I have been blessed with great women friends who are amazing mothers.  Most of the older women I know have stood by their now mostly-out-of-the-nest kids through many ups and downs even if their own parenting styles and home situation might have had an impact on some of the “down” parts.  They realize they aren’t perfect and don’t expect their kids to be perfect either.

It’s not easy being an adult and raising kids when you sometimes feel like breaking down from exhaustion and other things because you are still trying to figure out life and yet you’re expected to model the best for them.  Most of the time motherhood is the greatest thing since sliced bread but sometimes you wonder how those little babies turned into talking beings.  Some of us can keep it together better than others and are the poster children of great motherhood, some of us are extremely narcissistic, and some of us keep it together too well and have little emotional connection with our kids.

It’s easy to brag and boast about your kid when everything is going great and the world sees them as well behaved “darlings.”  It’s not so easy when things take a turn down the road of bad health, abuse, depression, drugs, alcohol, behavioral problems, learning disabilities, emotional issues, divorce, differences of opinion, lifestyle choices, etc.  But to those mom’s and dad’s who accept & love their kids for who they and are there for them despite the sometimes disappointment, pain, health issues, talking back, expressions of sadness & anger, and embarrassment, this post is for you.

The photo in this post is from a card I saw in a grocery store.  I found it so hilarious I had to take a picture of it.  Inside it says “Keep Up The Good Work.”

Eleven Compelling Startup Pitch Archetypes (with examples from YC companies).  A really easy to read summary of the types of pitches based on the type of company.  A must read for all entrepreneurs trying to fundraise.

Same Sex Marriage on AVC by Fred Wilson on President Obama’s support of same sex marriages.

Unforgiven: Inside America’s Student Loan Bubble about the student loan crisis.

Love And 6 Other Things Your Subconscious Mind Controls “As a result, scientists are becoming increasingly convinced that how we experience the world – our perception, behavior, memory, and social judgment – is largely driven by the mind’s subliminal processes and not by the conscious ones, as we have long believed.”

It’s important to keep in mind that all artists own the rights to their works and have immediate copyright protection even if they don’t submit for a copyright registration.  Having a copyright registration just helps the artist in case some legal issues or unfair usage claims arise.  We might submit them to some songwriting sites so I thought it best to do the legal thing.

The creation of the 4 songs took much longer than we thought given we met on average one night every 2 to 3 weeks.  Over 1.5 years later, we finally felt they were in good enough condition to “finalize” and file.  I’m sure we’ll continue to tweak them as we practice and perform them live.

The process of filing wasn’t that difficult.  You go to the US Copyright Office page and create a log in with tedious password requirements.  I heard that within the last year they implemented the ability to do it all electronically so you can now upload your files.  It’s $35 per song or compilation.  If you wanted to register 9 songs as part of a CD compilation, you could do the entire compilation for just $35!  We chose to file separately after I conferred with a music attorney in town, Christian L. Castle Attorneys.  We don’t know if we’ll ever make a CD or if we will just play/sing them socially.   Rob Wells, their Director of Artist Relations, walked me through the process quickly, and I was able to do most of it on my own.  It’s a little tricky the first time to know what items to check, what category to select, and what info you need.  It takes 90 days for the copyright office to review submissions.

There are two different things you can copyright when it comes to songs.  One is the music & lyrics and the other is the sound recording.  It’s important to understand the distinction to figure out when or if to file for one or both types of protection.  It’s best to talk with an attorney as to what’s best for you.  The chances of our songs making it big are pretty slim for many (7 billion people on the planet and millions of songwriters doing this full-time) reasons, but it’s kind of neat to potentially have an official, documented claim to a piece of work.

The songs range from pop, jazz, to rock and their titles are below.

• Save Me From Myself – my favorite  (Jason created this amazing “sweet” guitar picking intro to the song that makes me smile & tear up at the same time)
  
• Look At Me – Jason’s favorite based on chords/melody he created many years ago that happened to fit my lyrics.  We also affectionately refer to this one as our ‘elevator musack song.’
  
• Fatal Attraction (or Soul Mate) – a jazz piano song (think: grand piano/lounge singer) about the foolishness of love and its often mistaken identity
  
• Soul Escape – a rock song based on wanting to escape bad, noisy (and sometimes silent) connections with people
  

Hopefully, we’ll get a chance to perform these live some day.  The lyrics were inspired by many things but mostly my kids and a few people & experiences that profoundly impacted me at critical junctures in my life.

3 Quirky Business Ideas That May Just Be Brilliant

Great ideas come from anywhere. You can be standing in line for ice cream and voila—new business plan. That’s part of the glory and excitement of entrepreneurial thinking. It’s like magic sometimes! Lately, I’ve had a few quirky little ideas pop into my hopper that I think may actually be borderline brilliant business models—sorry if that sounds arrogant. The following are my latest offerings to entrepreneurial readers looking for inspiration:

Vending machines for zines—I’ve always loved zines, those little nostalgic holdovers from the 80s that just don’t seem to go away. Many traditional zine makers now operate online, the new village square. With the rise of the Internet, I actually see a niche for a return of physical off-line zines that could make for a good business. I could see it operating out of a vending machine, which could be customized in any number of ways. It may be time to contact 1 800 Vending before someone steals my idea. Although I guess I need to think about how I’m going to get all those zine publishers on board too…

Place based messaging app for parents—Parents use technology too. In fact, stay-at-home moms are some of the newest early adopters of helpful smartphone apps. The success of location based media apps like Foursquare and Gowalla also demonstrate many openings for innovation in this field. I suggest a place-based messaging app specifically designed for parents on the go, offering specialized discounts for check-in’s at parent-friendly venues and businesses. This app could also offer a GPS-like service that may behoove a soccer mom with a minivan full of screaming children.

A parent-friendly Internet radio service—Pandora and Last.Fm are great. In fact, I use them all the time, as do millions of other Internet users. But the problem for a parent is that you can never be sure whether something inappropriate will sneak into your playlist. Sure, they claim to have filters for that, but the reality is parents should be able to have total control over the content they expose their children to without resorting to guesswork. I think there would be a huge market for a parent-friendly internet radio service that operated similarly to Pandora, but with an algorithm that specifically eliminated any untoward subject matter from playlists.

Alright, truth be told, these ideas might require a little start up capital. And some brilliant marketing! But I think with ample time and effort they could catch on and appeal to certain niche markets.

Note: Consideration was received to review, edit and post this article.

Have you ever thought about forming a partnership in your business?  Then you need to read Self-Fueling Partnerships by Bob Barker in a recent Texas CEO magazine edition.  He discusses reasons why to partner and how to do it effectively.  Many partnerships go bad as we’ve seen on the front pages of too many newspapers/websites so take his advice before getting into one.

How To Be Creative in the Wall Street Journal. “The image of the ‘creative type’ is a myth. Jonah Lehrer on why anyone can innovate—and why a hot shower, a cold beer or a trip to your colleague’s desk might be the key to your next big idea.” In the article it says “Steve Jobs famously declared that “creativity is just connecting things.” Although we think of inventors as dreaming up breakthroughs out of thin air, Mr. Jobs was pointing out that even the most far-fetched concepts are usually just new combinations of stuff that already exists. … Recent research confirms Mr. Jobs’s wisdom. The sociologist Martin Ruef, for instance, analyzed the social and business relationships of 766 graduates of the Stanford Business School, all of whom had gone on to start their own companies. He found that those entrepreneurs with the most diverse friendships scored three times higher on a metric of innovation. Instead of getting stuck in the rut of conformity, they were able to translate their expansive social circle into profitable new concepts.“