Month: October 2020

Finding Project Management Tools and Spacecraft Landing on an Asteroid

The Armchair Economist’s Apprenticeship is a weekly series documenting my progress throughout my journey in the apprenticeship module of the Praxis program. I’m currently a market research analyst apprentice for Economics for Business (E4B). My position is subject to change depending on the needs of my employer. At the request of my boss, I’ll still keep mostly quiet about the details of my employer for the time being.

Week 25: October 19, 2020 – October 23, 2020

I’m one week away from graduating the Praxis program and earning my graduation hoodie (instead of a cap and gown)! I hope to stay on with Mises and E4B, they have treated me so well.

What I’m Learning:

One cool thing I learned at work last week:
My coworkers raised concerns about keeping our future workflows organized, especially with the article submissions from our contributors. So I asked my Praxis network about project management tools they use that made their lives easier.

One of my classmates suggested monday.com for its user friendly layout. I did a little more research on my own for similar tools that would be suitable for a small team like E4B and found Wrike. Wrike and monday.com have very similar features but Wrike has a learning curve and my team does not want to waste time learning a new software; they have more important things to do. Wrike is great for a team of five or less because they offer a free plan forever but if you need more features and have more team members it starts to get pricey.

Monday.com is easier to learn and cheaper but they don’t offer a freemium plan like Wrike. However, it’s more suitable for smaller teams and easily scalable, meaning it grows with your team. Wrike is better suited for medium to large teams.

We’ve also considered sticking with Trello, our current tool, but it has limited capabilities in terms of tracking people’s progress and following up with them. Trello is great for the bare basic needs and can work well for a tiny team like E4B but once your needs grow you will need to migrate to another project management tool.

One cool thing I learned outside of work last week:
NASA’s spacecraft, OSIRIS-REx successfully landed on asteriod Bennu with a mission to collect asteroid rock samples. This is a big deal because it’s NASA’s first asteroid sampling spacecraft. OSIRIS-REx is on a seven year mission to collect sample and send data back to it’s team on Earth.

Who knows what we might learn and discover with the asteroid samples. Perhaps we’ll find precious metals like we did with other asteroids.

OSIRIS-REx is an incredible feat of engineering and cooperation, just imagine what else humanity could accomplish if we weren’t fixated on politics, war, and other divisive and destructive ideologies.

What I’m Creating:

One example of how I created value at work last week:
I found a project management tool to solve our growing issue of organizing workflows and documents. Everyone agreed it needed to be addressed and that it’s a necessity we are willing to pay for.

What project I’m currently working on at my BP:
I’m cataloging all the tools for entrepreneurs mentioned in the E4E podcast and organizing them into a spreadsheet.

What I’m doing to become a better version of myself overall:
Changing your state of mind into a value creation machine makes you more valuable and that much harder to lay off or fire.

Marketing Tactics and a Close Call in Outer Space

The Armchair Economist’s Apprenticeship is a weekly series documenting my progress throughout my journey in the apprenticeship module of the Praxis program. I’m currently a market research analyst apprentice for Economics for Business (E4B). My position is subject to change depending on the needs of my employer. At the request of my boss, I’ll still keep mostly quiet about the details of my employer for the time being.

Week 24: October 12, 2020 – October 16, 2020

What I’m Learning:

One cool thing I learned at work last week:
If you’re new to social media marketing and paid marketing here are some tactics I learned on how to acquire new subscribers, website users, content writers, etc.

  • Organic social – using free social media activity without paid ads
  • Paid social – social media activity with paid ads
  • Organic search engine optimization – using free methods via keywords in our content, making the search engine algorithm work with us
  • Direct referral – word of mouth, reaching out to individuals

And here are a few tactics on how to save on advertising costs:

  • A/B testing (experimentation) method – for example, run two types of ads, static photos and videos, and find which one generated more likes. Then, double down on the more successful result. On Facebook, video ads performs much better than static photo ads. Ever wonder why all these campaign ads are mostly all videos? Facebook prioritizes and promotes video over photos. I’ve even seen still images run as videos.
  • Paid (industry specific) influencers – they can tell their followers to sign up on your platform or email list and it’s an efficient way to gain more users that way instead of paying for each like/follow or sign up.

One cool thing I learned outside of work last week:
Two defunct satellites nearly collided into each other but thankfully didn’t. Recent near collisions of objects in orbit has raised concerns again for the growing space junk problem and raising more credibility of the Kessler syndrome – a theory hypothesizing that collisions of junk causes a cascade of more collisions.

Why should we care?

We depend on weather and GPS satellites which orbit Earth and it’s obvious what the consequences would be if they were damaged or destroyed by space junk. Recently, the ISS, International Space Station, had to be maneuvered out of the path of flying space debris that could’ve damaged the station. Thankfully the astronauts onboard were not in real danger.

In the future, when space travel is more affordable via competition, I predict that the junk hauling business will become indispensable and commercial trawler types of spaceships will find a lot of profit.

What I’m Creating:

One example of how I created value at work last week:
I finally completed the marketing plan and created a pitch deck for our bossman over at the Mises Institute, of whom are funding our E4B budget. The pitch deck is an in-depth look at our current and future plans, divided up into three phases.

The other half of the marketing team, my coworker, and our founder had a meeting to finalize the marketing plans and they gave their input on what our boss needed to know.

What project I’m currently working on at my BP:
Right now I’m shifting focus on organizing content contributions from our authors who are writing articles for us.

What I’m doing to become a better version of myself overall:
Whenever I’m going through conflicts, internal or external, I talk with my closest friend who always hears me out and occasionally doles out tough love. It motivates me to improve my attitude and outlook on life and find solutions to my conflicts. Talking about mental distress actually does something and it’s not useless, I find it cathartic.

Rothbard and Aviophobia and Other Updates

The Armchair Economist’s Apprenticeship is a weekly series documenting my progress throughout my journey in the apprenticeship module of the Praxis program. I’m currently a market research analyst apprentice for Economics for Business (E4B). My position is subject to change depending on the needs of my employer. At the request of my boss, I’ll still keep mostly quiet about the details of my employer for the time being.

Week 23: October 5, 2020 – October 9, 2020

What I’m Learning:

One cool thing I learned at work last week:
Last week I was invited to help run the bookstore transactions at the Mises Supporters’ Summit and learned that we took Bitcoin as payment.

Here’s another really cool fact that all you Austrian economics nerds might find interesting; Murray Rothbard had a fear of flying, so much so that he, along with his wife for support, enrolled in exposure therapy to get over his aviophobia. From what I heard from Sandra Klein, Dr. Peter Klein’s wife, who relayed me this story, back in the 60s one could enroll in these classes that gradually exposed you to flying in a plane.

First, the therapist would have you pack up as if you’re traveling, then head down to the airport and wander around but not actually board a plane. Once you felt comfortable with step one, you were then instructed to board a plane this time and sit for a number of minutes or hours without actually taking off. Eventually you work your courage up to a real flight.

One cool thing I learned outside of work last week:
I have another exciting update to share with you; I have three more weeks left into my Praxis apprenticeship which means I’m about to graduate from the program and receive the coveted graduation hoodie (instead of a cap and gown).

This means I will need to figure out what my next steps are and if my employer, Jeff Deist, will keep me on or if he has other plans for me.

What I’m Creating:

One example of how I created value at work last week:
I made some meaningful connections with the donors at the Supporters’ Summit last week and made them feel welcomed.

There was one donor, a sweet elderly lady, who really wanted to purchase a book but unfortunately the cash register was closed for the day and I didn’t have the login info. I didn’t want to turn her away since it would be rude but thankfully she had cash on her and paid that way. Even if she didn’t have cash I would’ve let her take the book and have her pay later.

Donors always come first, inventory can take a loss of one book.

What project I’m currently working on at my BP:
The marketing plan is coming along great and we’re almost ready to create a pitch for our boss to review. I’m also still looking for contributors to help E4B add content to our platform. We’re also looking for beta testers.

What I’m doing to become a better version of myself overall:
Work hard, play hard. I always give myself the weekends to relax and reward myself with a trip somewhere in my city which will help prevent burnout.

Content Should Always be Digestible and a Fun Fact About Bitcoin

The Armchair Economist’s Apprenticeship is a weekly series documenting my progress throughout my journey in the apprenticeship module of the Praxis program. I’m currently a market research analyst apprentice for Economics for Business (E4B). My position is subject to change depending on the needs of my employer. At the request of my boss, I’ll still keep mostly quiet about the details of my employer for the time being.

Week 22: September 28, 2020 – October 2, 2020

What I’m Learning:

One cool thing I learned at work last week:
During my one-on-one meeting with my coworker, who is the other half of the marketing team, he said that our founder heeded my concerns about making our content plain English instead of academic-speak.

I had voiced my concerns multiple times during our team meetings about how our articles and other written content was too difficult to comprehend in one sitting. And that our priority should be – always keep your audience in mind.

Maybe it’s my lower reading comprehension that’s preventing me from understanding PhD papers but I’m certainly not trying to dumb down our content.

Our target audience will be business people. I always remind myself of people like my uncle who is a very successful businessman despite dropping out of 11th grade. People like him will be a part of our target audience and they’re looking for digestible and practical content to improve their business.

One cool thing I learned outside of work last week:
There are only 2.5 million Bitcoins left to be mined. This means it’ll become more difficult to mine a Bitcoin which will make it more scarce and thus increase its value. Basic economics and supply and demand at work here.

What I’m Creating:

One example of how I created value at work last week:
During my marketing meeting, I offered to create a presentation slide for our marketing plan and give a general overview of the things we accomplished and goals we plan to reach. This presentation slide will be presented to our boss over at the Mises Institute.

What project I’m currently working on at my BP:
In addition to the marketing plan presentation and the marketing plan itself, I’m still working on the contributor project which will be ongoing.

What I’m doing to become a better version of myself overall:
I’m planning on getting back into the gym next week.