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Archive for March, 2009

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By posted March 19, 2009

Grockit Devs Working on User Flows

Grockit Devs Working on User Flows

Recently we added an eye-fi card to our office camera and left it out for any Grockiteer to use. All the photos are automagically uploaded to our flickr page at http://flickr.com/grockit

Even cooler, these photos also update at the bottom of our blog in a flickriver stream.

We hope you enjoy the photos of life here at Grockit!

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Meet Steve Blank

By posted March 19, 2009

Professor Steve Blank

Professor Steve Blank

Yesterday I had a chance to pick Steve Blank’s brain for about an hour and get some thoughts on customer development and start-up marketing.

Here are some take aways.

1. Think about if your start-up is entering an exisiting market or creating a new one. For example, the marketing for Handspring and the marketing for Palm were very different. Handspring had to differentiate itself in an established PDA market while Palm had to educate the world about the existence of product that was not well understood. If Palm had implemented Handspring’s ‘differentiation’ marketing efforts, it would have made zero sense to customers. Why would I care about a PDA with more memory when I’m not yet even aware of what a PDA is?

2. Think about if you are differentiating on price or features. Understanding what your customers want is key to understanding how to communicate with them.

Steve Blank teaches Entrepreneurship at Stanford and focuses on agile customer development in start-ups. Here are some good sources for more things Steve Blank.

1. Fours Steps to the Epiphany – by Steve Blank available at Amazon

2. Audio from his Stanford Course on Venture Hacks blog post

3. steveblank.com

Thanks again for the time and advice Steve!

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Grad apps, Step 8: Apply for financial aid and scholarships.

By posted March 2, 2009

Applying for financial aid.

8 of 8 in a series

Let’s be realistic: grad school ain’t cheap.

Now that you’ve completed the applications for admission at each of your schools and programs, you’re almost done. You’ll still need to pay for school, and in order to obtain scholarships and loans, schools require you to submit financial aid applications.

Step 8: Apply for financial aid and scholarships.

In order to apply for financial aid, you’ll need a massive stack of information. Perhaps most crucial in that stack of information: your taxes.

Gather all required application forms and information from each school’s website or other information provided to applicants.

Even if you haven’t heard anything from the programs you’ve applied to, go ahead and submit a financial aid application. Don’t wait for your decisions to start rolling in. In fact, most schools will tell you not to do so. Be sure to find all instructions and deadlines. You should have marked these dates on your application calendars a while back and you should have printed out all the required information and placed it into your application file box. Retrieve all that information now so you can complete the final step.

Retrieve or complete your current year’s tax returns.

In order to complete the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid), you’ll need your tax information (and possibly your parents’ info, too). While it’s not 100% necessary to actually file your taxes, you’ll need information that essentially requires you to complete them, so why not submit them? Generally, if you’re under age 30, you’ll also need your parents’ tax information, too. Check with the schools to which you’ve applied to find out if parental information is required; requirements vary from school to school.

Complete a FAFSA.

Virtually all schools require the submission of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). Your FAFSA is used to determine any need-based grants and your loan awards. New forms are available each year starting January 1st. Get started as soon as possible, as many schools’ deadline is as early as March 1st.

You’ll need the school codes for each program to which you’ve applied. Codes can be retrieved from each program’s website or you can search for a school/program by name and location as you complete the FAFSA online at http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/.

Complete any required school-specific forms.

Some schools have a separate financial aid application you’ll need to complete, and this application is often available online or will be sent along with admissions information. If you haven’t found anything yet, make a call to the financial aid office to find out if there’s anything you should be completing and sending their way.

Apply for every possible scholarship!

Schools and private organizations often offer scholarships ranging from one-time $500 awards to renewable full-tuition awards. Usually, applicants for such a scholarship are asked to submit a topical essay and/or other information (letter of recommendation, résumé, etc.). There are tons of books available at your local bookstore and loads of information available online regarding such awards. Check your schools’ websites and hit the bookstore or your local library. Make a list of all the scholarship programs you’re eligible to apply for, and make a run at every dime you might get to help fund your education.

Research educational loans.

Chances are good you’ll need some loans to help fund your life through graduate school, and it’s never too soon to prepare. Get a credit report so you’re aware of your current standing, then research educational lenders. The financial aid folks at the schools you’ve applied to can offer you more information on public and private lenders with whom they work. Here’s a good place to start researching the different types of loans available: http://www.gradloans.com/.

Hurry up and wait.

Everything is now officially on its way! Many schools will email you to confirm acceptance of your application materials, completion, and decision status, but some won’t. The waiting game you’ll play between application submission and decision notification can be nerve-wracking. Pick up a hobby. Throw yourself into work with new vigor. Read more books. You might hear in a week, but you might not hear anything for several months. Remember that each applicant is different, and try not to hedge bets on whether or not you’ll be accepted or rejected. There’s only one way to find out, and you’ve done all you can. Only time will tell.

Good luck!

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Announcing Grockit's Summer 2009 Graduate Research Internship

By posted March 2, 2009

Update (3 Feb 2010): Our 2010 internship program has been posted.

Grockit from above I’m happy to announce that Grockit is offering a paid summer internship for a doctoral student pursuing research in an area related to our own. We’ve just posted details about this program (and the application form) on the 2009 Summer Research Internship page on our blog. I wanted to share a few thoughts on why we’re offering this, what we have in mind for the program, and why you (or perhaps someone you know) should consider applying.

Grockit, as you may know, is a San Francisco-based web startup building a platform for — and a community around — live collaborative learning games. We strive to provide our growing global network of learners with a smart platform informed by educational research, peer assistance, and data analysis. Towards this end, we’re constantly exploring ways to better support collaborative learning online, and we’re frequently examining and applying techniques for analyzing the learning data that we’ve been collecting. One reason that we’re offering this program is to expand on the ways in which we pursue these goals.

Two of the challenges in studying computational systems for peer learning — both of which I faced in completing my own graduate research — is that these systems can take quite some time to build, and it can often take even longer to cultivate a sufficiently large community of participating learners. As a result, the time required to get from hypothesis to data analysis can be (or at least can feel) quite long. At Grockit, we’ve been making good progress with regards to both challenges, and hope that this internship will provide an enterprising graduate student with the opportunity to speed up this process for their own research questions.

For hypotheses that can be tested within our existing system, experiments can be set up easily, and analysis can begin quickly. For hypotheses that require additional application features or data collection facilities, the intern would have the opportunity to pair with Grockit developers (as part of our agile development process) to code and test the necessary changes. Ideally, the ten-week duration of the internship will offer enough time to do a bit of both types of studies. At the end of the summer, the completed work will be presented to the team. Depending on the nature of the projects, jointly-authored publications may follow.

In addition to the research opportunity, we’re offering a stipend for the program. Several other perks are included: accommodations are provided in one of our nice lofts in the Mission, breakfast and lunch is provided on weekdays, and San Francisco is a fun spot to spend a summer. So if you are a doctoral student attending or publishing at conferences like AIED, CSCL, or EDM and interested in a summer research position with us, I encourage you to apply today.

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