It seems that every so often
I get carried away with the availability of some new technology that calls to
me like the Siren called Odysseus. I can’t resist. The first major case of this
was getting a new, more expensive, smart cell phone. I had a very nice “flip-phone”
for several years. It made and got phone calls, a primary use of a cell phone.
It cost me $35 and was easy to slip onto my pocket. I liked it. It didn’t sing,
dance, or allow me to play “Angry Birds.” It was a phone.
Then, along came Uber. A
perfect add-on career for my retirement situation (needing money) and
completely under my control: “Drive when you want for the time you want to
drive and make tons of money in your spare time.” Sounds great!
But! you have to have a smart
phone, a small computer to give you the path you would have to drive, take the
payment, all automated for the happy Uber driver. So, I shopped around and my
cell phone service provider had the best pricing for a moderately powerful unit.
I think it was one of the “left overs” as the manufacturer was switching to newer, more expensive, powerful and function overloaded phones. I signed on,
and started researching how I could become a happy Uber driver. Perfect!
Then I hit a very interesting
road block: reality. As I researched I found more and more that Uber, which
serves a very desired service, and one which makes a lot of sense from time to
time for the public, had its dark side. I was in Georgia for my son’s wedding.
Everything worked well. After the event and following evening, he called for an
Uber to pick me up at the hotel and whisk me to the airport. In the morning,
there was a bit of a problem connecting with the Uber driver. I guess I’m a
little hard to notice. Anyway, when Uber came it was a pleasant trip to the
airport, and all prepaid by my son. Nice. Then I heard from my son that the driver
had taken longer than he should have and took some weird path to the airport.
My son called Uber and they said they were giving him a rebate since the driver
had done the drive wrong. I find this amazing. They knew how long he took and
what route he drove, etc. Like magic, they have all the information they need
to run a great business. But, after analysis, I have come to the end point to
believe that the drivers don’t really make as much as it would appear. Hourly,
at any rate, I can’t afford to become an Uber driver.
Fortunately, I’ve been doing
calligraphy for many years (over 50). I did it free for organizations and
political parties, personal events, and so on. My seating chart for my son’s
Bar Mitzvah was great (a torah scroll with the attendees seats, written on a
model scroll that I built). So, it was a new revelation that people could make
money selling art and products they create. Etsy! and there are several others,
I gather. I discussed this with my son and he said we could set up a “store.”
He would do all the planning and I would do the calligraphy. I started studying
how Etsy works, how you get a sale, how you send out a product, etc. Etsy makes
it all pretty easy, and I can see that there is a lot more under the covers
that you have to do to understand what you have to do to get results you want.
Along with all this is the
requirement (at least from my point of view) to produce a high quality product
that people cannot get easily on the open market. I, for example, hand create
all my calligraphy, do all the design and layout, work in various hands, and
can customize anything in many ways. How to communicate all this and do the
jobs and get the product out is a real challenge. As starters, my son had me
research what were products more people wanted, and in what sizes, and what
hands, and papers, cost out all the elements, and then get busy and create an
inventory of some calligraphy that would be our store’s starting products.
Whew, this was a lot. As we worked on this I found I needed to have some tools
to handle the work I do and produce final products that would be the best I can
do.
There turn out to be a lot
computer programs that would be of help to us, including things like having
shared and synchronized data points that would keep us on the same efforts.
Thankfully, my son knew that kind of thing because that’s what businesses do,
and he’s an MBA from Pepperdine. And it’s the kind of thing he does in helping
people set up new or renewed businesses. My background is in computers, so
finding and evaluating programs to do what I need to do graphic processing wasn’t
a big problem for me. I found a lot, and as I found them I read a lot of
reviews and analyses of them. Then, I had to find, test, and use them myself. I
learned a lot!
After seeing all the really
great programs, and some of the most expensive, I have found a flock of “free”
programs and services that I could be using. The learning curve on some of them
is pretty sharp, mostly because they have so many ways of doing all kinds of
graphic processing, and the language used in describing them to the user is an
unknown argot to me. So, I am learning, trying, and amazed at all the things I
have to absorb and use properly. As it is coming along, it is streamlining the
work I do, and makes very good products at a pace that makes them available
relatively quickly, compared to what I used to do in the old days. I have
pretty much settled on Krita (a free graphics program similar to Paintshop Pro,
which I used in past years for editing my photos, and Photoshop which I can’t
afford) and I’m looking at ipiccy, which is an on-line graphics program that
runs in your Chrome browser, but puts you work in the ipiccy servers. Until I
understand the complete meaning of that I won’t use it.
Anyway, this is a long trip, and
we are just starting. It takes a long time to expose people to your work, and
the Internet is a gigantic place (a universe) and getting them to look at my
work is a daunting task, which I have to figure out. We are starting to get
some “looks” at the products, and have even sold a few which our buyers have
said they are pleased and happy with. Since the startup investment isn’t
overbearing, I am pleased to see anything working. As each day goes by I learn
more and more, and I am willing to try things that I am just beginning to
understand. I’m even starting to look at “trade shows” where I can display some
of my work. Maybe that is another thing to learn about.
And all this is because of
high tech. If I was living in a small town, where social media was a weekly
column in the newspaper, and you already knew a lot of people from daily
contact, it would be a handout, maybe a sample, and word-of-mouth to build a
following. In today’s world it’s Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and what else is
out there that are like my new smart phone replacing my flip-phone. I have to
learn the new stuff to make my way in the world. This blog is my “flip-phone”
stage of reaching out. I guess I’ll have to move on. BTW, that media I listed
above are things I have never used more than a few times each! I haven’t
figured out yet how to use them, either.
Look out world, here comes my
store: LabowCalligraphy on Etsy. It should have said “Father and Son,” which is
“Gary and Dave.” If you have a moment, just take a look at https://www.Etsy.com/shop/LabowCalligraphy
and see if you like it. I’d love to hear from anyone with comments on the
store. Thanks.
No comments:
Post a Comment