Ubuntu changes

 I ran an Ubuntu 12 box for a long time.  It was running off some old, cast off hardware.  It was great to mess around with.  For a while, I ran all my accounting through that.  Which had its own problems once my bank no longer allowed a Quicken style exports.  They just allowed pure export into Quicken.  But that's a different story.

Eventually, the computer died.  It was old, and running off cast-off hardware as I mentioned.  So I found some new cast-off hardware, and rebuilt the system.  Except I decided to put in Ubuntu 20.  I'm not sure I like it, but it's here.  There were some interesting download that I found through the Ubuntu store(?) or whatever it was called.  

I realize it's been a while, but the things I liked aren't there anymore.  I guess I spent too much time when I should have been hurrying.  But I digress.  I think it's time to actually spend some time on this.  It's the problem of having too many ideas running through your brain and not enough time to work on all of those projects.  Maybe I need less sleep.  Sometime that works, but only for a short while.

Back to the new Ubuntu store thingy.  It doesn't work as well as it should.  It runs through an icon-based format.  That was something I remember from before.  But this time, the setup doesn't work as well.  Especially when you get to the bottom of the page.  Maybe some updates will help.  I doubt it.  

Anyone know what those bottom two icons are?  I don't.  And I can't read them.  Nor is there a scroll bar to look at them correctly.  And it's not just the entertainment section that has this problem.  All of them have the same design flaw.  I'm guessing whoever tested this didn't spend enough time testing. So let's hope they fix this on a patch.  I've got an update running in the background so we'll see.  

Moving from 12 to 20 is quite a bit of a jump.  I ran 14 and 15 for a bit, but those were all work environments where I was doing specific things and couldn't just play around.  It was all Graylog if you want to look back and examine those posts.  

Let's see what happens when I play more.  

 

We're all in marketing now

 So we're all in marketing now.  I don't know how to take that.  For the longest time, I spent my efforts trying to stay out and away from marketing.  But that doesn't seem to be something I can proceed with.  I'd rather delegate that task to someone else.  I love building a team and surrounding myself with people who are considerably better at jobs than I am.  Build the team around your weaknesses and what not. 

What I don't really like doing is side tracking all my current studying to go work on something I've only vaguely been interested in before.  But that's what I need to do.  Because we're all in marketing now. 

In my side time, I run a small non-profit.  It's a branch of a national organization based on teaching kids.  It gives me the opportunity to try out teaching theories and ramble for hours on end with impressionable youths.  I get to fill their heads with succesful thoughts and build them into something that can go somewhere.  Instead of whatever junk is being taught.  But that's another story.  

Because I'm in charge of the organization, that means I'm also in charge of the recruiting and retention.  And the big thing I need to do is up my marketing game so I can take my group of 10 kids and turn it into 30.  And hopefully grow my parents support basis as well.  And try to fund the entire thing on shoe-string donation budgets.  But I digress.

Getting support is easier when you've got a considerable number of children to show you are working with.  10 kids out of a city of 200,000 just isn't that many.  It's less than 5 families.  

So now I'm in marketing.  And I have to figure out how to market the program to increase enrollment so we've got more kids coming in, which makes more kids want to come in.  More people, more people, more people. 

More problems, but I've got to get the marketing going first. So I have to educate myself.

I drug a couple of books out of my bookshelf that I haven't read before.  I'm going to work on those first.  Successful Marketing for Small Business by Cohen and Reddick is the first.  I've made it into the first chapter, and it seems like it might work.  But it's also from 1981.  

The other is The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing: Violate them at your own risk! by Ries and Trout.  Looks like 1993 on that one.  Another book that predates the modern internet.  But the concepts still maintain.  

I'm not going to drop the $500 or so on the Breakthrough Advertising by Schwartz yet.  But it might be worth it in the long run.  There's a ways to go before I get there.  

I remember a little bit of marketing from college.  I think I took one course.  In the end, I wrote a marketing concept for the group project based on the idea that no one knew who we were.  It was about an oilfield additive company that was trying to sell their product to get more production out of their wells.  I don't remember what the product was.  I just remember I never had to give the presentation.  

Out of all the group projects I did, I think I liked that one the best.  There were a few interesting people to work with, and they seemed to have their own ideas.  A few with a greater entrepreneurial edge than me.  And I've been toeing the water on that one for a good decade.  But I never could find something I was interested enough in selling.  

But now we're all in marketing.  If you have any good ideas on books to read, let me know.  I'll throw it on the list.