AnywhereMan

This thought goes through my head every single day.

Let’s pretend you are a high school senior. You already know what you want to do for a career: you want to be a programmer for a company like Google or Facebook.

What’s going to get you there in the best, least debt-incurring manner? Four years of college? Or walking up to Google and telling them you’ll work for them for four years for FREE? After four years, you’ve already got a ton more experience than your peers who are just graduating and you won’t have the massive student debt (you might just need a paying part-time job on the side…which you’d need through college anyways). Your professional network is also going to be immensely larger.

Yes, you’ll start at the lowest rung possible but 1) You’re not costing Google anything and 2) you’re learning exactly what they want you to learn. You’ll be putting in some extra time doing self-study over the years, but almost everything you’re learning will be applied.

So which is the better deal? And which would give you a better chance of getting your foot in the door in the first place? Now that everyone goes to college, does it really get you ahead of the pack? I think education through experience is becoming more important than formal education.

Disclaimer: I have a four-year degree. Obviously this approach wouldn’t work with a profession such as a doctor, teacher, or lawyer. But I think it would have worked for me (Business/marketing degree).

I’m in my car right now typing this on my iPhone. My wife is driving, my kids are arguing over a cd, and we are somewhere near North Platte, NE on our way to Boulder, CO to visit my brother and his wife.

About two weeks ago my wife and I decided we should be somewhat spontaneous and pack up the family for a week of mountains, thin air, and for me: work. I have too many projects going to just leave them for a week, so my MacBook is with and I’ll be attempting to get a few hours of work in each morning. I may even check out some of the local coworking spaces.

I’m actually excited to see if my productivity increases knowing that I only have a few hours each day to work. If things go well maybe a lot more spontaneous vacations will happen from now on. I will try to blog some of my findings this week.

I hope that everyone is having a wonderful summer!

Here’s a link to a very thought-provoking article on Mac AppStorm. One of the things I like about iOS is that it’s locked down, and I like that to an extent on the Mac too. But where do they draw the line to both promote innovation as well as preserve a pleasant user experience?

Yes, you can build your own PC with your own components, custom software, etc., but you’ll also be running utility after utility in an attempt to keep it running. I’ve always liked how well-integrated Apple software is with Apple hardware.