RANDOM THOUGHTS #118
Steve Cole muses: Just thinking to
himself that Jean wants more blogs about the company.
1. Every week, I get at least one email either asking me for the current value of some Star Trek or gaming collectible or asking me if I want to buy it. I don't buy Star Trek collectibles. I really have no clue what some old trek thing, or some old trek game, is worth. I have seen original SFB pocket games sell for $12 and for $230 a month apart, so I suspect that there is a very thin market of very few collectors and that to make any real money you have to dumb luck into one of the few who will pay big bucks for old stuff. I would suggest being very careful about buying or selling that stuff. I see a lot of people selling "rare FASA starships" that are in fact regular production 2400s we sell every day. I have seen people trying to auction "rare, out-of-print Zocchi Star Fleet Battle Manuals" identical to those which we sell in mint condition on our website for $11. (Supposedly, the original Star Trek Battle Manual is worth big bucks but I've never seen one actually sold so I don't know if that is true.)
2. Back in 1964, I saw an episode of Twilight Zone including a soldier time-warped in from the future. Somehow, the name Quarlo Kobregnik stuck in my head. The other day, I Googled for this, found out it was spelled Qarlo Clobregnny, and made that the name of an auxiliary troop transport.
3. I don't think anyone who has never run a business has any concept of what it takes to do that. Most of my time goes into things that don't produce money (many of them spend money). So when you ask why I haven't finished designing this or that new product yet, take a moment to consider what else I have been doing. I'm delegating everything I can, but I've done that and now I'm down to things that take more time if I delegate them to someone I have to supervise.
4. On our 35th wedding anniversary, we had planned to take the third day of a mini-vacation. Leanna insisted that we go to the office because we had received several wholesaler orders and mail orders over the weekend. Leanna has a reputation for getting orders sent out very quickly and that was more important to her than a celebratory dinner with hubby. In small business America, that's what it takes to stay alive.
5. Picking the next SFB module was kinda fun, but it involved a lot of situations. We needed a product that could be done in a few months, but one that could have its counters printed far sooner. We needed a product that would sell. The original plan (to combine E3 and E4 and R107 into a product) wasn't workable due to consumer resentment at re-buying recent products. (The Borak-Peladine module will happen in two more years.) On the other hand, the Paravian-Carnivon module was doable in a reasonable time, but more to the point, the ships could be defined (and counters done) in far less time.
6. In several situations I have given the answer "I don't care" and had people take that to mean I didn't care about the customer, the product, the game, or quality control. Far from it. It simply meant that there were two valid options and I was just fine with either one of them.
7. Recently, I said to someone that "Jean won't let me do social media because I do not suffer fools and idiots gladly." Jean got all upset, saying people would think I felt that everyone who uses social media was a fool or idiot. Far from it. Fools and idiots (and people deliberately being difficult) comprise a small percentage of every crowd. The point about social media is that the particular crowd of very nice people over there would probably not take well to having me smack a fool or idiot or jerk even if they deserved it. On my own BBS, people already know that's how I maintain some semblance of order, by not allowing people to deliberately disrupt the conversation for their own amusement. Anywhere I go, I am eventually going to run into someone who is being disruptive and all it takes (so I'm told) is me being "mean" one time on social media to upset social media people for years. Apparently (and I know this from experience) if someone on social media does something dumb everyone just ignores them. I can remember one time I did a blog about Tivo, and specifically noted that one of the things I wanted was something Tivo could not do. Someone trying to make himself sound important at my expense then said on our social media page "Apparently, Steve doesn't know that Tivo cannot do that." He made himself look like a fool (or an idiot, or a jerk, you pick) to those who read the blog (and made me look like an idiot to those who didn't read the original blog) and I was not particularly amused by the experience. Jean insists, however, that to simply point out the reality of his comment would be "mean" and that social media doesn't like mean people and would never forgive me. (Wasn't he being mean to me? Did he lose "friends" over his wisecrack?)
1. Every week, I get at least one email either asking me for the current value of some Star Trek or gaming collectible or asking me if I want to buy it. I don't buy Star Trek collectibles. I really have no clue what some old trek thing, or some old trek game, is worth. I have seen original SFB pocket games sell for $12 and for $230 a month apart, so I suspect that there is a very thin market of very few collectors and that to make any real money you have to dumb luck into one of the few who will pay big bucks for old stuff. I would suggest being very careful about buying or selling that stuff. I see a lot of people selling "rare FASA starships" that are in fact regular production 2400s we sell every day. I have seen people trying to auction "rare, out-of-print Zocchi Star Fleet Battle Manuals" identical to those which we sell in mint condition on our website for $11. (Supposedly, the original Star Trek Battle Manual is worth big bucks but I've never seen one actually sold so I don't know if that is true.)
2. Back in 1964, I saw an episode of Twilight Zone including a soldier time-warped in from the future. Somehow, the name Quarlo Kobregnik stuck in my head. The other day, I Googled for this, found out it was spelled Qarlo Clobregnny, and made that the name of an auxiliary troop transport.
3. I don't think anyone who has never run a business has any concept of what it takes to do that. Most of my time goes into things that don't produce money (many of them spend money). So when you ask why I haven't finished designing this or that new product yet, take a moment to consider what else I have been doing. I'm delegating everything I can, but I've done that and now I'm down to things that take more time if I delegate them to someone I have to supervise.
4. On our 35th wedding anniversary, we had planned to take the third day of a mini-vacation. Leanna insisted that we go to the office because we had received several wholesaler orders and mail orders over the weekend. Leanna has a reputation for getting orders sent out very quickly and that was more important to her than a celebratory dinner with hubby. In small business America, that's what it takes to stay alive.
5. Picking the next SFB module was kinda fun, but it involved a lot of situations. We needed a product that could be done in a few months, but one that could have its counters printed far sooner. We needed a product that would sell. The original plan (to combine E3 and E4 and R107 into a product) wasn't workable due to consumer resentment at re-buying recent products. (The Borak-Peladine module will happen in two more years.) On the other hand, the Paravian-Carnivon module was doable in a reasonable time, but more to the point, the ships could be defined (and counters done) in far less time.
6. In several situations I have given the answer "I don't care" and had people take that to mean I didn't care about the customer, the product, the game, or quality control. Far from it. It simply meant that there were two valid options and I was just fine with either one of them.
7. Recently, I said to someone that "Jean won't let me do social media because I do not suffer fools and idiots gladly." Jean got all upset, saying people would think I felt that everyone who uses social media was a fool or idiot. Far from it. Fools and idiots (and people deliberately being difficult) comprise a small percentage of every crowd. The point about social media is that the particular crowd of very nice people over there would probably not take well to having me smack a fool or idiot or jerk even if they deserved it. On my own BBS, people already know that's how I maintain some semblance of order, by not allowing people to deliberately disrupt the conversation for their own amusement. Anywhere I go, I am eventually going to run into someone who is being disruptive and all it takes (so I'm told) is me being "mean" one time on social media to upset social media people for years. Apparently (and I know this from experience) if someone on social media does something dumb everyone just ignores them. I can remember one time I did a blog about Tivo, and specifically noted that one of the things I wanted was something Tivo could not do. Someone trying to make himself sound important at my expense then said on our social media page "Apparently, Steve doesn't know that Tivo cannot do that." He made himself look like a fool (or an idiot, or a jerk, you pick) to those who read the blog (and made me look like an idiot to those who didn't read the original blog) and I was not particularly amused by the experience. Jean insists, however, that to simply point out the reality of his comment would be "mean" and that social media doesn't like mean people and would never forgive me. (Wasn't he being mean to me? Did he lose "friends" over his wisecrack?)
posted by Federation Commander at 9:23 PM
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