Archive for July, 2009
The New York Times Reporting on Harvey Mudd College Pay Is Misleading
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So you may or may not know that I went to a tiny little engineering college out in Claremont, CA called Harvey Mudd College. Don’t worry if you’ve never heard of this school. More people are familiar with Stanford University, Harvard University, and that a “zygote” is a biology term used to describe the first stage of a new unique organism when it consists of just a single cell.
Most of the time when upon being asked where I got my Bachelor’s from, I reply, “Harvey Mudd Colleg.e”
Folks give me a quizzical look and go, “Oh, Harvard?”
Yeah… my Chinese accent is THAT heavy, riiiggghhht. !!!
Anyway, suffice to say, my parents are uber proud of the fact that I got my computer engineering degree there and that my younger sister is also pursuing a degree there – with it being a “prestigious” school and all. So they are always on the lookout for any HMC related news.
Well, a few days ago they gleefully shared this nifty little article with me done by the New York Times: “Do Elite Colleges Produce the Best-Paid Graduates?”
In it, the artile shared two key graphs demonstrating the top earning powers of graduates with undergraduate degrees and also the top paid majors.
Here they are:
As you can see, the top chart ranks Harvey Mudd College in the top 5 of the highest paid graduates in the nation. And you can also see that in the second chart, that aerospace engineers are among the highest paid within this context Even though...»
Not Telling the Whole Story…
While the article and the charts do help illustrate what a great school Harvey Mudd College is, no matter how many people confuse it for Harvard, it’s not telling the whole story. So I took the liberty of putting together the final pieces. Here it goes:
See, I’ve been an “graduated-from-Harvey-Mudd-College-engineer” so I can attest to the charts New York Times reported. I’ve also had the fortune of LEAVING that engineering career behind me and going full time into entrepreneurship, which is what I am doing now, so I can tell ya the second set of charts are true as well.
As engineers/jobbers, someone ELSE control how much money you make, as an entrepreneur, YOU decide how much you make. The choice is yours 
For me, the choice was obvious and simple – infinity here I come!
Raymond Fong
P.S. I am thinking of submitting it to them so they can make the correction on their next issue…
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“Fake Networking”
Posted by: | CommentsHere’s a great clip of Seth Godin commenting on networking online and how to distinguish between worthwhile “real” networking and waste of time “fake” networking.
It’s great observing the internet marketing field right now and seeing how many “superstars” (and wannabes) who have thousands upon thousands of “friends” (this is especially prominent on Twitter with the whole “Twitter autofollow” nonsense) are finally coming to their senses about all this social media activity/distraction.
You’ll find folks who auto-followed literally 10s of thousands of “followers” who are now cleaning house… all the way down to the double digits.
I never hid my feelings on this whole fake relationship stuff. I guess it just feels nice to have held strong to something I believed in (while other teeter-tawter on this issue) and be vindicated
Raymond
P.S. Of course… having said that, I do have a bunch of “Facebook” friends whom I don’t really know… so maybe I should rethink my “strategy”. I will say this though, if someone spams my wall, invites me to WAYYYY too many events, or tries to engage (*ahem* distract me) with fruitless and spammy crap, they are outta there.
Hmmm, wonder why I make a distinction between Twitter followers and Facebook “friends”. Maybe because it’s harder to be “fake” on Facebook and harder to do automated following/spammy? Food for thought.
A Little Creativity Can Go a Long Way… All the Way to 400% Profit
Posted by: | CommentsThis is one awesome video about how just by adding a little bit creativity, with the help of hype through the internet and social media, can go a long way to helping pad your wallet.
See, people don’t want “just another item”. They want to buy into something they believe in, something that’s fun, unique, different… Something bizzar-o. Something “Rad to the Power of Sick”. They want what others want, others care about.
So if you add some creativity, some care, some loving, get some hype built around a product, folks will want to buy it not necessarily for the product but for the recognition. It makes them feel like they belong, feel like they got what EVERYONE else desire, or at least think is cool (which then helps them feel cool).
So there ya have it. A little creativity can go a long way.
Raymond
P.S. Notice how the ad wasn’t done with any fancy graphics, HTML, or other eye-candy. It was just some darn good copywriting – take heed
P.P.S. Also, notice all the social buzz that happened… NATURALLY! Don’t under-estimate the power of social media. This is why it’s an integral part of SEO Networker.
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