“Christ didn’t come to earth to give us the willies!”

Been a while since I saw this classic scene from DOGMA. Love it.

I went to public school until college. My wife went to the same private school from K-12. So obviously, it’s the subject of much discussion as our girls begin their educations.

Now that our oldest has completed a whole year of public kindergarten, we can compare her experience with some of her nursery-school chums who went to private. Given my background, I suppose I’m biased, but I’ve been trying to remain objective as we talk to our good friends who paid close to $30,000 for something we all pay taxes for (public education = ending sentences with prepositions). It’s not easy.

No, it’s not easy to remain objective when our teacher was amazing, nurturing, and above all: effective, and I hear horror stories about her private counterparts. It’s not easy when I hear about the letters that practically demand huge donations after families have already shelled out $30K. And it’s not easy when the child of a higher-strata of benefactor gets unfair, preferential treatment at the expense of the child who only paid the enormous tuition.

Now, I believe in markets and competition, and I’m a card-carrying, borderline Laissez-faire  Capitalist. But here’s where it doesn’t work: Education. Why? Because of the incentives. The incentive for a public school administration is to educate. If they educate students, they win. Sure there’s politics and pensions involved, but the core incentive is to provide a solid and safe education.

The incentive at private schools is to make money. It’s a business. And there’s nothing wrong with a business making money, except when decisions are made concerning a child’s education and/or safety based on profit. Now you’ve got a problem.

Imagine the dynamic of this situation, and put yourself in the role of the child in the middle: A parent is getting frustrated because her kindergartner isn’t learning or is having trouble with another child. She’s paying top dollar for this education, so she has every right to march in to see the Headmaster and complain. Right here, the parent is motivated more by a sense of financial, consumer entitlement than rectifying the core issue, which is the child’s welfare. So the Headmaster is put in the position of defending the institution’s efforts to teach the child, and might throw it back on the parent, the home environment or worse, a misdiagnosed learning disability. Or if it’s a problem with another child who’s parents are movie stars, it becomes even more frighteningly simple. Which family has a greater potential, over the next 12 years (more, with siblings!) of donating the most money.

This scares the shit out of me and while I’m not saying I’ll never send my girls to private school, one thing’s for sure: The interview process will make the Headmaster more nervous than it will me.

Trustworthy, LLC

I’m launching a new company this month. It’s called Trustworthy, and you can learn about it here and read the new blog here.

Over a year ago, I was listening to an audio book called Citizen Marketers during my commute. The authors, Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell, were discussing case studies of transparent companies and the customers who love them. One morning in November of 2007, pulling into the Real Pie office building garage, a light bulb went off in my head: Not all companies are equipped, even if they’re so enlightened, to respond to all the customers in social media.

I was inspired to act. Having orchestrated social media campaigns for our clients at Real Pie, I was able to see the potential of offering a social media response service to companies that truly want to engage with their customers in an authentic way – but simply cannot manage it without help.

The concept widened though, when I realized our real purpose would be to repair the dysfunctional relationships between consumers and brands. I knew I was onto something that was much more than another Web 2.0 gimmick.

Holly got excited about it, and we brought in my right-hand man at Real Pie, Rob Flemming as Partner. Soon after, we recruited programming wunderkind, Travis Dent, who rounded out the team.

About a year ago this time, I had hatched a solid plan and we set upon making Trustworthy a reality. But that was just the start. It has taken months of preparation, bootstrapping the company in our spare time. Now, after many late nights and hundreds of gummi bears, we are launching Trustworthy.

This month, we are planting our flag at the South By Southwest Interactive Conference and Trade Show. If you’re attending, please drop by our booth #806 between March 14-16, and I’ll tell you all about it.

Flickr Photo: bucfan57105

“Darwin Day is a global celebration of science and reason…” And lets not forget who was born on the same exact day, making them both Aquarians like yours truly.

God exists, and he’s following me on Twitter!

God on Twitter

Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and President Obama in the Oval Office Wednesday. (Photo: Pete Souza/White House)

New York Times’ The Caucus has a great play-by-play of the first day in office.

Obama addresses "non-believers"

He might talk a lot about god, but I like to think he has his moments…

The God-Signal

A few things got me thinking about the role of prayer in the hypocracy of religion this week. Both trivial, but thought-provoking nonetheless.

First, I had a fun little run-in commenting on a Robert Scoble post about the Hudson river plane landing in FriendFeed. A woman commented: “I am also not discounting all the prayers that were said for the passengers and crew changing the outcome of the story either. And I am praising God for that!” I’m 99% sure my snarky and overly sarcastic retort was taken as a genuine agreement, so the convo ended there.

The next day, I discovered www.prayforsteve.com where god uses CAPTCHA to validate your text-prayers for Steve Jobs.

To not give 100% credit to the hero, Captain Sullenberger, for piloting those people to safety is an insult. He deserves a good ol’ fashioned tickertape parade. But then to examine the logic behind the idea that a lot of people praying for their safety had some effect in the outcome raises obvious questions. Was god not paying attention, and needed the prayers to alert him to the situation? Did he need a bat-signal? Or worse, was he watching it all unfold and waiting to see if the quota of prayers were met before approving a divine intervention? And while we’re in New York with low-flying planes, did the people praying on 9/11 not meet that quota?

Breaking it down to basics, even if you allow that there is a god listening to what you ask for in prayer, the logistics around which ones get answered an which ones don’t makes the act of praying positively goofy.

The Maybach Landaulet

After my last post, I was reminded (thanks Eric!) of a quote from the great philosopher, David Lee Roth, who said “Money can’t buy you happiness, but it can buy you a yacht big enough to pull up right alongside it.”

I’d like to revise that and replace “yacht” with “Maybach Landaulet.” Just look at this thing! Going into production next year and listing for somewhere between $700K and $1.19mm. And it comes in white to match my new iPhone!

Mmm, happiness!

Gene Simmons Jackson by Joe D

The following post was inspired by Warren Olney’s “To the Point” program on KCRW today.

If you ask most people, they will tell you that money can’t buy you happiness. I contend that they are betraying their true beliefs. Here’s why.

Money = Happiness stems from an early truth that those with money can afford the necessities for survival, which brings natural happiness. Since the times of Adam Smith, our economies have evolved (in developed countries) but this idea has become engrained into society to the point that a Mercedes Benz = money = hyper-survival = happiness.

So subconsciously, we’re trained to believe that money fills a base need for survival. While keeping up with the Joneses seems materialistic and shallow, it’s actually a deep-seated modern instinct. Of course, this instinct can backfire.

Wealthy people spend more time at work. You may not enjoy that as much as going on a date or playing with your kids, but something’s gotta give. Vicious circle. You think money will make you happy, so you spend more time at work, but this strains your social relationships so you end up with a net loss in happiness.

When you spend beyond necessity, is it making you happy? Your first used VW made you happier than your latest BMW lease. Your first apartment may have been more fun than your new house after you net out all the escrow madness, the new plumbing, dealing with the movers and the new school registration, etc.

Heading into 2009 with an uncertain economy, we’d all do well to think about this stuff and get our priorities straight. I’m a shopaholic. A hyper-survivor. But leave me my healthy family and you can take everything else away. I’ll be happy as a million clams.