Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
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Monday, October 9, 2006
Mark Cuban’s message
(Entrepreneur Mark Cuban)
About two years ago, I met a fine journalist named Chris Carey through the Knight Wallace journalism fellowship, a program we’ve both been through.
At the time, Chris was a top-notch investigative journalist on sabbatical from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch who had a dream. He wanted to run his own website dedicated to investigating fraudulent companies.
One site Chris liked to read was the blog of Mark Cuban, an Internet-era millionaire and now owner of the Dallas Mavericks NBA basketball team.
This is where the story starts to get interesting.
Cuban writes about all sorts of stuff on his blog, including business, and his interests sometimes overlapped with Carey’s.
Carey commented on the blog and began an E-mail correspondence with Cuban, discussing his idea for the website. One day, Carey asked a simple question: would Cuban consider backing such a website financially?
“Yes,” Cuban wrote back.
The site is called Sharesleuth and it’s a winner. But the fascinating thing is Cuban backed Carey without ever meeting him in person until well after the site launched. He invested thousands of dollars in Carey’s idea solely based on his online conversations with him and some independent research he did to check out Carey’s prior work.
On Friday, Cuban spoke to a room full of journalists at the Online News Association’s convention in Washington, D.C. Afterward I asked him about Carey. I wanted to know why he did what few investors would do — spend money on a guy they’ve never looked in the eye.
“He had the goods,” Cuban said.
Based on what he had seen of Carey’s work and what he had learned about Carey’s prior experience he was confident the project would work. Cuban saw no need for the “gut feeling” emotional reaction of meeting Chris in person. He had something better — actual evidence that the guy had what it took.
There’s another blog I like to read called ProBlogger, written by blogging bigshot Darren Rouse, who this weekend also wrote about all the virtual acquaintences he depends on in his blogging business that he’d like to meet in person, includng his three business partners.
The lessons for parents and educators? Here’s a few:
—The Net puts a premium on communications skills, especially writing. Nobody would go into business with someone they’ve only met online if the potential partner wasn’t an expert at communicating ideas, using the written word. If kids have great communication skills, many more possibilities will be open to them.
—You can reach out to anyone. What are the chances Carey could have ever even reached Cuban if not for the Net? Communication with almost anyone is much easier now, and that opens doors that traditionally have been closed.
—Ideas are more powerful than salesmanship in an online world. This is something I tell high school kids when I’m asked to speak — the future will be exciting for those who work hard at learning to shape and refine their ideas and collaborate with others. You aren’t likely to get by on a charm and a nice smile in cyberspace.
—Physical distance is less important. Chris Carey can stay in Michigan and Mark Cuban can live in Texas and they can start a venture together entirely by E-mail. Rouse is in Australia but some of his professional partners are in the U.S.
Somehow, these lessons need to be imparted to kids. Are schools adapting to these realities of the Internet age?
(Image credit: www.nndb.com)
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