One of my buddies who shares my skepticism about random links on the internet questioned, “You don’t really believe this do you?” I took the opportunity to explain the crux of what was happening in this legislation that many average Americans have missed.

 The bill on the table will allow law makers to try to manipulate which websites are allowed to be viewable by the public. This is wrong on a number of reasons, most importantly that it circumvents our right to free speech. 

But even MORE importantly than this fact is that no matter what legalese the government can put behind whether a website can be allowed up or not, the internet will evolve around these laws and make them effectively useless in a matter of MINUTES (even SECONDS…you can bet people are building solutions to circumvent these laws today in preparation).

In effect, all this law will do is add additional red tape and raise taxpayer’s costs. Services which the government deems illegal will CERTAINLY find another way around the blocks the government can put in place and the entire ecosystem surrounding the internet (which has no intention of illegal activity such as the well-meaning business owners, internet providers, engineers who improve the internet, and millions of American internet users) will be saddled with the cost of maintaining this unenforceable mandate.

In short, yes I believe this.

Over the past years, the US Government has gradually consumed our liberties in the name of “what’s best for us”. This is another step in that direction. And what’s more painful is that these laws are circumventing legal due process which would normally protect sites that the government finds questionable and ensure they receive a fair trial and hearing. Please take some time to share your opinion with your representatives.

American Censorship Day

Votizen Open Letter: Oppose the PROTECT IP Internet Censorship Bill

There are obvious benefits. I liken the experience to having hundreds of mentors each willing to share their own unique case studies. As someone who is working towards becoming a successful entrepreneur in a region that doesn’t cultivate this activity as well as other areas, it requires significantly more effort be connected and involved with other entrepreneurs. There’s no denying the benefits of having a support network like that available to you, however, this sort of exposure lets me experience (at least second-hand) challenges others are having before I run into them. It allows me to provide perspective on a problem that they’ve been facing for weeks but are too close to see the forest from the trees. Additionally, analyzing new ideas and working with other entrepreneurs toward a solution keeps me sharp and provides plenty of mental fodder for my brain to digest between help sessions. It’s win-win all around.

Then, there’s the serendipity. I get notes and tweets from people who appreciate my efforts. It’s important not to overlook the weight that karma holds in entrepreneurship. And by clearly broadcasting my character in a way that doesn’t try so hard to attract attention, I’m able to open a natural dialogue with individuals with whom I might not normally associate or have access. No one will be concerned that I’m trying to take advantage of them and will actually want to try to help me even though I never directly asked for it. (This makes requests such as “Please take a 2-minute survey to help me validate my startup” an easy one to make.)

As much as your philanthropy helps you in building soft-experience*, you will make leaps and bounds in credibility within your industry. By generating interest and showing that you fulfill a need for others (particularly when performed in public forums), the interactions you cultivate will become the social proof for your own personal brand. Past personal struggles are a great vehicle for demonstrating social proof for your brand. Individuals who can share their “rise from the ashes” story have a unique opportunity to demonstrate their abilities under pressure and illustrate their character in a light that is natural yet engaging and exciting. However, there are few people who have a story that is a compelling testament to their character. Even though conflict and struggle is not easily created (at least not the honest variety), there are ways you can create opportunities for yourself to shine instead of waiting for something to fall in your lap. So with these philanthropic opportunities (that I create for myself), I am able to paint my “manufactured” heroism in a light that is honest and occasionally compelling!

While I have no real agenda with this blog post (aside from the thinly veiled attempt to plug my survey), I’d say the major take-away from this is that you should give of your free time willingly. You don’t have to be participating in open help sessions or organizing community events. Some contribute to open source projects or offer their professional services for deep discounts. But if you aren’t investing it in ways that directly benefit you, why not spend it in ways that will indirectly benefit you? Who knows, you might find the serendipity gained from helping other random strangers can be extremely gratifying and strangely addicting. What sort of crazy ways do you manufacture your own serendipity?

* Soft-experience in the sense that they are not directly your own, but it does not mean that you won’t benefit and grow from them in some way.

Mike Greenberg is a software developer from South Florida. Occasionally, his finger-peckings are attention-worthy. The rest of the time, he’s just intentionally distracting you from something he doesn’t want you to see.

You can even follow @mikegreenberg on Twitter.

Of course, living minimally doesn’t benefit anyone but yourself. But minimalism will help you discover the forest from the trees.

Though his successes are immense, I still don’t quite understand why his death has impacted so many people in such an intensely emotional way. Of course, his technology brought people closer together. He showed people how technology can augment our daily grind instead of a hurdle. He spoke passionately about his products that would make snake oil salesmen proud. They did what he said they would, but more importantly, you wanted to see the “magic” he saw in them.

I’ve been a little introspective since I learned of his passing and tried to find the best part of what made Steve Jobs a truly great man. I’ve come to this conclusion… it was his intense passion. Few people share it. For those that do, you find yourself emotionally invested in their journey. So how do you find that same fiery passion?

(Update) Here’s one potential way…

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

- Steve Jobs

No matter how much I hated the brand, Steve Jobs gave Apple a personality worth hating…through good and bad. You will be missed by millions. And by me.

- Michael

Add whatever you want revealed in the first six lines or less. When you’re satisfied, pad additional lines (with SHIFT+ENTER) and start each with a period to prevent Facebook from trimming them off. Then, on the seventh line, kill unsuspecting victims with that zinger! When you submit the comment, Facebook will replace the sixth line with a “read more” link that your friends will be unable to resist. Armed with this knowledge, you can now:

• add tension and build-up to your witty one-liners!
• create flashcards for your Biochem II class!
• annoy your friends by forcing them to take an extra step to read your worthless thoughts!
• see if your friends really read your comments!

Example Code

div#id.class1.class2.class3

Note: You could probably string multiple ids in a selector, but most proper engines will barf at you or simply return nothing. Despite the utility in being able to select multiple elements by their respective ids in one selector, this is poor form. If you find yourself doing this often, you might want to give regularly selected groups of elements a common class.

But even more impressively, you can do this on other HTML attributes. (Especially useful in Selenium when trying to verify specific types of input fields.) I was trying to verify a specific UI interaction where a password field would be revealed as plain text when in focus and returns to an obfuscated password field on blur. Unfortunately, I couldn’t figure out how to verify that a SPECIFIC field needed to have both name=’myformfield’ AND type=’password’. A single attribute can be selected as the following:

Example Code

div#id.class1[name='myformfield']

Then it occurred to me that I might be able to string together multiple attribute selections similar to multiple class selections. Wouldn’t you know, it worked?! At least, it works in version 1.4.3 of jQuery’s Sizzle (its CSS selection engine) and 1.2.0 of Selenium IDE.

Example Code

div#id.class1[name='myformfield'][type='password']

Awesome. Hope this helps someone.

I really liked the question and wanted to preserve my thoughts here for future reflection. 5-10 years is a long ways to be projecting, especially online. I don’t think I could even go 2-3 years out the way things are currently going. But I’ll give it a go.

Within 5 years:

• Infrastructure will improve significantly. If the economy doesn’t tank so badly, we will see rapid expansion of bandwidth “to the curb”. We’re already seeing the beginning of this in unlicensed spectrum being leveraged to provide rural “high speed” wireless. And Google is lighting up dead-fiber like it’s money is burning a hole in it’s pocket.
• The cloud will be more federated. Instead of having two or three main incumbents in the IaaS arena, tools will gradually be released to allow individuals more authority to maintain their own part of the Internet.
• Data will be personal again. Projects like diaspora, The Locker Project, and others will force the API paradigm to shift toward individual users. Instead of a centralized API, a P2P network of individually managed APIs will allow web apps to get data where it (authoritatively) lives without users worrying about 3rd parties doing the right thing with their data.

Within 10 years:

• Traditional government will fragment. The existing government as we know it will change rapidly. Today’s government paradigms worked for getting things done for the last century. I think it’s clear that there are more efficient ways of how government could work given today’s technology. I think many people will try to bring their own ideas of government forward. This will happen in a way that allows people to subscribe to the parts of government ideology that they agree with and opt-out of the parts that don’t benefit them. Fragmented governments will not exist in the real world, but will be logical groups of people who self-organize online with the objective of specific benefits for their group. Traditional government will be forced to accept these “2.0″ governments or will be shuttled gradually into obscurity.
• The singularity will be a lot more real and a LOT more pervasive than ever. While it will likely not happen in the next decade, we will start seeing nano-tech that we will use to improve parts of our biology. Within 20 years, bio-tech will be in the up-swing of a huge market growth that will easily be in the multi-billions. Mobile will no longer mean “cell phones”, Mobile will mean “you”.
• Pharma as we know it will die. (This is my own personal wish and completely unrelated to Internet/Mobile.)

So I used to have problems starting projects – I would plan/read/design etc and then never actually get around to doing anything concrete; I have overcome that issue. But now I find myself not being able to finish anything. I end up with little software projects that are half-done and abandoned because I lose motivation once I solve the ‘interesting’ challenges. When there is a clear path to the finish, I suddenly become disinterested.

 credit: Rakka

This is something I still struggle with quite frequently. I’m not certain if it’s a particular chemistry in my brain or just a personality trait that I’ve developed over time. I find myself constantly hungering for interesting ideas and ways to solve problems. So much so, that the mental exercise of arriving at a unique solution has become a fun pasttime. This “not being able to finish” might seem like the main problem here, but I’d argue otherwise. Admittedly, the “problem solving” is hugely satisfying; more importantly than that, the problem that you’re trying to solve should be just as satisfying.

Moving from project to project felt like a waste of mental energy and my perception of never getting anything done seemed like a huge mark against my personal growth. When I would start new projects, usually there would be some urge or motivation to get going on it immediately. And sometimes it would be easy to derail whatever was currently on my plate for the new challenge. The times when it was most difficult to switch gears was when my current project was MUCH too interesting to put down.  And this is the test I began to use.

Gradually, I found myself working on the most interesting project available during more and more of my free time. For whatever reason, a lot of weight is put on finishing solid tasks. (And that’s not to say that getting things done is underrated. There is a time and place for hustling!) But when it comes to your personal exploratory time, I think there’s some room for satisfying your own personal curiosity. And by allowing myself to freely move from one project to the next without the weight of “task completion” being hung over my head, I feel that my personal growth is much more satisfying over the long term.

Do you have a litmus test that determines what you work on next?

Just to be sure, I verified my current subscription status. And wouldn’t you know that even the automated system gives a “ball-park” answer: “With the payment of $10, your subscription will expire with the last issue being received in July, 2012.” What the hell? Can’t the automated system just tell it to me straight? So I asked to be transferred to a live human. The following exchange ensued:

Jane: Hi, my name is Jane. How can I help you?

Me: I’ve been receiving bills for a subscription I don’t recall asking for.

Jane: This subscription was on auto-renewal and you were being billed for the coming year.

Me: Oh, could you cancel that for me?

Jane: Sure.

I wait for her to do whatever it is reps usually do when you’re about to cancel your account. Preparing to be transferred to retention.

Jane: Was there anything else?

Huh?

Me: Um…. No.

Jane: Great. Thanks for calling.

Me: Thanks. Bye.

No questions why I’m cancelling. No sympathy. No verifying my certainty. No last minute sales pitch. I’m not certain whether to feel unappreciated or enthusiastic.

I made a comment in response to someone wondering “How do I post something on your wall”. This is the Facebook paradigm which takes a graffiti approach to sharing information publicly. While you can “tag” people within your status updates (which is a relatively recent addition for Facebook) to draw their attention to your thoughts, you could also go to their wall and share your thoughts with them and everyone else who happens by (if they’ve set the permissions to allow this).

In contrast, G+ gives you a way of organizing individuals by the “circle” you both are socially connected within. These organizations are your own and you use these circles like a control access list to direct your thoughts toward the individuals contained within them. So my initial response to them was they were attempting to replace “Broadcast” with “Subscribe”. But I had it completely wrong. It seems to be a bit of both.

First, relationships in G+ are asynchronous. Person A need not “circle” someone in Person B. Take Mark Zuckerberg’s profile¹. At the time of writing this, he has ~22 people in his circles, meanwhile, 2000+ have Mark in theirs. This means that Mark can listen to the people he wants, organizing them the way he wants, broadcasting to them the way he wants. This takes a bit of what Twitter has (and ultimately Buzz had) trouble with and improves the quality of conversation by improving where the publisher’s conversation is directed.

A by-product of its simplicity, Twitter forces you to push your thoughts to everyone or a single person. There was no easy way to overlap and direct to specific groups unless there was agreement about which hashtag everyone would be listening. Facebook improves this with more control but using their interface is much less intuitive and difficult to use. I’d bet hardly anyone ever looked at their “Custom” privacy dialog box.

At the same time, G+ values your space and doesn’t allow others to directly affect your public space without your explicit permission. Content which is directed at you may be filtered into a separate feed which is apart from your other feeds. Not only are you given control over how your content is sent, but it is received with better control as well. Anyone who’s used Facebook’s privacy controls has an idea of what I’m talking about. At least Twitter gives you a good idea of what you’re committing to when broadcasting content over their lines.

This is still only a few days old, but it has the promise of getting quite a few things right despite Google’s previous attempts at social. The prospect of social on top of Google’s existing product set is very exciting as the possibilities are immense.

¹ I only used Mark’s profile as an example because the contrast of people in his circles versus people who have circled Mark was so blatantly obvious that these thoughts occurred only then. The fact that Mark is checking out Google+ is anecdotally  interesting, at best.

The question was “What’s your advice for landing a really cool job that you enjoy right out of college? Not just getting a job that you take because you need to have a job and end up despising.”

Oh, man. Time and time again I see these college-minded sheep students go to these crap-tacular job fairs, all vying for the same entry-level QA and testing gigs in their white-collar, paisley-pattern ties. These kids were all destined to a life of Office Space-like professional routine. Good-enough jobs are abundant and easily found. Right now, thousands of people in your local market are casually throwing around their resumes to whomever will accept it. No thought is being put into who is reading your information or how it’s being presented. Anyone who tells me they can’t find work or are not qualified to find work (ESPECIALLY in our “difficult” economy) is really missing an opportunity.

^{tl;dr} I’m not trying to sell snake oil here. Finding a job that is amazing to go to every day doesn’t just fall in your lap. Bottom line (for those too lazy busy to read), you won’t get something for nothing. You have to know what you’re going after, you have to be in the right place at the right time, and you have to know the right skills as well as the right people to get the job. If you’re missing any of these checkmarks, consider them points against you. You’ll need to make yourself stand out from the crowd and figure out what sort of awesome job you should be looking for. Trying out these suggestions will help you correct some of those issues and maybe you’ll find yourself in a few serendipitous situations. _{/tl;dr}

You probably don’t know what you want

If you stuck to the degree description and course listing, then you’re just like everyone else coming out of college. Same basic skills, same set of coursework, and (these days) probably a similar list of extra-curricular activities. Imaging you’re a job recruiter for just a few minutes, look at your peers in your graduating class. Can you point out the ones that are going to be successful? If not, you’ve either attended a money-for-a-degree college or you’re blind to success. In both situations, you have a lot of work to do to meet the demands in a competitive market (no matter the “bubble” or “depression” which may/may-not exist). To be successful, it takes someone who can recognize what success looks like (otherwise, how else are you going to know what you’re trying to achieve?). Success is not a strict definition, so it’s up to you to determine what you’re looking for.

A great way to figure out what you’re looking for professionally might be with an internship. I know this word scares many people into thinking “I have to slave away doing gopher work for pennies.” Sometimes, you may not have the luxury of choice, but often there are positions which will train you on the job as well as give you reasonable pay for your time. My college had a work-study program arranged with the local businesses which would not only compensate you with a paycheck, but will count as credits toward your degree. This is an easy way to try small jobs on a semester-by-semester basis to get your feet wet and see what you really like. I tend to be pessimistic toward the “career offices” at most universities, but it never hurts to talk to a few people and get a feel for the quality of work they offer. And don’t be concerned about applying for a job you’re not sure you can do. Your employer will be aware of your skill level and won’t hire you on unless they know they can spend the time training on the job.

It’s probably not where you think

Believe it or not, really interesting jobs are available all over the place these days (and are more likely than not in some other city). Consider relocating. Consider it very seriously. It’s not reasonable for everyone, but the life experiences to be had are worth the effort now and it will be the easiest opportunity you’ll ever have to do so. (I’ll be 30 soon, with a wife and 2 kids and have been trying to move for almost 5 years without ever finding the perfect opportunity. (PS: There is no such thing as a perfect opportunity.))

To start feeling out if another city is a good fit for you, start looking for localized mailing lists which digest events that you (and those coming with you) will enjoy. As a techie, you’d be remiss if you didn’t signup for Startup Digest. If there’s a city that Startup Digest lists, you’re probably going in the right direction as someone in the web/tech field. They list regular upcoming meetings and events for that city (as well as a few other mailing lists suitable for the startup industry). Plus, this costs nothing more than maybe a few minutes of unsubscribing if/when you decide that city isn’t right for you.

When you start getting a good feeling about a city, it’s not a bad idea to go check it out over a long weekend. I realize that the college crowd might not have a few hundred dollars sitting around to do a trip like this, but often it will never cost this much. A quick check on a site like AirBnb and Kayak or Southwest Airlines will usually have your travel and room squared away for as little as $200 total. Once you’re there, try planning your stay to align with events that have a high concentration of people in your ideal industry. People interested in checking out the startup scene might look for a Startup Weekend event. Finance-minded folks might look for a VC meetup in the city.

Even if you don’t find a high-profile event in the city, don’t write it off completely. Sometimes the city has an underground network of key individuals which keep the local industry busy and moving. It doesn’t hurt to spend some time finding and learning about the key individuals in a new area. These people are likely to be the hustlers and will know everything about what’s happening in their area. Find these people and you’ll probably save a LOT of time wondering around if you’re not sure where to look.

You’re probably not what they’re looking for

The ocean is HUGE! This means lots of fish to look at. (You’re the fish in this analogy.) So it’s up to you to make them interested. Do things the are interesting and outside the norm. This is not limited to just skill sets…I’m talking about your personality and mannerisms, too! I’m talking about a firm handshake (women, you’re not exempt from this), natural-yet-strong eye contact, expressive smile… find a characteristic about yourself that makes you shine and polish the hell out of it. (Ask your friends and colleagues what they like best about you to get ideas.) These things may not land you a job, but they will be intriguing to your potential employers and keep you stuck in their mind as they continue the interview process.

As the job seeker sending your resume via email, you have extra work because your uniqueness comes down to a 55-character subject line (the length most mail programs will reveal on average), an expressive and intelligent introduction, and a compelling resume. Put a reasonable amount of thought into what skills and interests will pique your future-employer’s interest. And practice on jobs you don’t care about in the meantime. Example: I wrote an email to a job posting that I wouldn’t mind not getting. (Note: This doesn’t mean do a half-asked job. You NEVER know where these emails will end up and should still represent you when you’re not there to represent yourself.)

Subject
Mike Greenberg wants to join the crusade as your next Software Engineer!

Body
Dear Pervayors of Product X (and gainful employment):

My name is Mike Greenberg. I happened across your request for a sexy, humorous and talented software engineer to join your ranks. (Link to job posting.) Unfortunately, I only satisfy two of these requirements, but hope you would consider this email as a gesture of good-will that I will be the best damn software engineer I know how to be regardless of my shortcomings!

A little about me… I’m a Pisces and somewhat fanatical of process, hacking (of all sorts) and attention to detail. I take pride in my work (especially when I enjoy what I’m working on) and know how to rise to the occasion when it hits the fan. I’m extremely creative and have privately studied a number of unrelated and interesting subject-matter like design, studio art, analog film development, piano, robotics, life-process/self improvement, martial arts, yoga, mountain biking, and racquetball. As a result of mentally wondering around over the past 29 years, I’ve since endeavored to become a modern renaissance man and want to carpe diem with the best of them.

On top of all of this, and likely most interesting to you, I can program computers to do fun things. And I’m hoping that you’re the sort of company who would like the sort of fun things I program them to do. Of relevance to your job description, I started a hosting company fresh out of high school. I understand at a deep fundamental level how the internet works. From OSI to API, Al Gore to IPv6 (j/k about Al Gore). If you’re still reading and my casual (yet persuasive) banter has not caused any furrowing of brows, please take a quick glance at my resume at http://careers.stackoverflow.com/mikegreenberg/. Therein, I mention a few other neat things I’ve worked on which I haven’t mentioned above. I greatly appreciate your time and effort reading forward. Looking forward to hearing from you!

With great sincerity,
Mike Greenberg

http://careers.stackoverflow.com/mikegreenberg/

While this email seems a little too casual, I did a lot of research into the office culture (beer fridays, sombrero day, casual atmosphere) and didn’t feel like it would be too over the top. Worst case scenario, we chalk this up to experience and maybe rethink our actions when it really comes to getting that important gig. But doing things like this regularly enough and you may find yourself pleasantly surprised with the results. (PS: No. They haven’t responded…yet.)

You’re probably talking to the wrong people

When people tell you, “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know,” there’s a lot of truth to that statement. Find ways to improve yourself and network with influential people around your community. (Especially if you intend to stick around.) I live in South Florida and there’s not a huge tech community here. So instead of attempting to get out and meet everyone possible (I’m not a networking, hustler-type guy) I decided to get everyone to come to ME. So I spend an aggregate day or so preparing an event called Hack and Tell (http://hackandtell.org) that gets great turnout, puts me in front of very interesting people and has done more for me than any other professional endeavor has to date! You are seen as a person who can get shit done without financial incentive (a huge signal to some people), know how to organize and pay attention to detail, and is professional experience no matter which way you slice it.

If you’re not the sort of person who has time or skills to organize a great event, you can easily find other nearby events to start attending. If you really like what they’re doing, offer to help. Even if you aren’t the social butterfly, people who see you involved and active in organizing something will typically approach you to strike up conversation with the “important person” in the room. Who cares if you think you’re important… as long as THEY do. Don’t downplay your effort when they compliment your work/involvement. If you’re not on a schedule, drop everything you’re doing to talk to them. No matter who it is. It’s easy to bury yourself in your work, but these brief exchanges will improve your social graces (which eventually means interviewing skills). If you don’t like the direction of the conversation, practice moving it to more interesting subject matter. Or work on how to segue from one person to the next.

Ultimately

Just like finding the perfect soulmate, or the perfect dish, etc. it takes many dissappointments before you find what you’re looking for. While I’m not saying that you have to settle for a bottom-feeder job just to “learn the ropes”, you should be prepared to accept a little disappointment when going out there. Make each experience count and try to understand what about that experience (or job) you liked and didn’t like. Shape your expectations from your experience and make sure your situation continues to improve through each professional transition. Further, there are many more things you can do, but this is a great start. There are sites like Zen Habits and Brazen Careerist which have great gems of advice. You don’t have to use these, but find a blog or resource with a voice you trust. Find a mentor or advisor. Someone you can bounce ideas off of when you’re unsure of how to move forward.

Remember that an extra-ordinary job is for extra-ordinary people. So be what you want!

Mike is a software engineer, budding entrepreneur and writes outros like these to get you to say hi to him on Twitter as @mikegreenberg. He also hopes you’ll call him on his bullshit.

So I won for my poetry entry! Despite the controversy........

YESSSS!!! :)

EDIT: And Google responds. Link

If you liked this, please help me get @GoogleNexus‘s attention and RT this below. Thank you!

[Scene]
Dimly lit office. A smug-looking, 40-something is seen watching on as you informally sign a price sheet that you have both agreed on a final price for that new, red beamer you’ve been eyeballing for a year or so.

The dealer stands and extends his hand to shake yours.

[Dealer]
“Great! You won’t be disappointed! You’re lucky we have this one on the lot. You saved yourself a nice chunk avoiding those delivery fees.”

The dealer begins to walk toward the door with the price sheet in tow.

“I’ll just take this over to my finance department and see what sort of rate we…”

[You]
Still seated and smiling confidently.

“That’s not necessary. I’m paying cash, but speaking of, there is another item I want to discuss with you. I understand you’re interested in arranging some advertising to subsidize my purchase.”

[Dealer]
Starts walking back to his desk, looking slightly confused.

“I’m not really sure what you’re talking about.”

Slowly sits down.

[You]
As the dealer is sitting, you lean forward to share your excellent offer.

“I’m referring to your dealership’s branding on my car. I drive approximately 25 miles each weekday on the interstate and conservatively estimate 100 unique views during my commute. My driving habits take me over most of the city so you’d be getting great reach for your advertising and I’d be happy to offer you placement for a licence plate frame for $35/mo. That’s  less than two cents for each person staring directly at the back of my car for an average of 1.5 minutes!”

[Dealer]
Looking perplexed.

[You]
“I would even throw in placement for a your 1″x5″ branded emblem for only $15 per month! Consider how much money your dealership pays in billboard advertising and people only get to see that for five, maybe ten seconds, tops!”

[Dealer]
Resolved.

“Our emblems come standard on these cars. We’re not going to pay to have them on there.”

[You]
Looking the dealer in the eyes. Stone face.

“Then I expect you to remove them leaving a mint paint job before I’ll accept delivery.”

[Dealer]
Raises eyebrows and thinks for a moment.

[You]
As you begin to jot your phone number down on the price sheet…

“Feel free to get in touch with me when you’ve decided how you’d like to move forward. I have an appointment with the dealership across town.”

While you may not get what you want, you did a few important things here (aside from challenging the status quo, which you should ALWAYS attempt). Instead of asking the dealer to pay you for advertising, you did a little homework ahead of time to identify the market (how many eyeballs per day), figure out a price that’s competitive, and possibly understand what the competition is doing. What’s that? Competition? Absolutely! If you’re advertising their dealership, you’d be competing against billboards, radio, newspaper, etc.

Ultimately, you know that they are interested in advertising and the fact that a sale is on the line makes it much more likely that they will take your offer seriously. If you can time this sort of negotiation to be at the beginning of the year when they are trying to clear last year’s model off the lots, you will find yourself with a very strong upper-hand. If the conversation continues well, you could even offer to throw in some serious word-of-mouth advertising if they gave you a good break on the price.

Make the benefits clear and outline it to a dealership employee who can make decisions on pricing and I’m certain you could get them to seriously consider another discount on your next new vehicle purchase in exchange for some advertising. Worst case, your car will be free from extraneous ads. That’s a win-win in my book!