Community Cultural Artifacts
A couple community Artifacts that can be seen through the start up/entrepreneurship community. One person can come from being poor to very rich and the same way around, but it takes a special drive and a certain skill set for the entrepreneur to become a success. The entrepreneur must show a well rounded ability to handle people and be skillful at the job set. Most entrepreneurs are people in financial disposition to create a start up and risk everything. When creating a start up you will risk everything for a chance of hope at an reward. Though entrepreneurs can really come from any race, any type of person, and any kind of growing up background, most commonly it is white, some what decent intelligence, and grown up usually in a middle class family. Overall the entrepreneurship community is a community of mix, but it has been found that the only thing that really effects the entrepreneur to start up is money, family, and success. The media has had a significant play in how entrepreneurship has been raised and media is causing more and more to join into the community.
Overview of Artifacts:
-Poor to Rich
-Well rounded
-Risk everything to start up
-Comes from all types of people
-Media has shown a significance in the community
Complete Interview with Tod Sullivan, CEO of White Box
So to first start off, I had driven for about 4 hours up to a very small town called New Carlisle, Ohio. When driving it is a very long journey up the 71 toward Northern Kentucky all the way through Cincinnati and passed it for another 2 hours until reaching Dayton, Ohio and then finally to a little town surrounded by agriculture and corn. This Journey was all to interview a friend of mine who started a small social network still trying to make its way to pass Reddit, a top social networking allowing for users to post to the world.
Data Taken from Recorder on Phone:
Griffin: Ok so lets start the Interview..
Tod: Ok man, dont ask me a question that might corner me (*slight laugh*)
Griffin: (*replied laugh*) Ok so.. With current market trends specifically in the anonymous social marketing field, what do you expect to change specifically to help people stay hidden and mask there Identities online?
Tod: Hmmm.. Ok.. Well.. Currently we have been working on a SHA-256 Encryption that will allow the user to stay anonymous and hidden from governments that have been watching social networks and keep revolutions down. I believe when you give someone a voice they can make a change and they can up rise against a terror that may be large in numbers but need the civilians to keep those numbers. We want to specifically help the Umbrella Movement in China currently facing a struggle to return China to a Democratic Nation.
Griffin: Ok well that was also a question of number two but ill ask again anyway. Do you think White Box will change the way protests operate, especially the incident happening in China with large protest against the government?
Tod: I think that if it isnt White Box I hope it is something else, many people have seen that even governments such as ourselves are spying on its own people and trying to keep down riots and revolutions so that they can keep lining there pockets with money. I think that if we can give someone a chance and a popular opinion to express they will bring change and peace to a country or society that is much needed.
Griffin: I know that China actually blocks some websites from the public how do you expect to get through that?
Tod: Our Encryption, like I was saying before, should allow us to get through the block and allow for the average Chinese user to view our website and view the opinions.
Griffin: Ok, next question. When the first version of White Box came around, did you expect it to become a big success on its first try?
Tod. Well.. I remember sitting there on the first day thinking this site looks great. Some people came on and looked around but then after a few minutes would get bored and leave, so says our analytically statistics. Much criticism came to the website and not many people knew about us and within a week the community died and no one posted so it was a pretty big failure. But I think this next time around we really assessed the problems and will return even better than before.
Griffin: In the Start up community they say that there is only a 35% chance of succeeding in at least one of your ideas or start up companies. Do you think that you will be apart or separated from this statistic?
Tod: I think that we will try our best to succeed in this venture but the world is full of ideas and opportunities, so there could be more chances in the later future if not.
Griffin: Currently our generation is going through a huge gender gap problem specifically in the market places. Do you think tech start ups seem to employ more men than they do women?
Tod: Looking at the news, and some companies that we inspire to be such as Google and Microsoft. There is definitely a gender gap and more men than women programmers, but I don’t think the solution is radical feminism that such groups are trying to impose on people.
Griffin: Ok well then, What do you think is the number one problem with trying to start up a tech business?
Tod: I think the community has overall improved through the years and newer and newer websites and tools such as kickstarter.com have helped a lot in the quest to create a tech start up by allowing public small investors put money into a company.
Griffin: The American Dream has seemed to shift from just getting a job and family to trying to build the best and become the wealthiest, would you agree that you have seen the same?
Tod: I have to say, I do agree with that statement but for some people in the world I disagree. You look at all these movies and news articles it almost seems like the government is trying to push for these same businesses to grow its economy stronger. I don’t disagree with doing this but I think its risky. Many people that go through the start up community and fail and never succeed actually end up committing suicide from the stress put onto the owner.
Summary: I think I can implement most of these segments to show that this community is difficult especially with my last question. This interview showed a lot about the shift of the community and where the community is heading through out the world. Tod had shown me that he feels confident but he also understands if he does not succeed he will keep trying and restart all over again. This community is full of hard times and conquest, it is a constant rat race to the top and if you cant make it to the top, well then your on the bottom and will not see the luxurious life style that you had always wished for and seen in the movies. This community is the true “dog eats dog” world.
Tod Sullivan CEO, White Box Prepping for the Interview.
So, this Saturday I will be having a one on one interview where I will go up to New Carlisle Ohio and talk to the CEO of LTS and the lead programmer of White Box. He has been a friend of mine for about 4 years ago and they are creating the new site called “White Box” which he says will combat Reddit.
Some of my Question for Tod Sullivan.
1. With current market trends specifically in the anonymous social marketing field, what do you expect to change specifically to help people stay hidden and mask there Identities online?
2. Do you think White Box will change the way protests operate, especially the incident happening in China with large protest again the government?
3. When the first version of White Box came around, did you expect it to become a big success on its first try?
4. Researchers do say that there is a 35% chance that a start up will actually take off, do you think White Box will be a success?
5. Currently our generation is going through a huge gender gap problem specifically in the market places. Do you think tech start ups seem to employ more men than they do women?
6. What do you think is the number one problem with trying to start up a tech business?
7. The American Dream has seemed to shift from just getting a job and family to trying to build the best and become the wealthiest, would you agree that you have seen the same?
..Still working on some more questions currently.
Freegans
Freegans comes from both the words “free” and “vegan” which these people are a small community to which Moré had researched about. Freegans are people that believe in trying to obtain food and self reliance items for free. Many of these Freegans are people who do not want to work a job because they believe it is an independence on money and lowers you into a depression of a never ending cycle. Most Freegans are people that believe in organic made items and are environmentalists and humanitarians. Moré also describes some Freegans to be people that are anti-corporation/anti-consumers that sometimes may do illegal activities against the stores/corporations. Through Moré’s ethnography we learn about the Freegan community and the life style they live in. The funds of knowledge Moré shows us, is the counter culture of Freegans and how Freegans live and the hobbies/skills the Freegans learn to become conservatives. Moré shows Freegans not as slobs but as people that live a different style then us, Moré even for her research became a Freegan and dumpster dived to get a inside perspective on how Freegans live and how they are able to learn these skills to make them Freegans.
Iranian Community
Barati’s Essay, was an ethnography based on the Iranian Community. She did a decent job at identifying her points of the strong work ethic of Iranians but at the same time also failed to show multiple people with the same strong work ethic. Through the essay she was very vague and gave many biases on Iranians such as work ethic and the thought of America from Iranians. Of course she interviewed one person that thought America was great and the “Land of Opportunity” but failed when saying that all Iranians feel this way. Some of course may hate America and some may as Dr. Raize explained “Want to do anything to get into America”. Barati did Identify what has happened to the community but through the interviews only asks people that have a bias on the country they are from or the United States instead of giving outside info from others who may be 2nd generation Iranians.
Amy Goodman
The article “Amy Goodman Article” by Elizabeth Dinovella, will really help in the process of making a working outline of questions to ask. But the story at the beginning of the interview was very inspirational and gave insight at the horror and pain that Goodman had to face as a report. Goodman saw death, slaughter, and fear but through it all she never gave up and kept writing for the sake of the humanitarian response to these crimes. Dinovella, when interviewing Goodman you could see that she laddered the questions so that they became more in-depth responses as the interview went by. This will help to create better interview notes.
Entrepreneurial Community
Griffin Starr
Mrs. Alvarez
English 101-29
28 September 2014
Entrepreneurship has been around since the start of economics, and most the time it was people who really just wanted to start up a local business. Now a days much of the entrepreneurship community has changed, from those wanting to just open up a small “mom and pop” business on the side of the road, into a huge tech start up with hundreds of well trained employees. This dream has expanded in the past 5 years with people coming up with crazy, yet brilliant ideas to make it big. This dream expansion has people in amazement when they watch shows such as “Shark Tank”(Citation #2) or even movies such as “The Social Network” (Citation #3) which all show the “rags to riches” stories of young brilliant entrepreneurs and the struggle to get funded and become a successful company.
This community doesn’t just stem from America, actually its happening all over the world, in different countries. Many startup businesses around the world might look similar but they do operate on different standards. Since these startup companies open up all around the world there isn’t just one ethnicity that follows with this particular community. Age wise these startups have many different age groups, almost 40% of owners are in there 30’s and just matching that is 34% in there 20’s, and well the rest are above there 40’s (See Fig 1.) (See Citation #5). Religions is not exactly expressed by entrepreneurs but from what it seems most are atheist or agnostic, the reason behind this that was explained to me was that “they don’t thank there luck by some god but by their own hands” (Tod Sullivan, White Box CEO). When these professionals are operating in business terms they wear their overall best, most expensive clothes to either impress the buyer, the investor, or even a fellow CEO. Most startups usually can’t afford to wear these expensive clothes all the time, so most usually wear something very casual along with their employees, these startup companies like to think of their employees as equals to themselves, instead of sitting in some fancy office, they will sit and work with their fellow employees. Startup CEO’s maintain a good relationship with the founding team because they believe in the company just as the CEO does. When you think of a CEO you would imagine an elevator that leads into this elaborate well decorated and professional office, which usually has an assistant to greet you as you walk in, and as you walk in past the secretary you would see a slick haired, smooth talking, and bourbon drinking CEO. Of course that was the typical 60’s through 80’s picture of a CEO and may be found sometimes today, but these new aged start up CEO’s are people you would never guess to be a CEO. For example Mark Zuckerberg most famously to build 200 billion dollar company Facebook, dresses a normal sandal, hoodie, and jeans to work and even in the past has done it in investor meetings (Citation #3). The language of startup CEO’s is nothing different from our everyday language, I have observed that most times start up teams are just friends wanting to make a really cool idea and hope to even make some money off of it. These friend start up teams such as the team I’m studying called “LTS (Lumity Tech Studios)” are friends that love to play video games on the off time and even enjoy a drink at the local bar.
Fig. 1. Meet the founders (age). Source: www.mashable.com, “Start Ups”.
Getting into the community is seemingly easy, since entrepreneurs love media attention no matter how big or small. I have a friend currently that has employed a team to build a new anonymous social media network called White Box. Since this ethnography I have been sitting on skype watching and observing the language and process to which this nine man team has been operating in. From my study they seem to all be friendly with one another, but when it comes down to business start to use technology acronyms such as “VPN, RTN, VM, and famously the dreaded DDOS”. Overall it’s hard to depict the CEO when they are all talking, they all seem very qualified and in control and make decision based upon an agreement “nay or yay” democratic system. Of course at the center is the CEO which is a man by the name of “Luminous Silver” or real name: Tod Sullivan. Tod gained his rank by not only starting the company but also being the top programmer, he never went through college and was a self-taught programmer who also has a passion for music on the piano. Tod stems from a very small city in Ohio called New Carlisle which is north of Dayton, he started programming in High School and has been programming and every day becomes better and is able to keep his rank of CEO among the other employees that look up to him.
Whitebox Homepage. Source: www.whitebox.com, “Homepage”
Of course White box isn’t the only entrepreneurial start up trying to make a success, there are many others all around the globe trying to be the next Facebook, Google, or even Amazon. Even in the short story “Crack in Spanish Harlem” you could say the small gang is a startup just trying to make money to live the “American Dream”, and just like a startup they are trying to survive and come out with some profit in the illegal underground market (Citation #1). Even things such as the “Honor our Confederate Dead Statue” next to freedom park, those confederate where dying for the entrepreneurship and profit of slaves, though it was a horrible thing to do they believed in economic prosperity through capturing Africans and selling Africans. (Citation #4)
I hope through this ethnography I will get to learn more about the Entrepreneurial community, and to show others how hard it is for these aspiring companies to face the challenges and become the next big corporate giant. Also through the ethnography I will follow the team of LTS to watch it grow and see its past failures and successes through White Box. I want to also find out through this ethnography how to operate a company, as for my personal interest I want to start a tech start up and work through these hardships in hopes that I will one day make a tech corporation.
Work Cited
- Bourgois, Phillipe.Crack in Spanish Harlem: Culture and Economy in the Inner City. Vol. 5. Anthropology Today, 1989. 6-11. Print.
- Burnett, Mark. Shark Tank. 2009. Television.
- Fincher, David, dir. “The Social Network”. Relativity Media, 2010. Film
- Louisville Ketucky. Confederate Monument in Louisville. City of Louisville, 1895. Location. 28 Sep. 2014.
- Walden, Stephanie. “Startup Success By the Numbers.”Mashable. 30 Jan. 2014. Web. 29 Sept. 2014.
Crack In Spanish Harlem (Group)
Group of Impoverished, lower class working individuals who are by the ethnic origins of Black-Hispanic. These Individuals all held jobs that where in a legal established market but where sought to be “the most unwanted jobs of America”. After these jobs they found themselves in a illegal market selling illegal narcotics and using illegal narcotics. Through the story, they show and talk about the upper class getting richer as they get poorer and they work to survive or just to live comfortably. The author talks about through the article about African American kids having to deny there ethnicity and give up who they are, just to be accepted and live a comfortable life style. What you learn from this community is the showing of poverty, and the path not to chose when stricken in poverty. The author shows that being poor feels like they are not meaningful or productive to society.
Group:
-Daniel Karr
-Griffin Starr
Crack Houses (“Crack In Spanish Harlem”)
Bourgois shows a very in depth perspective through this ethnography not only on the community, but on the players inside the community. He showed the hardship and even explained to the audience why these people commit these crimes. At first he explained a story about how he and Gato were in a store and Gato use to work the corner and how Gato got beaten up by some old colleagues that also worked that corner. Bourgois painted in this small scene just what would be a typical day for them and the struggle to be successful. Bourgois uses the Rhetorical triangle to allow the reader to almost imagine the hardship that him and his gang have gone through. Bourgois criticizes much of the governmental structure of racism and how though he was not doing anything a cop had targeted him for something he was not. Most of the story Bourgois does also criticizes the working class for what seems like not giving them a chance and them criticizing what they are doing yet they are only trying to survive.
Start Up's Struggle Up 