Should You Be an Entrepreneur?

I found this quiz here on the Finance Kid's Blog.

Try it for yourself and see where you stand. I said "yes" to twelve and "no" to eight. Some of my no's could have been yeses. Here is my personal analysis of my "no" answers and maybe some of my yes answers.

A. I don’t like being told what to do by peo­ple who are less capa­ble than I am.
With my military background I'm perfectly comfortable sitting in the Pilot in Command seat or in the Copilot's seat. What I don't like is when the one who owns the responsibility tries to slough it off on someone else. And, well nuff said. No need to get long winded.

D. I like being my own boss.
I answered yes to this one, but I'm also comfortable having a boss. I like doing a good job! If as my own boss I'm doing a lousy job, I'd rather have a boss above me that is capable of doing better.

F. I like to ques­tion con­ven­tional wisdom.
I answered no, but that really depends. Does it need questioning? If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

G. I like to get peo­ple together in order to get things done.
Depends... I don't know how good I am at this. If there is a need to rise to the challenge I think I'm capable, but I'm content to let other capable people have the spotlight and the glory. Also it depends on why I'm doing it... It's kind of like a man stopping and asking for directions. I'm quick to do so when I'm doing something that needs to get done for someone else, but if it is something solely for my benefit I'm usually loath to bother others.

H. Peo­ple get excited by my ideas.
No matter how hard I work, I don't see too much excitement over ProximityCast my one idea I'm most committed to. There are a couple of exceptions whom I greatly appreciate. Anybody for "Farmville"? 70 million and growing...

I. I am rarely sat­is­fied or complacent.
"Not that I speak from want, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am."Philippians 4:11 I don't really like being complacent, but I do cherish contentment. It is nice knowing satisfaction too.

J. I can’t sit still.
That depends on how you are defining that. I like to do things that I feel are worthwhile. It is nice to feel like I am moving forward and making progress, but I don't care to go insane because the hurdles and obstacles can't be cleared by the resources I have access to. I can sit still when I need to.

K. I can usu­ally work my way out of a dif­fi­cult situation.
I initially answered this no, but I changed it to yes. I'm in a new chapter of my life where due to a medical condition I find that even though I may have "the want to" I can't always come up with "the can do". This is new to me.

L. I would rather fail at my own thing than suc­ceed at some­one else’s.
I don't mind helping others succeed. If I'm going to fail, I would rather it be my own failure and not affect others. Doing something is only worthwhile to the extent that it really helps others besides yourself in someway.

O. Mem­bers of my fam­ily run their own businesses.
I answered no which is not totally true. My dad and my grandfathers were all independent business men. I wish I could have learned more from them.

R. I get an adren­a­line rush from sell­ing things.
I think I can enjoy selling something that I really believe in and can really benefit someone. But, how helpful am I straddling someone with a new car they really don't need and a huge monthly payment to go with it? I want to be able to sleep at night knowing I truly helped someone and not harmed them even if it is their responsibility to make good choices.

T. (and here is what I would change .…)
I'd have put yes/no radio buttons beside each question and would have a submit button at the bottom to calculate the results easily and automatically. As far as the questions, I'm still just a student of entrepreneurship. I wish I new all the right questions to ask and the best answers for me.

Otherwise, I enjoyed taking this quiz and sharing with all of you.

That's how I shook out on this quiz today... How about you?

Ciao

Vis a vis

Anyone ever want to talk about the possibilities of ProximityCast face to face over a beer, let me know through the ProximityCast contact form. Maybe we'll meet...

Founder out...ciao

the ProximityCast Advantage

Google's "Street View" is an awesome internet website application, and one of my favorites. Yet, "Street View" does not always deliver the goods.

The Five Guys Burgers and Fries website shows its Mystic, CT street address as:
12 Coogan Blvd
Mystic, CT 06355

If you click the above link and look at their website location map there is a location pin at the corner of Coogan Blvd and Maritime Dr.

The street address pasted into Google Maps shows the same intersection location as the Five Guys website location map:

View Larger Map

Unfortunately the Google Street View Camera Car (GSVCC) did not travel down Coogan Blvd or Maritime Dr. If you click on the little Street View Man icon in the upper left of the Google Map and drag it slightly away from its in situ location all the streets traveled by the GSVCC will show up in blue. If the GSVCC had traveled the road where Five Guys is located we could verify the location before traveling there and possibly being disappointed by not finding the establishment.

Next you decide to ProximityCast the street address:



The yellow #1 shows the street address as the entered Cast Initiation Point.
The yellow #2 shows the distance the street address is from the actual photographer certified coordinate location of the picture view for Five Guys.
The yellow #3 shows the three geographic coordinate formats for this location.

You can easily copy any one of the three formats to paste into Google Maps and check the photographer's certified location.

You can also simply click the "Map View" button right on the Cast Results page to easily see a Google Map mashup right on ProximityCast.com


View Larger Map

The green arrowhead shows the exact location the photographer indicates the picture was taken from. The satellite view indicates a shopping complex that is more likely to house Five Guys as opposed to the inaccurate street address location.

If the GSVCC had driven down Coogan Blvd you could get farther confirmation that this is indeed the correct location. However as ProximityCast grows in popularity and use the individual photographer's accuracy rating can give you a high amount of confidence that if you arrive at the indicated coordinates you will indeed see what the photographer shows in his/her picture.


N41 22.325 W071 57.349

And, there you have the ProximityCast Advantage!

Businesses can take advantage of getListed.org to improve their online visibility. Five Guys has claimed their listing on Google, but they still need to edit the location of their Mystic, CT franchise.

Once that is edited the Street Address will display more accurately and if Google sends their GSVCC down Coogan Blvd you may be able to see Five Guys on Street View rendering this post obsolete like this previous post has been.



Founder out...ciao

Entering an Establishment's Official Website Link

Any registered and logged in user can now add an establishment's official website link. Whether you are logged in or not the link to an establishment's official website appears at the top right hand corner of the Establishment Details Page if it exists and has been added.

A button that allows you to add an establishment's official website link appears on the Establishment Details page when you are logged in and a link has not yet been submitted:

Adding a link is pretty straight forward and easy. How to do it is detailed below and can also be found on the Submit a Website link HELP page.

These links make ProximityCast more useful for all of us that use the site.

Adding an Establishment Link

1. Search for the Business on Google
   
   
   
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   • By entering an obvious business name associated with the Picture: Like this
   
   


2. Scan the list of results for the main website belonging to the Business
   
   
   
   • 
   
   
   • The top result: Frenier Landing with url: www.frenierlanding.com/ appears to be the official site for Frenier's Landing
   
   
   • Click the link to confirm this is the Establishment's Official Site.
   
   


3. If the site is the establishment's official site, click in your browser's URL address box to highlight and copy the complete link: http://www.frenierlanding.com/


4. Paste the link into the Enter URL for Establishment BOX
   


5. Complete the "Please prove you're human (span blocker) and submit then test link.

NOTE:

If you do not find an obviously OFFICIAL website for the establishment, please DO NOT submit any link.

Hopefully you will find this information helpful. Please consider helping ProximityCast build its database, if you are not already a contributor.

You can leave comments with questions on this blog or use the ProximityCast Contact page to leave comments or questions.

Founder out...ciao

the Beginning

The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.
by: Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
British prime minister.

PickEvac

PickEvac was the program that got ProximityCast started on its journey.

I took my first computer science course in the mid 80's. It was an introductory programming course using PASCAL. I really enjoyed the course and made an “A”. I considered computer science as a major, but my crystal ball was busted. I figured the job would never amount to more than $25K a year and being stuck in some drab office somewhere.

In the Fall of 1990 I took a job as an EMS (Emergency Medical Services) Helicopter Pilot for a small outfit in the Midwest. There I saw a real need and caught a vision for a program that would solve that need: Pick~E~vac.

The dispatchers for this small outfit sat in a room about the size of a large walk-in closet. They had a large map on the wall covering their service area. Whenever a request for a flight would come in they took a small book that contained the Latitude and Longitude coordinates of all the communities in the company's service area. The dispatcher would determine the coordinates of the nearest community to the scene and plot the location on the large wall map. The the dispatcher would visually determine which base was the closest to the scene and launch them.

Anyone who has manually plotted Latitude and Longitude coordinates knows it is not a simple task. I said, “There has got to be an easier way!” The vision for PickEvac was conceived.

I had a C compiler but had never coded in C. My attempts to learn this language was like hitting a brick wall. (I can now code in C since I found a book that helped me make the hurdle.) So I broke-down and purchased a PASCAL compiler.

PickEvac was soon born. The dispatchers loved it! The scene coordinates were entered into the program which did a ProximityCast of the companies three bases. The closest base was displayed with a green seventy nautical mile circle drawn around it and a green course line drawn to the scene showing distance and heading. The next closest base was displayed in yellow the same way, and the farthest base was displayed in red.

This program was donated to the company and actively used by the dispatchers until the company expanded to more than three bases.

...and the journey just continues.