard a song that made me giggle. It's called "Thugged out Since Cub-Scouts", by CunninLynguists. It made me laugh a bit because I was in cub-scouts, and grew up in the ghetto. Although I wasn't "thugged out" so to speak, I could relate with a lot of the emotion of the song (even though I get the impression that they were never actually in cub-scouts).

The desire to express our personality, to exclaim who we are, and what we are about to anyone who will listen is actually very natural. We all do it in one way or another. In some cases (as with the gangsta' troop 859) it's overt. In other cases it's very subtle (what you wear, how you speak, etc). Everyone does it. Even the people who say they don't do it because they don't care what people think about them, are expressing that they are the sort of person who doesn't care what other people think of them. Sorry...

We all care what people think about us. We may not care what every person thinks of us, but we have opinions about other people's opinions of us at some level.

When it comes to economics, this is important. Only in recent years have people bothered to look into what they are calling "psycho-economics", or "behavioral economics"; the effect of the irrational mind on the economy. Up until now, if you can believe it, they thought that entire groups of people could be expressed with simple mathematical formula. That every human had an inherent "completely rational" side that took in all information and made the objectively best decision. It's like they never went outside.

The fact of the matter is, that everyone wants to be liked by someone else. And this desire drives us to do things that aren't perfectly rational like buying over-priced clothing, eating at un-healthy restaurants that are too expensive, driving in un-safe ways, listening to (and therefore supporting) certain types of music, etc. The list goes on and on. And if we are going to be reasonable, we can see how those actions impact real industry in one way or another.

So, what do you want to be known for? Why do you want people to like you, and who are those people? Is it working?

Sometimes it's hard to know. It's hard to know who you are communicating to with your words and actions. It's hard to know why you are doing it (our own real desires are sometimes hidden to us). It's hard to know if the message is getting out there.

Enter Propits.

Propits lets you put yourself out there in any way you like, and get real feedback (and a real piece of the irrational economy) for it. You can clarify who you are to others, who you are trying to be, and how well it is working.

What's your dream? What's your legacy? Are they the same?

Help us make the world better by giving people the power to really and truly support themselves and their loved-ones in doing whatever it is that is important in their lives. Help us help others clarify their dreams and visions, and become the people they want to become, whoever that might be.

Weather you were trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent, or if you just want people to think you were, get a button, and get to making the world around you better.

The tip jar and the collections basket

A tip jar is sitting on the counter of your favorite deli. After you pay, you drop your change in as a little extra something to them. A monetary "thank you".

You're sitting in church, and at the end of the service they pass the basket around directly asking you for money.

Which one do you give more to?

The deli provides a real product that keeps you alive right here and now. They spend their time and resources, feeding on other people's products and services to provide this for you. It's real food that has a real impact on you right now. The church provides a service, not a product, and the payoff of the service (depending on your church) may or may not ever come to pass. I know that I usually gave more to my church than to the tip jar at the deli.

That says something about money. It's not that the sandwich has an inherent value, in dollars, and a 20% tip is the correct amount to "voluntarily" add on to that. It's that there is a feeling associated with the sandwich, and a feeling associated with the church service. You value that emotion more or less depending on your opinions about those things at those times (combined, maybe, with a little social obligation).

So, what's the value? Is that to say that it's whatever you make of it? Sure, in a sense. A starving man would pay a million dollars for a slice of bread. Does that make bread under-priced or under-valued in general? No, it means that context and feeling matters.

Propits is supposed to be a way of expressing that feeling when you are "out and about" on the internet. Thanks, that's cool. Here's a tip. Oh wow! That changed my life, here's an offering in thanks. The amount doesn't matter. There is no intrinsic "value". The feeling matters.

We are trying to make the feeling matter to both parties, not just one. The sandwich maker is thankful for the tip. It passes some of that feeling onto them. That's the whole point. Pass along the warm-fuzzy. Make a difference in your life and the lives around you. You shouldn't have to do anything at all in life for any reason other than it brings you happiness. Propits makes that a real proposition, not just a nice idea.

On loans, the nature of banks, and trust.

Would you borrow money from a friend, or lend money to a friend in need? How much? For how long? Would the amount or duration change if they were family instead of a friend?

What factors do you use to make those descisions? I don't know about you, but when someone wants to borrow some money from me, I don't bust out the spreadsheet and do a cost-benefits analysis.... It would seem kind of cold, given that they are a friend.

On the other hand, if they asked me for a large sum of money, I just might have to break out the Excel-fu...

That points to an interesting reality about the nature of money and trust. We put a lot of emphasis on money in our culture. We also put a lot of stock in relationships with other people. When we start crossing the two, things can get a little sketchy. Here's a thought-experiment:

Imagine how you would feel loaning $10 to a friend.
Now imagine $100.
Now $1000...

I don't know about you, but at ten bucks, I wouldn't even ask for it back. It's not a sum large enough to make me want to be a debt collector, and weaken our freindship over it. Some would argue that you have to ask for it back, or the act of letting it go will strain the relationship, but I'm not getting into that right now. Let's just say that those aren't the kinds of friends I keep.

But everyone has their throw-away number. Weather its $10, 10 cents, or $10,000; everyone has a number that they can just let go of and not worry about anymore. It's the basis of "impulse buys". That's why candy bars are only a dollar, and why they are in the check-out lane. You can let go of a $1 without having to worry about it, so why not buy the Snickers? Why not hand it over to a friend, and then forget all about it.

We also have a number that we are willing to part with, but only with the promise of getting it back later. That's like the $100 for me. I can happily give that to a friend in need, but I do expect it back at some time. I'n not going to set a schedule or anything, but I will expect to be repaid at some future point.

Then there are the numbers that you just aren't willing or able to part with, regardless of who they are.

Banks have the same dillema. They don't deal with numbers small enough for them to just let go of. Banks don't give out loans below, usually, $3,000 specifically so that they can chop off the bottom category. There are no friends in banking, and every dollar is an important one. If they give you $10, and you don't pay them back, are they really going to spend hundreds trying to track you down and get their ten-spot? Hell no. So they don't bother giving the $10 to start with.

They also don't hand out numbers that they aren't willing to part with. Go to your local bank branch and tell them that you need to take out a loan for 10 million. They won't even give you the forms to fill out. Granted, they may direct you to another bank that deals in numbers that large for loans, but those banks have their scales set differently (although, on a funny side-bar, if you take out 10 million over the course of multiple $10,000 loans they are just fine with that, as long as you show good payment history). If you take out that much money from your local bank branch, it could take away enough liquidity that they will be in violation of SEC and banking regulations. They just can't do it.

But banks have a card up their sleeve. They have a metric that tells them how much to trust you. It's called your credit score, and based on it they alter the amount of money they are willing to give you, and how much interest they charge. It's a funny artifact of how banking works that people they trust less get put on the hook for more money...

The point is that they can alter their expectations and behaviour up front based on a (relatively) simple formula. It's good for them because they avoid getting their pants in a twist later. It's good for their investors because they have a sense up front on the likely returns on their investments. It's good for you because it shortcuts having to make friends with bank managers. Despite all the problems with our current credit tracking and lending system, the idea behind it actually makes a lot of sense.

So, what score (from 1% to 100%, just for discussions sake), would you give a friend? If you said 100%, does that mean that you would be willing to give them any amount of money at any time? Did the score just go down a little? ;-)

How about from the othe way? Would you take a loan from a friend if they required that you payed interest on it? How large would the loan have to be for that to make sense to you? From which friends? What about from your mom?

I'm not sure there are easy answers to this (though I have an idea that I will be testing out a little later. I'll keep you informed), but it's a fun thought-experiment. It really helps to clarify what money and economy means to you as an individual. Think it over. Pass this post on to your friends and discuss it with them. There's nothing really to do with it, but I would assert that this kind of thinking is generally healthy for people who are interested in money and finance.

What are your thoughts? Can I borrow some money? :-)

Management, Motivation, and Mayhem

Take a minute and start to think like a manager. A real pointy-hared-boss. Got it? Good.

Now, imagine that I told you to stop giving bonuses for good performance, don't require people to be in the office... Ever. Cancel all meetings, and make any that absolutely MUST happen be optional. Give your employees payed time to work on whatever they want to work on, with no promise of return for the company. Make it a rule that you have to take a full hour lunch out of the office. And finally, make the only metric that the company tracks for an employee their deliveries vs dead-lines.

You would tell me I was crazy, right?

Now, take a minute to put yourself into the head of an employee. Now, re-read those points above. Feels pretty good, right?

There have been actual studies performed that show that the kind of management I listed above greatly improves efficiency and effectiveness of workers, increase company value, and
makes everyone (even the managers) happier, healthier, and more productive. More-over, there have been real-life companies that have used this method. You may have heard of Google.

Why is it? Why does almost every company in the developed world runs themselves using carrots on sticks, and fear of layoffs to manage their employees, when all the science says that
it doesn't work, and what does work is the thing that everyone wishes their boss would let them do? Why do companies keep a strangle-hold on out-dated methodologies when the work
that we do, the people that we work with, and the atmosphere we enjoy has fundamentally changed in the last 100 years?

People are essentially hunters. It's built into our DNA to chase after things, keep a sense of purpose throughout the day, have large amounts of dopamine and serotonin drop into
our brains when we get what we are aiming for, to compete, to track, to kill. In the modern world, however, we don't get to hunt. Instead, we get to sit under florescent lights for hours and hours on end, tapping out patterns of romantic and Arabic symbols on an over-priced piece of plastic and silicon, and then go home and simulate the excitement and enjoyment of success with a beer.

Yay.

But you can't beat genetics. We try all the time, and simply fail. Even in basic physical activities: Champion swimmers are Swedes and Germanic, while champion runners are Kenyan. It's not an accident; It's because of the lighter bones, and higher muscle-density respectively. It's genetics. We have an almost unstoppable drive to have sex simply because it feels good. It's because we are driven to that feeling of "goodness" that keeps the species from dying out.

We are driven to the hunt, the chase, the capture, the kill. Only, we've changed what we are chasing after and in the modern world we have unparalleled freedom to pick what it is that we want to chase. Until we go to work.

Imagine what it might be like at work for you to take some time to pick a thing that you want to track and chase (a new project, a pickup-game of basketball, etc) and went for it. And at the end of the day, not only did you make progress on it, but everyone around you congratulated you on it, and your boss handed you some cash. That's real success. That's what our DNA is telling us to go for in this modern world, and yet almost every company in every industry tries to run away from that in the hopes that.... What? That we will be more productive as we fight every instinct that humans have left?

I could go on and on, pontificate to the end of time on the merits and demerits of this theory; examples of its success and failure. But I won't. All I will say is this: Are you happy? Do you think you would be more-so if your office looked more like the scenario above?

What is the economy to you? What does it mean to support "fun, cool things", and get support for doing "fun, cool things"?

Just a thought....

Prop by email is a hit!

As we suspected, Propping people via email is a big hit. About 70 more people have received cash from Propits via email, and many of those have converted into full Propits users. I'm so pleased to see the community growing!

More ideas in the works, more ways to Prop...

Inflation and value

This is a meditation on business practices I wrote a while back, that I thought would be fun to post here. I'm not sure I still feel the same way, but I'll throw it out there and see what kind of feedback we get. Caution: It's a biggun.

Way back in the day you could put your money in a bank, and come back to said bank at any later date and be sure that you're money would be safe in vault somewhere. These days, that's just not the case. If you go to your bank right now, they can show you an account statement, maybe even liquidate it for you (depending on how much you have in your account), but if you ask them to see the actual cash safely locked away in the vault, they'll laugh you out of the building.

The reason for this is something we call "fractional reserve banking". Basically that's where a bank only has to hold (or keep on reserve) a fraction of the money entrusted to them at any given time. The rest of it can be on loan to other people (the hope being that those people will pay back the loan with interest, and the bank owners get money). The system works pretty well as long as everyone doesn't ask for all their money all at once -- we call that a "run on the bank". It also encourages people to own and operate banks, because there is a way to make money off of it.

But what happens if everyone tries to get their money all at once? In that case, there are central reserve banks that keep a metric ass-load of money on hand that they can give out to a bank that gets "runned" on. These central banks are owned by the Federal Reserve, and private banking conglomerate with board members appointed by the federal government. The idea with the central reserves is that not all the banks in the entire country will have a run on them all at once, so they can cover a few at a time. Sounds good, right?

Well, kind of. The idea is nice. All the banks are covered, so that people can know that their money is safe even though it's not technically in a vault somewhere. At the same time there's a reason for people to open banks, and competition is good for us all. Or so they say. It's important to remember that in the grand scheme of things, capitalism is a pretty young experiment, still in it's early stages. Because of that, there are a lot of unintended consequences of seemingly good decisions.

Because banks only have to keep a fraction of their entrusted money on hand (10% in the US), they make money off of interest on loans, and they have a grand bail-out bank making sure that they won't get totally boned by over-zealous bank members there is a strong incentive in a competitive market to give out loans to as many people as they possibly can. Even if some of that money is lost because of defaults, they central reserve banks got them covered. Mean-while, they maximize their potential gains by riding close to the line (most banks keep EXACTLY 10% cash on hand, the other 90% is on loan all the time). Another funny thing about the way that capitalist institutions keep their books is that money that they have given out to other people is actually an asset, even though they don't have the money any more! They have the promise of a lot more money, though. They can take out loans of their own on this promise, or even sell the promise for face-value to other banks before that promise has ever been realized (effectively turning a potential gain into a realized gain -- without anyone ever giving any money back).

So, we have a bank give 90% of it's money away to anyone who asks for it, and then sell the piece of paper that says "I'll give it back. Scouts honor" to someone else for a profit. Rinse, repeat. Because everyone knows that the reserve banks have their backs, there's no reason not to just run that as far and as fast as you can, which of course leads to a lot of the problems we are seeing now with the credit crisis, collapse of financial insurance companies, people losing their houses (and not paying back their loans -- 90% of which is your money), etc etc.

But the fed has them covered, right? Well, kind of. The fed can bring the money into existence to cover them. That's right; the fed invents money as it's needed. As the fed issues more and more money, there is more in the market, bringing the value of any given piece of money down relative to the rest. We call that inflation. Which means that every time money is given out by a bank and not given back, the overall value of money eventually goes down. That's why banks give interest on some accounts; to try to get people in the doors with a counter-trend to inflation (although savings account interest rates are never as high as inflation...).

So, see if you can follow this:
1) Banks go nuts giving out money.
2) Any money they make, 90% goes right back out the door again
3) Any money that they lose gets conjured into existence anyway, and
well all lose. In other words, capitalism, in this case, guarantees that we all LOSE purchasing power -- the exact opposite of what capitalism is supposed to provide.

It's not some conspiracy, though. There's no one at the top wringing their hands and cackling in the night at your expense. Quite the opposite: they're losing out, too. That's why they come up with more and more investment vehicles, in the hopes of finding the magic thing that makes them not lose out anymore.

It's all a funny artifact of the fact that at one point we decided that banks were good, and to make them better, they needed to be able to compete within a market. Both good concepts, but with some odd, unintended consequences.

So, here's what I propose: We still need banks, and no one will run them if they aren't going to make money, so the bank still needs to be able to run on a fractional reserve. However, we just need to get rid of the backing. Make a bank stand on its own decisions, and rise or fall as their business practices dictate (what capitalism is supposed to be). Check it:

1) Take away federal reserve backing of banks.
2) Drop the required reserve to 1% (so that banks can decide for themselves what makes the most sense for their business)
3) If a bank fails, or gets "runned on", only a small group of people lose out, instead of all of us.

Of course, this will make the federal reserve angry, because they are invested in making money as well. To keep them going, just move them to a government bank (still privatized, though). Here's the thought:

1) If banks rise and fall on their own merit, they won't want to give out loans to dodgy people
anymore (good)
2) The dodgy people need the money for things like food though (bad)
3) Let the government gives out and absorb those loans, and back them with the fed

This will keep the fed in business, allow for a healthy amount of inflation to allow for economic
growth, and keep the government from having to nationalize anything. Everybody wins -- in theory. Also, the government already has the debt-collection part in place with the IRS to cover people who take out a government loan and default. A bank can't come to your house and take your stuff. The feds can, though. So the government has less risk in giving out loans to bad customers than private banks. Private banks can focus on intelligent business practices like giving out loans intelligently, running their margins at a reasonable level to support their customers, and giving out interest that actually matters, and is relevant to how well they do in a competitive market.

We get the benefits of capitalism, without all the stupid by just getting out of the way and actually letting the market decide.

So, that's my idea. What do you think? Can you think of any unintended consequences of this kind of plan, or can you think of a whole new plan that would do even better?

Super excited about new features!

Hi all... Thomas and I were chatting last night about the "prop by email" feature. I've been having so much fun with that just as a user. I think I Propped about 25 people last night that I think are cool but who haven't yet discovered Propits. I got that warm glow of sending out good intentions (and about 29 cents to each person). It was nice for me to get back in touch with the simple generosity of using Propits as we approach our 1 year anniversary. I hope you're enjoying it as much as I am!

All grow'ed up

Alright, I think the migration is done with (at least, everything is working for me). If you notice something that didn't quite make the leap, email us at support@madpropits.com and we will do our best to figure it out as fast as possible!

Growing pains

So, as you may have read on various facebook updates, we are in the process of upgrading to a beefier server. The site may be down for a little while until everything gets moved over. Just give it some time, and we should be done with the move soon.

Forward!

So, we just rolled out a few new features. Along with the standard bug fixes and speed improvements, we have two MAJOR changes to the system, that we are totally excited about.

The first one is the ability to prop anyone you want by email. What this means is that if you see something cool online that you want to prop, you no longer have to invite them, wait for them to join, check on them, prop them, etc. Just put in their email address, hit Prop, and you're good to go. An account will be made and held for them, and when your Props cycle, they will get an email enticing them with real-life money. It's better for us because we can grow the network faster, and it's better for you because you can prop with impunity! Yeah freedom! You can check that out on your Propits home page.

The second big feature rollout is what we are calling "Network rewards". Here's the gig: If you are giving $25 or more every month, and you invite people to the site who actually sign up, you get a cut of whatever they contribute to the system. We take a 10% cut (as you know) to cover our costs, but now we are giving back a third of that as a thank-you for supporting Propits. To learn more, check out the Network Rewards tab on your Propits home page.

More cool stuff is coming! We are spending more time lately getting our vision straight, collecting opinions from you guys, and planning an all-around better propping experience.

back up

We got the site back up, and it actually seems a bit snappier than before. Seems the offender was a server software update that was taking an unusually long amount of time to complete. In any event, space propping is totally un-canceled.

Grrrrr

So, you may have noticed that the site is down.... The wonders of letting someone else deal with your servers...

Anyway, we are aware of the problem and are in the process of tracking it down and fixing it as I type. Hang tight, and we will be back up and running in no-time.

A bit off topic

So, this is a bit off-topic, but it's something that has been on my mind, and I would love some feedback from folks.

I'm not the first person to say something like, "There's quality, budget, and timeframe. Pick two". We hear that all the time. Sometimes we even hear things from people saying pick one, or marketing talk saying that they deliver all three. But in all cases, people tend to agree that these three factors are the things to consider when releasing some product or service.

I think they're wrong. I think that timeframe is total bunk. Here's why.

Budget is a finite thing. You have x number of dollars to dedicate to a project. Obviously you can manage that money better or worse, or get more later, but at any given time you can look at your bank balance and see how much money you can spend on your project. Quality is the only thing that sets you apart from your competition (assuming that you have competition). Of course, there are cases when you let the quality of something slack because of this reason or that. But I would think that most people would agree that a product that is worth buying and a bit over budget is better than something that fell under budget but no one on the planet would want to purchase.

That leaves time. Here's the thing: Deadlines are arbitrary. That's right. If you set a deadline, you set it because of some opinion you had about that timeframe ("we do things in 1 month pushes", or "I want to be done before next year"). But if the deadline isn't met, what happens? Does anyone die (keep in mind I'm talking about websites, and things like that, not doctor's offices)? No. Nothing at all happens.

What about investors? They want their money (or at least a report on the money) by a certain time. Why? Because they think that is a good time for it (for tax reasons, for personal reasons, whatever). But in all cases it's still arbitrary. Every time there is some "unbreakable" deadline that people complain about, follow the chain of people who set that deadline, and I would be willing to bet that the ultimate reason for it is, "Some dude thought that was a good time to be done, and everyone else got all worked up about it".

Lastly, there have been several really great studies that have shown that the primary factor in success is the ability to delay gratification. So the people who freak out about deadlines are the ones that will fail anyway (okay, okay; correlation and causation, blah blah blah... just go with me on this), and so the work being done will be for naught.

One of my past jobs was all about getting things done as fast as possible, releasing new features every week to "compete", etc etc. Woe be to those who missed a deadline. That company is now out of business. How many other times has this same pattern been followed?

Now, that's not to say that a self-imposed deadline is always bad. It provides inspiration, and a goal. It allows a person or group to schedule times to talk about the project, etc. That's all good stuff. I'm just saying freaking out about it isn't a good idea, and learning to delay deadlines for the sake of future success is probably a better idea.

What are your deadlines? What happens if you miss them? Are your feelings when those deadlines are missed in line with the results of missing them?

How much stress do we add to our lives because of something as simple as a person saying "Monday is better than Friday"?

What do you do in your life to release some of that stress? How does it effect you?

User feedback survey

Hello there!

We here at Propits are working with a third party to survey your experience as a Propits community member. If you've got just a few minutes to answer 18 easy questions, you could really help us understand where we should focus our efforts. We would sure appreciate it!

We're back!

Wow. It's been a bit, hasn't it? Well, we are back. Development on www.madpropits.com hasn't stopped, and neither has the podcast. We hit a spell of dryness with the podcast as we had to focus on some other very important things, but we are back. Tell your friends!

Check out the new episode, which is all about the ultimate nature of money, and how we can apply our knowledge about it in a real, meaningful way.

We've also got some cool things on the way in terms of new developments with the actual app, so stay tuned!

Guests galore!

Just put up a new podcast episode, so make sure to check it out. You can also subscribe in iTunes (or some other podcasting software.... if such a thing exists) so that you get the newest episodes as they come out.

This week we have a guest podcaster, Mary. Mary, Kevin and I all talk about depression in the face of economic hardships, and the importance of giving as an antidote to the depression and "lack" mentality.

Also, I was invited by Mary to do a guest blog post on her blog, The Art of Winning. It's not up there yet, but I'll let you know when it is. I'm just excited about cross-blog promotion is all. :)

A new feature

Hey everybody. Just a quick update. I rolled a new feature that changes the way that your button code is generated. All of your existing buttons should continue to work just fine, but any new buttons that you install are a little different.

Your users will continue to have the same experience that they always have had. However, now you can have as many buttons of as many types as you want. Check out the button configuration in your home page to see what I mean. It should be a lot easier and more useful for you.

More updates coming soon! Stay tuned!

no podcast this week

Hi everyone. There won't be a podcast this week because we used up all the time we normally allocate for it into new dev. That's the bad news. The good news is that that new dev time will directly translate to a better experience for everyone once we get it rolled out.

Thanks for the understanding!

Long distance relationships

So, I found this new web-app called Plinky. It's basically a service to help you overcome "bloggers block". Today, the question that it gave me was "What is the longest-distance relationship you have ever maintained?", and I thought that was an interesting question.

Obviously it's asking about romantic relationships. To answer that question is easy: 3,128 miles. But the reason that I thought the question was interesting was because there are so many different kinds of relationships. Theirs romantic relationships, friendships, business partnerships, family members, etc. Also, what does "maintained" mean? The 3k mile relationship failed (of course), but it was maintained for a time. Does that make it "maintained"? What about business relationships? I live in Colorado, but work with people in Florida and Alaska every day. Does that count as a maintained relationship?

The inherent ambiguity in relationships and their maintenance is interesting to me, because it goes a long way to point out to one's-self that the nature of our interactions with other people is entirely dependent on context. When I am working with the folks in FL, I know that they are my friends outside of work (I grew up with them), but business is business. Interaction with those people is different on the clock then off. Does that change the relationship? Of course it does! But that's the point: context is everything.

Have you ever had a friend who asked you to help them move, and you said that you couldn't? I'm willing to bet that you didn't go out for drinks right afterwards... A friend asking for help and you denying it, is awkward, and it changes the context of the relationship a bit. If that friend had been some random person you've never met before, it wouldn't be awkward at all. The context for that relationship (no matter how short of a time it lasts) is very different than the relationships you have with your friends. Context creates the relationship.

So much of what we are about at Propits is helping to clarify the context of relationships between people. Money (IE physical support) changes context. If you help a friend move, and they slide you a $20 from across the table, it would be weird. But that is kind of the point of money. How do you bridge that weirdness with the context of the relationship? Propits is made to help bridge that gap.

If you find some cool content online, that's a relationship. If you want to show them that they are cool (ie, maintain that relationship, even if just for a moment), send them a note to sign up with Propits and do it. Maintain relationships with people who you've never met. This is the information age; why should that be weird? Support the cool things and people around you. Isn't that was interacting with people is supposed to be; a maintaining of relationships?

What's the longest distance relationship you have maintained? Now, I can honestly say that it was 4,881 miles, and I'm still doing it right now. I think that's pretty cool!

New episode

What creates suffering? If suffering is just a movement in your life, and all you need is any movement to position for success, can suffering be a good thing? Just a fun conversation on the nature of complacency and how it can be used to your advantage.

Survival in the (not really) wilderness

When I was in boy scouts, back in the day, I used to teach first aid, wilderness survival, and camping classes to the other boys. I really loved going out into the woods for days on end with just a knife, and seeing what I could come up with. Because I enjoyed it, and was good at it, it seemed natural to teach it.

I know that a lot of people think of some crazy, grizzled-old man out in the woods building huts out of leaves, and trapping dear with his bare hands. There's a reason for that. A lot of stuff in survival classes really assumes the worst. "What if you crash-landed in the mountains, were the only survivor of the crash, and all you had left after the ensuing chemical fire (because flammable toxins is what was in the cargo hold) was a single shoe and half a stick of gum? GO!"

I stopped doing that stuff once I realized that the worst situation I was likely to find myself in was that a breaker tripped and my computer turned off in the middle of a really important quake match...

But have you ever known someone, or been the guy yourself, who says things like that? Maybe not regarding actual wilderness, but just in your day-to-day life. "If we don't get our ROI up, we'll all lose our jobs!". "What if the economy totally crashes and I can't fend for myself?". It's a tempting road for a lot of us to go down. Fixing problems is something that our culture tells us is a good thing. So, we try to think of problems that we might someday be able to fix.

But what about the much more mundane problems right now? What's more likely? The whole country descends into chaos because the dollar devalues, or that the people you are around every day secretly hate you because of your crazy conspiracy theories? I'm not judging here, btw. I used to be the crazy theory guy. I loved the stuff! Hell, I taught classes in it for Pete's sake!

It seems to me, that among all the problems facing our world right now, the far-off ones are not the ones for people like you and I to be dealing with. It's our jobs to just make sure that our lives, and the lives of the people around us, are happy ones. Whatever that looks like for you. It's our responsibility to make the world a little brighter where we can.

That's why we made Propits. It's not that money is evil, and when it all comes crashing down the wicked will see their folly. It's that money represents a feeling, not an economy, to the average person. So let's just bring back the feeling. Let's just remember that there are things in our lives, right here and right now, that matter. And that those things are the ones that we should be focusing on, not some imaginary problem that has yet to come.

Ah, technology

I want to apologize if you weren't able to use the system earlier this morning. Out hosting provider messed up and as a result our database went down for a moment. We are back up and running, now, however, so no worries. I'm going to be keeping an eye on it for the next few hours to make sure that it doesn't happen again.

Thank you for your patience and understanding!

AIG, and the nature of contracts

In this podcast episode, we talk about the AIG bonus scandal, and what lessons we can take away about the nature of contracts, karma, emptiness, and impermanence.

New skin

Hi everyone. I know it's a little late, and that most of you have probably already noticed, but we are in the process of refining the look and feel of www.madpropits.com. There are some good changes that should make things just look and act a bit better, as well as speed up the site in general. More changes are coming, but the bulk is already there.

As always, let us know what you think. Get in touch with us, and let us know what you want to see, or how we can make your Propping experience better!

From idea to reality

This blog is starting to seem like just a podcast repository. I promise that's not the intention. However, podcasts are a part of it ;-)

We have a new episode, and this time we talk a little bit about how and why to take an idea and turn it into a company. This is one of our longer episodes, because it's something that's important to us, but it's got some good things in it.

Media and the economy

We started to talk about the media's effect on the economy, but then we just kind of drifted off. It's a fun episode, though, filled with some unique views on the stock market, and our place in it.

Podcast episode 3

If your local news ran a story on the local fair scamming people, and you went anyway, would you still be surprised and angry when you got scammed, or would you educate yourself so that you can win? This is exactly what is starting to happen, and will continue to happen, with the economic stimulus package. Educate yourself, and win.

New podcast episode

Wherein we talk about mortgages and such. 

You can also subscribe to our podcast with iTunes. If you want the raw feed to subscribe in some other music player, point your favorite podcasting software over here.

Podcast Episode One!

Hey! The Propits podcast Episode One is out! In it, we are rescued from working as slaves in a junk shop. We go on to win a pod-racer event, and then are spirited away to begin our Jedi training while the Trade Federation... no wait, sorry... that Episode One had way more awkward moments than Propits Episode One. And, we didn't start with Episode Four and then wait 20 years to get back to the beginning.

The point of the Propits podcast is actually to talk about economics from the Propits perspective, which is drawing from the ninja lineage that both Propits founders study. There is a lot to be said for a 1000-year old view of events. Turbulent times, supposedly "unprecedented", are in fact very precedented in the long history of humanity, and there is much wisdom in the ancient scrolls on enduring change.

If you're interested in a fresh perspective on modern events, delivered with a dose of humor from a couple of guys who get hit in the head a lot, check out the Propits podcast.

Then Give Props, of course.

Advanced search

Just a quick update. There is now a better search form with more options for finding who you are looking for. One of the big feature requests that we get all the time is how to find people who have recently signed up, or to be able to narrow their search down by some more complex criteria. Now you can!

You can also see all users who have a public profile (Their "include in searches and public listings" options is checked in their profile), so you should be able to find all kinds of cool new people and websites!

Lastly, we also just rolled out some new back-end stuff that should help us give you guys a better experience all around. Stay tuned! More is coming all the time!

New stuff

It's that time of... time ... again...

We have new features! This time around there are two new cool features. The first one is easy. You will now get a good receipt when we charge your credit card, instead of an old crappy one coming from some dude named "Kevin". Also, if you want to turn off your receipts, just delete it from your alerts list in your profile edit screen.

The other new hotness is the addition of a return-path URL. What that means is that if you want people to see a special thank-you page when they prop you, just go to your advanced options tab in your profile edit screen, and put a URL to your thank you page in the return path URL field. This can be special content that only cool people who prop you can see, a special message, your blog, branding, whatever you want.

Stay up to date on the blog! We are always rolling out cool new features!

Podcasts coming

We've got some really exciting things in the works for Propits. One thing we've realized is that whenever we can talk about Propits to someone in person, they catch our excitement and understand it right away. It's hard to get that personal transmission via text.

So, we're starting up a podcast. The podcast is about the inspiration behind Propits, not Propits itself. Thomas and I have been analyzing economics and market forces for years based on the insights we've garnered in martial arts, meditation practice, snowboarding, advanced mathematics, engineering, and artificial intelligence design. We are excited to analyze the systems that drive macro- and micro-economics, and Propits resulted from that. We believes it cures what ails America.

Our deeper contribution, though, is a strategic one. There is a way to get excited about what is going on in America now. Instead of being depressed that the sky is falling, we're excited to see massive change and powerful waves of energy pulsing through both the human and institutional aspects of the American economy. There is work to be done, and there are waves to catch! Our podcast, we hope, will capture our insights and enthusiasm and supply you with some much-needed amusement along with a ninja perspective on what is happening in the world of finance and how you can fit in with it.

No more boring CNN market analyses... think Motley Fool but with an emphasis on entrepeneurs instead of investors. Our first podcast should come out in the next 10 days via iTunes... I'll be sure to keep you posted!

Kevin

Express yourself by Giving Props

You know how you get that good feeling when you see something positive? You might even say out loud, "That's cool." The feeling fades if there is nothing you can do about it, but if you can express the feeling, it lasts longer. Giving Props lets you express the feeling - even if you aren't giving money right now.

Those who are giving a few dollars to Propits also know that the feeling is MUCH stronger when you know that you helped that positive thing a little bit. When you help, you are a part of that success story. You get a little piece of that success and positive work in your heart. That energy takes root in you, and generates more success and positivity in your life.

You will be amazed when you look back on this time at the start of 2010. There is a quiet revolution sweeping the economy right now, called by various names - micro-giving, micro-donations, crowd-sourcing... You are a part of that via Propits. The Internet will roar as the infrastructure which enables the democratization of money. Expressing support and inspiring each other to create is the original higher purpose of money.

I want to encourage you to continue giving props to your friends as well as people doing good work in the world. Propits is still small - we have 78 users - so you might check out the Featured section (www.madpropits.com/featured) for cool things you can support. You should also invite people who should be supported (www.madpropits.com/share). Who do you know that deserves more for what they do?

Online content without advertising

One of the great dilemmas of our modern time is advertising. People rarely enjoy advertising – consumers don’t like to be subjected to it and businesses don’t like to pay for it. Media sites don’t like having to interrupt content with advertising, and yet they must sell advertising to support their content generation expenses. There are some hilarious web-comics, incredibly helpful forums, and highly instructional how-to sites that rely on advertising to exist. How would a popular free-content website survive without ads?

They can now do it with a Propits button. Users who regularly follow the site can Give Props to it. If it’s a good site with a large following, it will be supported regularly. Loyal users can put that website in their permanent Propit list and create a stream of income to support technical and content expenses. Advertising can go away, and everyone rejoices (except the advertising companies).

Not only do ads go away, but websites can be driven again by content that inspires loyalty and good feelings, instead of shocking content or odd webpage structure designed to trick users into visiting and clicking banners. Imagine an Internet that was trying to inform, educate, and entertain instead of spam, disturb, and entrap.