Got this email today, and decided to share it and my response as a message to college kids out there that are pretty much the same as I was. Here you go:

Mark, I was in the group  that listened to you speak at the XXXX.  And I need some guidance, dude.

I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced addictive behavior before, but I’m sure you’ve got an idea of what it would be like.  Now I want to specify that I’m not addicted to drugs or alcohol or any of that junk.  I’m addicted to adventure.  Of pushing physical boundaries and experiencing new things.

But man, it’s killing me right now.  I can’t focus on anything that I need to do.  I’m a full-time undergrad and real estate agent (among other things), and this desperate search for adventure is not driving me toward my goals; it is crippling me.  Before you had the freedom to do whatever you want, whenever you want, how did you maintain focus on the things you needed to do?

My Response:

You are still in school. You don’t need to have all the answers or focus on one thing. You should be trying a lot of things until you find the one thing you really love to do and are good at. When that happens, you will be able to focus.

Being focused at 21 is way over rated. Now is the time to screw up,  try as many different things as you can and just maybe figure things out.

The thing you do need to do is learn. Learn accounting. Learn finance.  Learn statistics. Learn as much as you can about business. Read biographies about business people. You dont have to focus on 1 thing, but you have to create a base of knowledge so you are ready when its time.

You will never know when that time will come.  But you can be ready when it does.

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The premise is very simple.  Over the air broadcasters, the people who bring you TV that you can get with rabbit ears, pay nothing to the government for the allocated digital spectrum over which tv is delivered. Not only do they pay nothing to the government for that spectrum, they are no longer only using it exclusively to deliver a tv signal. They have about 19.2mbs of digital bandwidth available to them and rather than using it all for the delivery of the highest quality tv signal, they are now trying to slice and dice that bandwidth and monetize it in any way they possibly can. They create new tv channels, they lease it to companies who use it for other applications.  They basically auction it off to where ever they can find the most profitable revenue stream.  So why should the broadcaster be allowed to keep the bandwidth they are not using for their TV channel ? Rather than their auctioning it off , lets let the government reclaim it and auction it off.  Offered on a national basis, the sum value is greater than its parts and should be able to put a pretty penny in the federal coffers at a time it is sorely needed .

It makes perfect sense to me. Except that no one has really taken a contrary view on how that spectrum could be used in the future. No one has asked the question of whether or not we will regret having reclaimed that bandwidth in the future.  Of course the cynic in me always looks to see how the government might be wrong. What would cause us to regret reclaiming and reselling the spectrum ?

At least a couple things I can think of.

1. The simplest  revolves around a  question: Will there be higher bandwidth applications in the future that consumers will expect to be delivered for free to our TVs ? On the bottom of the importance scale could be 3D TV.  Of course whether or not TV is delivered in 3D is not very important.  No more important than needing to have color delivered over the air as black and white disappeared. But if 3D does become important to consumers and an expectation of the TV viewing experience (there are technologies that dont require glasses, and they will improve in quality and decrease in price), if over the air broadcasters are not required to offer it, consumers will be at the mercy of cable/telco/satellite tv distributors to charge whatever they want and the value and most likely sustainability of over the air broadcasters will decline considerably.

As I said, 3D TV is an example, but not necessarily a good one.  Ask yourself a simple question. What type of high bandwidth applications could you imagine being delivered to our future digital TVs in 5, 10, 20 years ? Now that TV is delivered digitally over the air, and all new TVs are digital, basically computers behind a screen, is there any reason not to believe that an entirely new generation of applications will be developed that benefit from being delivered over the air ? That what we call TV today, could look very antiquated in 1o years if we only had the bandwidth to enable it ?

Of course this is where people chime in and say “the internet can support all of that”. Not so fast.  The beauty of broadcast TV is that it has 2 very unique features that differentiate it from delivery of content over the internet. The first of which is economic. The marginal cost per viewer is zero. In other words, it costs the same amount to deliver the 19.2mbs of applications and content to the first viewer as it does to every possible viewer. That is not the case with the internet. If that were the case there would be no need for companies like Akamai to even exist.  Every additional internet viewer or user costs the broadcaster of the content money. Each incremental viewer requires a variety of additional resources, from CPU cycles to bandwidth.  Broadcasting over the air is always cheaper than on the net.

The 2nd feature that differentiates it significantly from the internet is the fact that it is a true broadcast medium.  There is no contention for the bandwidth that is being delivered. On the internet if someone in your neighborhood is using a lot of bandwidth, your performance could slow down. With a broadcast medium, you can run into distance limitations, and like the internet delivered over cable, there could be interference issues, but unlike the internet, the performance and quality of broadcast tv is never impacted by the number of people receiving the signal or the other things they may be using the shared bandwidth for. Thats important.

Why is it important ? For national security reasons ?

Right now the spectrum is officially owned by the government and broadcasters have an obligation to act in the interests of the people, as defined by the FCC.  If we auction off the spectrum to private interests, its gone. It is  owned privately. The government cant get it back no matter how badly it needs it without taking steps that are damning in their very nature.

What could the government need the spectrum for ?

2.  National Security. Thats what the government could  need it for. I don’t know of a single person with a technology background that doesn’t believe there will be a cyber attack of some consequence in the next 10 years that will essentially shut down a city, region of the country or worse.  I was in NY during the blackout 6 years ago. That was bad. We relied on backup generators to power our TVs and battery powered radios.  But things have changed considerably in just 6 years.  We have become far more digitally dependent.  Much of our lives is transported through the internet, and that dependence is increasing. It is going to happen. Hopefully it will be on a small scale and we will immediately get smart enough to prevent it from happening again.  But what happens while an entire city’s internet and digital infrastructure is down ? How do we communicate or receive communications ?

We get our communications through broadcast. Im not talking about being able to get your CBS evening news over the air to your TV. Im not talking about whether or not you have access to a crank powered radio to hear the latest.  Im talking about the value of having 19.2mbs of bandwidth that is able to reach most of the population in the continental US and deliver whatever type of information /data that we may need.

This isnt something that could easily happen today. But if there was a huge emergency, it sure would be nice if the government could step in and reclaim as much bandwidth as they need and broadcast whatever they need to broadcast to us. (im sure they will use satellite as well, but far from enough people have receivers).   It may be video. It may be maps localized to show us trouble spots. It may be information about utilities. It may be instructions on how to solve a problem caused by the cyber attack. Who knows. But i would rather be in a position where the bandwidth, and enough of it, was available for broadcast rather than reading how “shortsighted we were to sell off the bandwidth to wireless providers rather than consider how we could have used this broadcast bandwidth in a national or regional emergency”

I also know that once it happened twice (they would say the first time was a unique exception), then there would be a mandate to require that all new HDTVs and (possibly phones and future digital devices) to also be able to receive data from broadcast sources  and store it on internal and/or external storage  to be viewable on the tv , and potentially an executable file that provides support and help in the emergency.

The bottom line is whether or not there are applications that would benefit national security. I dont know, but i think we have to at least consider the possibility.

Of course this is all pie in the sky hypothetics. Maybe someone has already thought this side of it through. Maybe its ridiculous on its face. I dont know.

But maybe not.  I think there is a greater than zero chance that in the next 10 years  broadcast bandwidth can be of value to the country in an emergency. We need to at least consider this before we sell off the spectrum

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I can’t go more than a week without shooting baskets. There is something about the feel of the ball coming off my hand, and the sound of the ball going through the net. It just feels good.

If I’m just standing in the gym, I can shoot pretty well. Playing in a game. Well it’s not quite what it used to be. I used to have a spin move that would work for me no matter who I was playing against or what level they were at. If I could get a pick and the defender went under, I didn’t have to think about it, I could hit the shot. These days, my mind knows what to do, but my body just laughs at me. Put me up against 20 year olds, and I won’t embarrass myself but it’s only because I know how to set a pick and hit an open, a very wide open jumper, and spend the rest of the game getting out of the way.

I love to compete. I always have. Playing basketball was just something I had to do no matter how good I was and its something I will always do, no matter how old I get. It gives me a chance to blow off steam. It gives me a way to refocus.

But no matter how much I love to play the game or how involved and competitive I get during a Mavs game, it’s only a minor release. Real competition comes from the sport of business.

In sports, you know who your opponents are. You know when you are going to play a game. You know pretty much how long the game will last. It’s mentally and physically exhausting if you are at the top of the game, but it still pails at the effort required to be successful in business.

The sport of business isn’t divided into games. It’s not defined by practices. It doesn’t have set rules that everyone plays by.

The sport of business is the ultimate competition. It’s 7×24×365xforever.

I love the sport of business. I love the competition. I love the fire of it. It’s the feeling of the clock winding down, the ball is in your hands, and if you hit the shot you win…all day, every day.

Relaxing is for the other guy. I may be sitting in front of the TV, but I’m not watching it unless I think there is something I can learn from it. I’m thinking about things I can use in my business and the TV is just there.

I could take the time to read a fiction book, but I don’t. I would rather read websites, newspapers, magazines, looking for ideas and concepts that I can use. I spend time in bookstores because 1 idea from a book or magazine can make me money.

I’m not going to go to dinner with you just to chat. I’m not going to give you a call to see how you are. Unless you want to talk business. Other guys play fantasy sports. I fire the synapses to get an edge.

That’s what success is all about. It’s about the edge.

It’s not who you know. It’s not how much money you have. It’s very simple. It’s whether or not you have the edge and have the guts to use it.

The edge is getting so jazzed about what you do, you just spent 24 hours straight working on a project and you thought it was a couple hours.

The edge is knowing that you have to be the smartest guy in the room when you have your meeting and you are going to put in the effort to learn whatever you need to learn to get there.

The edge is knowing is knowing that when the 4 girlfriends you have had in the last couple years asked you which was more important, them or your business, you gave the right answer.

The edge is knowing that you can fail and learn from it, and just get back up and in the game.

The edge is knowing that people think your crazy, and they are right, but you don’t care what they think.

The edge is knowing how to blow off steam a couple times a week, just so you can refocus on business

The edge is knowing that you are getting to your goals and treating people right along the way because as good as you can be, you are so focused that you need regular people around you to balance you and help you.

The edge is being able to call out someone on a business issue because you know you have done your homework.

The edge is recognizing when you are wrong, and working harder to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

The edge is being able to drill down and identify issues and problems and solve them before anyone knows they are there.

The edge is knowing that while everyone else is talking about nonsense like the will to win, and how they know they can be successful, you are preparing yourself to compete so that you will be successful.

That’s what makes business such an amazing sport. Everyone plays it. Everyone talks about how good they are or will be at it. Just a small percentage are.

Every single day someone has an idea. Every day someone talks about some business they want to start. Every day someone is out there starting a business whose entire goal is to beat the hell out of yours. How cool is that.

Every day some stranger from any where in the world that you have never met is trying to come up with a way to put you out of business. To take everything you have worked your ass off for, and take it all away. If you are in a growing industry, there could be hundreds or thousands of strangers trying to figure out ways to put you out of business. How cool is that.

The ultimate competition. Would you like to play a game called Eat Your Lunch. We are going to face off. My ability to execute on an idea vs yours. My ability to subvert your business vs your ability to keep it going. My ability to create ways to remove any reason for your business to exist vs your ability to do the same to me. My ability to know what you are going to do, before you do it. Who gets there first? Best of all, this game doesn’t have a time limit. It’s forever. It never ends. It’s the ultimate competition.

It’s the sport of business. It’s not for everyone, but I love it.

I’m fortunate. I have done well enough financially that I don’t have to play 24×7×365. I can and have cut back to 18×7×365. Family first now.

But in those 18 hours, you can bet I’m competing, and loving it.

But that’s me. You have to figure out what works for you.

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Unique opportunities. How many of them will you have in your life ? 1 ? None ? 100s ? The thing about life is that its impossible to know. You never know when something you never even considered could happen, will happen.

As something you has been incredibly blessed, let me just tell you that the things at the top of my list are not numbers or dollars.  They are my family and the things I had fun doing.

A lot of people think Im crazy, or chasing publicity, or whatever. I don’t care what they think. Before I do any of the many things that I get asked to do, and that I think might be fun, I have one simple question i ask myself.  When I hopefully turn 90 and look back at my life , would I regret having done it, or not having done it ?

Before I started Motley’s Pub with Evan Williams when we were at Indiana University and I wasnt even old enough to drink, it was the question i asked myself. Before we sold MicroSolutions. Before I spent the money to buy a Lifetime Pass on American Airlines when I was 29 and then retired to travel the word.  Before I bought the Mavs. Before I did The Benefactor on ABC, or Dancing with the Stars, or Survivor and RAW this coming monday nite, or any number of other fun and amazing things I have done. Its the question I asked myself. To me its part of being successful.

When Im 90, will I smile when i think back, or will I frown and regret not having done it.  IMHO,  Success is about making your life a special version of unique that fits who you are. Not what other people want you to be.

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Google is unquestionably the best at selling advertising on line.  They can sell Text, Display, Video at a level that is unparalleled anywhere.  True ?

The Newspaper industry obviously sucks at doing the same. Eric Schmidt said so in his editorial in the Wall Street Journal.

So why isn’t Google taking advantage of this unique opportunity ? Why not just offer a specially tailored version of AdSense for Newspapers ? They do what they do, create content. You do what you do, generate content and sell ads ?

Makes sense. Wont happen.

Why ? Because of the Google hypocrisy in play.  This argument is no different than the same argument they made with Youtube and the music and film industries.  All those movies, tv shows, music videos on Youtube were GREAT PROMOTION. The music and movie industries shouldnt blame Google if they don’t know how to monetize all the billions of views and impressions Google and Youtube provided the content industry. Right ?

But a funny thing happened along the way. Google  caved on Youtube.  Their message is no longer “if you cant monetize the traffic, tough luck”. Youtube is now sharing revenue with as many music and video content sources as they can. They are even setting up VEVO a satellite music video site built around  Universal Music Group content.

There is absolutely zero chance that the end of this discussion is Google saying “You will take our traffic and like it”.  Google is posturing.  They recognize they have the advantage. Particularly  if MicroSoft/Bing do nothing with Newscorp. Its only a question of how they use it.

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Free ain’t what it used to be. It costs a lot of money.

Keeping content free can be very expensive. Just look at the decision process that Hulu is going through. On one hand, the site is an unquestionable success measured in visitors. People want the content. On the other hand, it doesn’t generate a consistent, predictable revenue stream. It has all the risks associated with any advertising supported content business.  To make matters far worse, their best and most popular content is the key to the largest and most consistent revenue stream that content licensees have, subscription fees from your local cable/sat/telco TV provider.

So what about this as an interim solution for Hulu and other comparable sites. Take a page from the first years of Facebook. Limit free to people with qualified .edu emails that register.

Students make up a big chunk of the population  most likely to make the time to steal content . So why not just recognize it ?

Sure, it may make some other people unhappy. Sure, its not foolproof.  But its a starting point.

Im curious what readers think.

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