The Hidden Facts of Disability You Should Know
Attorney Nancy L. Cavey offers an educational and sobering overview of disability issues in an infographic format.
http://www.caveylaw.com/the-hidden-facts-of-disability-infographic/
Small wonder that self-employment is a goal for a segment of the population when disability becomes a challenge..
Note:A 120-page version of Changing Your Work or Career… will be available by the end of next week.
Comedian Cristela Alonzo is the first Latina to write and produce a TV show. And she recently recounted her life story on ABC TV’s the View: Alonzo left home at age 18 despite her mother’s tears and pleading for her not to go. They didn’t speak for more than a year after, Alonzo said.
So how is it that some men and women stand up against family demands regarding their dream to pursue a non-traditional path while others are unable to do so?
There are stark differences in how males and females handle similar situations.
For example, back in the 1940s, the Johnson O’Connor Research Foundation wrote about a young taxi driver, who tested through the roof for aptitudes suitable for the performing arts. A field he wanted desperately to become apart of.
Yet despite total misery, he drove a cab for a living because his father did not believe he should pursue a career in the arts.
On the other hand, long before Stars Wars or American Graffiti fame,
George Lucas told his father in no uncertain terms that he would not take over the family business.
But compare writer Kurt Vonnegut’s experience. Vonnegut knew in high school that he wanted to be a writer. He enjoyed working on his school’s newspaper and planned to enroll in a Liberal Arts program, but his family ordered him to change his college major to science.
Vonnegut was told to follow the path of his older successful brother, a prominent scientist. And he tried to do so but with disastrous results. [Vonnegut used a passive aggressive tactic…he joined the army, but I digress]
Alonzo’s spunk made me examine her website.
According to her blog, she was one of four siblings. Apparently not the oldest, she may have been the baby, which might explain her maverick personality, according to Dr. Kevin Leman in The Birth Order Book.
But lastborn Vonnetgut, one of three, arguably no match for his strong-willed older brother, a firstborn, and his father.
Family interactions and birth order do they play a major role in how people react in these circumstances?
Birth order is not as simple as one, two, and three. There are at least nine circumstances that can play a role in how each person acts, regardless of their birth order. For example the birth orders of the parents, the relationship between the parents and the values they pass on, writes Leman.
Curiously, many of the values Alonozo’s mother espoused were not ones embraced by her daughter. Alonzo believed you had to have a dream but her mother did not.
Birth order and family interaction are fascinating pieces of the puzzle for aspiring entrepreneurs searching for the right path.
References
Cristela Alonzo’s Blog
http://cristelaalonzo.com/bl
The View
http://abc.go.com/shows/cristela/news/updates/141009-cristela-on-the-view
Kevin Leman, PhD.
http://www.drleman.com/store/books-on-birth-order/the-birth-order-book/prod_9.htm
George Lucas/Oprah’s next Chapter
http://www.oprah.com/own-oprahs-next-chapter/First-Look-George-Lucas-on-Oprahs-Next-Chapter-Video
John Bradshaw, PhD
http://www.tvguide.com/detail/tv-show.aspx?tvobjectid=200210&more=ucepisodelist&episodeid=895531
Johnson O’Connor Research Foundation
http://www.jocrf.org/
BookTv.org
And So It Goes
Charles Shields/Vonnegut Biographer
http://www.booktv.org/Program/13101/And+So+It+Goes+Kurt+Vonnegut+A+Life.aspx
I’m Finally Doing What I Want,”
Tom Seligson, Parade Magazine, 1989, pgs. 8-9.
Summary: The story of character actor John Mahoney [Frasier’s dad], seventh child in a family of eight siblings and how his childhood aspirations to act on the stage took a long detour [from hospital orderly to English teacher] before he found his path…
Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from a new worksheet set
available in Pdf later this month.
Note: Do not Use Goggle to answer the questions that follow.
Apart from my own searches for a great title or name,
back in 2004, I once earned a two-hundred-dollar consulting fee
by correctly figuring out which business stock would improve
over the coming months. I did so twice and by evaluating the strength of the names I sifted through…
Contents
What choosing the wrong name may mean
Worst name ever for a product!”
Activity: Orange super hero
Using your aptitudes
Takeaway lessons from Hollywood
Questions to Answer: 19 + examples
Answer key
Resource list
Goal: Gain understanding of common pitfalls that occur when naming
a business product or service and how to avoid problems.
Selecting the right name for a new product or service is one of the most important tasks a potential entrepreneur may undertake.
But sometimes it’s not that easy a task.
The activity requires time, thought and strategy, but many beginners…
even veteran entrepreneurs with advanced business degrees
are often stumped and create names that are less than spectacular.
Notable examples might include recent news story about the Florida Orange Growers Association and their million-dollar collaboration with Marvel Comics. The plan is to create a superhero, which in theory, will boost consumer awareness of the traditional breakfast drink and thereby increase sales.
The superhero’s name…Captain Citrus.
And before the sticky substance was Super glue it was marketed under the catchy titles Eastman #910 and Locktite Quickset 404…
The importance of choosing the right name or title may well be illustrated by The Squash Book, which sold only 1500 copies until renamed the Zucchini Cookbook and sales shot up to 300,ooo, according to Marilyn Ross and Sue Collier in The Complete Guide to Self-Publishing.
Activity
Orange Superhero
What name might you coin?
And what strategy would you use to identify a great one?
Finding the Hidden Theme
The three examples that follow share an interesting theme not apparent at first glance. Can you figure out what it is?
Update next week
The Start of the Fish Flops Company
Madison Nicole Robinson was a third grader when she came up with the idea for what is now a million-dollar company.
Last month, Robinson, now 16, visited the Steve Harvey Show and shared the early design sketch that launched her company.
It’s a three minute segment [humor included]: Insightful overview of the inspiration, start and progress of the company that includes a Give Back focus.
Reference
http://www.steveharveytv.com/fish-flops/
Next Week: The Name Game: How many beginners miss out on this key point.
The Case of the Telltale Trademark
Kewpie & the Little Browns, July 1912, Rose O’Neill
Many art or business students have never heard of Rose O’Neill.
A child prodigy, multi-talented artist, and advocate for women rights
and racial equality, O’Neill amassed great wealth only to see her
work plagiarized by countless others, including a famous
department store.
Today a Japanese corporation owns the rights to what was once in the
1930’s a million-dollar product…the Kewpie doll.
Rose O’Neill’s experience as an artist-business woman holds
several takeaway lessons for aspiring artists entering
the world of commerce or art.
Rose O’Neill started her Kewpie comic strip in 1909 but did not apply
for trademark protection until 1913 and 1937 for Dolls, Games,
Toys & the Kewpie Cartoons. Probably because no one foresaw
the global appeal of the Kewpie comic strip.
By the late 1930s, the artist, activist millionaire was experiencing
financial trouble. O’Neil hired a law firm to battle infringers
such as the national U.S. department store chain that issued a Kewpie camera.
But the department store was just the tip of the iceberg, according to letters sent to O’Neill’s attorney, companies overseas had flooded the U.S. market with Kewpie dolls and her royalty payments had been reduced to tiny checks, including $100 + monthly from manufactures who had legal rights to produce her work.
To make matters worse, O’Neill had allowed her trademark to expire while she was living in Italy a few years earlier, and her trademark re-application was denied. So in many cases, O’Neill could not stop infringers in court because it would have revealed she had no legal control of her trademark.
An examination of letters to O’Neill’s lawyer, hints at a lack of attention
to business paperwork on the part of the artist. That she allowed her trademark
to lapse is factual.
That was a huge business mistake.
Lack of attention to business details is a pattern that would be repeated. For example, Rose ONeill’s work is not copyrighted. Compare and contrast that circumstance with O’Neill’s friend Tom Hart Benton. His estate has protected his artwork.
O’Neill died in 1944 and her heirs sold her rights two years later, although there is a dispute over why the rights were ever sold.
What products on the following list
were not granted a Kewpie trademark?
Asteroid
Sandwiches
Hotels
Fresh grapes
Motion picture
Tomatoes
Dress company
Hosiery
Canned beef, pork, chicken
Chewing Gum
Laxative candy
Toilet powder
Sears , Roebuck & Company…camera
Note: The list does not even include the countless illegal items being manufactured with the Kewpie imagery in the 1930’s.
References
http://www.pinterest.com/rebeccalbishop/third-grade-terrific/Paper Pile Q
Fitzsimmons, A. Kewpie’s Legal Problems,Paper Pile Quarterly, Winter 1996
Thomas Hart Benton
PBS.org
http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/benton/benton/
Dee Adams is the Author of Finding Your Niche:
https://nichecreativity.com/finding-your-niche-ebook/
This is Going to Be Fun!
After more than a month offline, my XP laptop had a hard drive overhaul and arrived late yesterday.
Now I must work with Mozy to reconstruct all my files. Eeep!
But I hate to think what would have happened without my Mozy Pro subscription.
Meanwhile, I plan to complete the projects promised this month.
UPDATE:
Lengthy MozyPro download completed last night. But… [There’s always a but] for the past three days, the external Plug and Play Logitech keyboard is not functioning properly. Aggressive pop-ups force me to install the CD each time and I am intermittently being blocked from Internet connection for hours at a time.
Of course, tech support is mystified, but the consensus is that since the external keyboard, which is the sole keyboard, functioned without issue before the hard-drive was replaced…the laptop has to go back to the repair shop for adjustment.
Until I can activate email by phone service this week, I will not send the equipment back right away. I will continue to post what I can and work offline until I have sorted through this tech misadventure.
Oh, yeah, this is fun!
