Let me give you cats an update on what we working on in 2012 and a progress report. Overall, January has been an extremely heavy month but we are putting in overtime to be on schedule to meet our goals. This article will highlight all that we are doing in 2012 and give you an update on our status.

Wikis

When me and the 30 Rotten Dissidents were working and doing testing on the Wiki section, we noticed the blog was running out of allocated memory on the server and displaying an error while cats visited the blog. The last weekend of January, that issue was fixed and I’m ready to turn on the wikis for us to start get going.

I have to turn on each entry at a time. There was a question about how can you guys know when the wikis have been turned on and each wiki has a page or section that allows you to be informed by email when the page is updated so you can subscribe to a business model or location if you want. In addition, there is a discussion section of each of the models so you can ask questions or make a comment that may be expanded upon to improve the wiki section.

Invisible Pop-up Store

In January, we announced we will be launching an invisible pop-up store campaign this fall to showcase businesses in our communities featuring our merchants. We are not going to play around with local politicians, local haters trying to bread block their own people, we going to create a geo-location augmented reality service that let cats shop in hoods around America and will be the biggest campaign of this kind.

I have been working late night and to be honest, I need to start sleeping better. Just recently, I’m working and it’s in the early hours of the night by myself and one of my Facebook friends posted this picture.

So I’m looking at it and jumped all scared when I noticed something about it and I even dreamed about that ish when I went to bed! So that is a sign I need to get some sleep and been resting lately.

I have completed the specifications document in January on the technology, marketing and execution and will be compiling this information in a wiki business model section so you cats can try to use it later down the road for your own purpose.

Events

I have been working and studying how events are hosted and to be honest, my Chicago people are so good at this, it is ridiculous. I hope to have an article about event planning but you will enjoy this article as much as I written it. I also been doing more screencast practice runs so I we can do more call-in shows. January I was busy and working hard but in later February and throughout the spring, you are going to see more events where we are meeting up and discussing issues all of the time.

Skunkworks

There are things I cannot talk about or not even permitted to talk about but we are working on some very low-key projects at this time. I will only discuss a drop a few things. One thing is not a rumor is we are definitely working on retailing for the hood. But there are other rumors out there and I just want to set the record straight.

One rumor is something saying that I will be putting out an e-book later this year but I cannot confirm that. Another rumor is that we are getting ready to host an international trip yall are invited to come along to hook up with our overseas brothas and sistas. But there is this big rumor about something that supercede Fooky, Inc. my old firm and that is one that cats are really asking about. I have no comment on any of these rumors and will leave it at that.

Keep it Moving

I have put in some serious hours and need to relax my mind that is blowing at all the possibilities and work we are putting in. Ain’t no stopping us now and we are on the move on our mission to help brothas and sistas do for self, their people, their community and their future.

I’m seeing a lot of people talk and write about Don Cornelius passing but do not seem to comprehend the legacy Don Cornelius established while he was here with us. Don Cornelius was a pioneer who built a Black empowerment framework that was also an economic engine and knew exactly what he was doing and succeeded. As a fellow Chicago native who knows my people, know and respect those who came before me and appreciate the path they shaped for me and you to move forward, we are going to discuss Don Cornelius legacy and contribution.

Don Cornelius is from Chicago and was definitely someone who grew up with love for his people. You can check his history where he was straight hustling to get his in the Chi before joining WVON radio in the 60s. WVON means Voice of the Negro in case you didn’t know broadcasted to the Black community back then. Martin Luther King Jr. would appear regularly on WVON and most likely Don Cornelius was inspired by his presence as well as the fact he broadcasted for his people. He also carried this on television at WCIU where Soul Train got it start:

However, the late sixties was a beautiful time for brothas and sistas as we became united. More people were moving from the South up North to Chicago and cats were establishing themselves and their identity as Black. Don Cornelius was throwing parties all around Chicago as a party promoter and this is where he wanted to promote a television show and used his media industry connects to host Soul Train in Chicago.

Now Soul Train blew up and Don Cornelius moved the show out to Los Angeles for a bigger audience. Now here is where we have to take a break because this is the moment of truth. When some of us brothas or sistas make it big, what do we do? Most of us start acting like we don’t know our Black people anymore and start trying to go “mainstream” hoping to reach a bigger audience. But Don Cornelius not only kept his show Black-orientated, he pioneered Black media as we know it today and built a Black economic framework upon his success.

Soul Train was not some dance show, it was a framework that Don Cornelius used to promote his people and promote peace, love and soul in the core essence. Let’s look at each element of the Soul Train show:

The Soul Train Line. This African dance ritual was designed to give people their moment in the spotlight and shine but most important, it symbolizes diversity as well as equality. Everybody had a chance to strut their stuff and that’s what was being promoted.

The Scramble Board. Sneaking in Black History lessons into a dance television show? Only a real brotha or a real sista would even go there and that what was done. This is just another example of Don Cornelius not apologizing to mainstream America for being Black and proud and representing his people and our culture.

The Soul Train Dancers. Contrary to what people want to believe, these were not random dancers but personas who expressed Black culture in all shapes and forms. Remember that television only show cornball Blacks but when you turned on Soul Train, you saw your own people being themselves and expressing themselves their way.

The Black-orientated Commercials. This is where your Black-orientated commercials came from, thanks to Soul Train. I know plenty of you cats remember Johnson Hair Products commercials and the curls and the other commercials that targeted African-Americans.

The Artists on Television. You would never seen groups like the Gap Band or Frankie Beverly and Maze on any other show back in those days but they had a venue on Soul Train and Don Cornelius brought them to us.

The Take Away

We have not mention other things Don Cornelius has done such as host the Soul Train awards to acknowledge our artists when the other award shows were pretending we didn’t exist or didn’t matter. Don Cornelius cared about Black people and represented our people in his heart and we don’t have cats like him around nowadays.

Everything I’m doing and talking about is exactly what Don Cornelius done with his time. I told you cats the first thing we establish for Black empowerment is a Black communication framework. Don Cornelius did that, creating the Soul Train franchise and on top of that foundation, promoted Black and beautiful worldwide.

Think about the Soul Train theme that showed a train going around the world, he was definitely on that bigger level back in the 70s showcasing our people for who we really are. That’s why we all remember watching Soul Train Saturday morning because we was watching us. That’s the takeaway from Don Cornelius legacy.

Don Cornelius created Soul Train and Black firms advertised on Soul Train creating demand for Black products and created jobs for Blacks in Black communities – he built an economic framework out of what he done. And with that said, I hope you fully know understand and appreciate Don Cornelius and his contributions.

Because you know full well I fully appreciate what Don Cornelius done and follow in his footpath as another brotha from Chicago doing whatever it takes to do for my people. If he accomplished all of what he done for our people back in the 1970s, then we can definitely create the same kind of frameworks today.

Don Cornelius, thank you for your contribution shaping Black music, Black media, Black culture, Black love and Black empowerment. Now that Don Cornelius with the elders let’s pray he look over us as we continue the mission he started and leave to us to take on.

Haters are real – if a person does not believe there are no haters, that person hasn’t done anything extra special with their life and that’s real talk. It’s a lot of cats out there who are opportunists and even more a lot of cats who want to make you as miserable as they are. The biggest thing you have to know is these haters come at you by always coming after your time and your money. This article is going to help you understand how to protect your time and money from these characters.

Consumers Are the Biggest Victim of Having Time and Money Stolen

The whole role of a consumer is to happily give up their time and money to someone looking to make a profit off a consumer time and money. Unfortunately, African-Americans are one of the happiest consumers in the Western Hemisphere. We brothas and sistas consume products and services from others who don’t respect us. We buy without thinking products from firms that actively avoid using Black images in their marketing and advertising. We so desperate for certain material things that we sign bad loans and financing options that keep us brothas and sistas in perpetual debt.

Our level of consumerism is the biggest enemy of the African-American culture because we giving up our time and money without any return on investment. The sad part is brothas and sistas will straight up get mad at you for telling them or showing them they are throwing away their time and money. You have all of these cats out here flexing and fronting and throwing away their time and money chasing cognitive dissonance.

Don’t be like these cornballs out there giving others their time and money. Learn to recognize your time and money is yours and realize it’s cats out there always coming at what’s yours every day. Sit back and watch them come at you this week and take notes and you will be surprised. If you were not bothered that week, cats think you ain’t got time and money worth snatching. However, if you are being bothered all the time and got cats making demands for money, then you definitely got haters around you.

Protecting Your Time

The best ways to protect your time is focus on productivity and remove unproductive elements of your life. Avoid or reduce to a small footprint the consumption of unproductive content. For example, I only deal with on-demand media like Netflix and DVRs that I can watch when I set time for it. I also avoid reading material that does little to improve my life in a meaningful way. You will be surprise how your life will be your life again when you focus on productivity and remove the negative elements out the picture.

Second, get rid of people who are not providing you any benefit. I getting personal but I had this lady in her 40s tell me some “friends first” ish like we still in our teens and I just sat there looking at her in amazement that she would actually say that crap. Both of our pubic hairs and reproductive organs are old as hell, I got a child and been around the world and back and have to hear that kind of crap? So you know the bottom line was that was not what I was feeling that crap and all of her was unproductive to my effort of being happy.

Learn to stay around productive cats because that is the same vibe you want. You want to be around cats who make things happen and you see them put the real kind of work to get it done. But you should also make sure you only engage in productive activities. Creating a meetup.com event to play a battle of the sexes whirlyball match here in Atlanta with strippers and computer nerds (yeah, we get down like that here in ATL) is way more productive than hanging at a social nightclub just sitting around.

Protecting Your Money

Protecting your money is removing everybody and everything going after your money. When I decided to clean house on my money, I got rid of that ignorant $100 smartphone plan and got a cheap MetroPCS. The funny part is I get more productive communication out of that cheap $40/month phone than I ever got out of that $120 smartphone bill, real talk. Look at everything you paying for monthly and get it cheaper.

Second, I realize I had so many “automatic billing” cats all up in my banking account and they all had to go. I pay them when I pay them and that’s that. Credit cards, never again and I focus on debit cards. There is absolutely no purpose to have a credit card in this economy when everything is cheap and good quality used out there.

But most important, avoid those family members and friends and people in your life who like asking “for a favor” which is asking you for money. You set those cats straight and let them know not to come at you about money again. I had cats and we ain’t even related say to me that because I have a job, I should have money and try to run some kind of hustle on me. The funny part is once you let cats know to get the heck away from your money, they don’t call you no more for some strange reason.

Summary

Time is the gift God given you and money is the gift you given yourself. Do a check right now all around you and write down all of these cats who are making demand for money from you. Also, look at all of the unproductive things you engage in and write it down. Once you see all of the energy vampires in your life, take action on taking them all out.

Make 2012 the year you take your life back and focus on you. Be at peace with yourself by removing distractions and learn to take back your money and time from others, by any means necessary.

If we are going to address economic empowerment in the Black community, we have to address the current crime situation. Right now, our current environment has a lot of people just running their mouth about the issue. You got some African-Americans referencing our Black youth with the n-word and saying they are out of control and have no respect for life. Then you have the other cats in denial saying the hood is not that bad and ignore the high amount of unreported rape and robberies that go on every day. No matter which way anybody thinks or run their mouth, crime does go on in the hood and the real discussion is finding a solution.

Dream and Hustle can be like Black Enterprise magazine and not talk about community development and focus on silly uppity top 100 lists, slideshows and recycled financial articles topics we can already get at About.com. Or Dream and Hustle can be like Black Web 2.0 and have a bunch of Black tech wannabees trying to get Robert Scoble or Michael Arrington to like them and hopefully some Silicon Valley VC firm will invest in them. But we thought about it and decided that Dream and Hustle should focus on community development and focus on technology solutions and be on that real ish for our people.

So this article is going to talk about crime in the Black community and the technology solution we can apply to deal with it. The funny part is Angela Benton over there at Black Web 2.0 and those NewMe North Cali cats are too busy wanting to get the VC firms to like them when all the real technology opportunity is right here in our Black communities. Isn’t that funny as hell? I mean, if you going to claim that you Black, you 2.0 and you about technology, wouldn’t you focus on you and yours? The Africans over in Africa are focusing on doing stuff for their people with technology such as SMS solutions to check grain supply and set prices as well as mobile money transfers and remittance services for ex-pats. But here in America, we got people like Angela Benton wanting to be famous before getting rich hoping to be liked by those in Silicon Valley, go figure.

Let me give cats a clue being a real technology expert on that real level of being Black – if you want to get rich and stack sick paper in technology, focus on technology solutions affecting your own brothas and sistas current situation, real talk.

If we solve the problem of creating retailing in our hoods, we can apply that same solution to be sold worldwide.

If we solve the problem of security in our hood, we can apply that solution to be sold worldwide.

Be about your own people – that’s where it is really at, not Silicon Valley. The VCs already know what I’m talking about which is why I got more clout than all of these wannabee Black Web 2.0/NewMe clowns and don’t have to broadcast that fact either.

I have to give this kind of background because I want you to fully understand if you solve this crime issue we have in our community, you may be one of the quickest to billionaire the world has seen. Everybody and everything need better security and our current system is not working. That ADT crap where they kick in your door and the alarm sound ain’t no good if your neighbors don’t give a f*ck and the donut eating cops taking their time to see what’s going on. And what good is having a camera just to watch people come into your home or business and tear everything up, is it just entertainment on YouTube?

Security cameras are not good enough because they are passive and do nothing but record the crime as it happen. Detecting suspected activity early on and intervention for prevention is what you are really after with cameras. The real use of security cameras is when you have a real person who is a professional that can monitor those cameras and understand what is being done in real-time and can pan and zoom in on suspected activity. But many of you cats are buying these plug and play cameras and thinking that supposed to matter and you are not even monitoring in real-time.

And those alarm systems that let you check your web camera from your mobile tablet or smart phone is just you “polling” to see if everything is alright or they broke into your ish. No, you need to have artificial intelligence built in the camera to replicate the actions a live professional would recognize if you want to make these security cameras effective. And that’s your super get rich billion dollar opportunity, creating “smart cameras” for the hood to help our community reduce opportunist crimes from happening and what this article is about.

What is a Smart Camera?

Well, the camera is still “dumb” where it just stream a video feed, where it gets smart is how you process the video feed through software to detect certain patterns and objects. Instead of just straight recording the video to hard drive for the police and insurance firm to look at the damage done to you and your property at a later time, “smart cameras” can detect activities and respond if those activities meet the criteria of a situation that will likely result in a crime occurring.

Yes, many of you may realize this sound like the movie Minority Report and it does. People be making me laugh when they refer to that movie by the glass touchless screen interface which is not the best technology that movie promoted. The best technology that movie promoted was the use of data to predict a crime from occurring using existing patterns.

There are two types of patterns we can use for smart cameras to create data to make a determination if something is going down in the hood. The first pattern is image processing and the second pattern is object detection. For those that are more advanced, they already figured out the next two paragraph is going to discuss augmented reality.

Image Processing

By applying certain filters to a video feed, we can transform the image to notice or highlight objects better. Thermal imaging is a way to detect heated objects like living people or running vehicles in the dark as they produce light different than objects with no heat. In summary, the way images are processed are they are transformed into colors like green and we can extract everything that is not green or only focus on the red color in the image.

Object Detection

Once we apply a filter if we need to, we can then detect objects. Once we detect the object, we can highlight with a square so it can stand out. Now, once we detect the object we can then take that video frame and save it as a jpeg image. Then maybe we can do some post-processing such as facial recognition or car recognition or something like that. Similar to how the cop cars scan our license plates with those cameras on the back.

Augmented Reality and Pattern Detection

Now once you transform the video feed and can detect objects, now you can start extracting data from the video and now you will have a smart camera that can do more than just record. The key thing is you have to understand xy coordinates that is also known as the Cartesian Coordinate System and why I told you cats that STEM is extremely important to African-Americans in this day in age.

Yep, you are going to have to learn those math formulas to make xy calculations to detect movement and location. The funny part is I bet you these formulas are in your high school geometry math book that you still got in that storage area collecting dust. The xy formulas are already on the Internet doing some nice searches to help you so get all in a bunch that you have to learn math over again – you just need to know what algorithm you looking for and know how to apply these math formulas.

Now you can do time/space calculations such as determine speed of the object being detection. If the object is located at (3,3) in one video frame and the next frame is (3,4) then you can determine the object is moving, how fast the object is moving and in what direction. So with that said, that is how you can now create both augmented reality and pattern detection and create smart cameras.

Using Smart Cameras as Security Solutions in the Hood

Most of the crimes in the hood are consider opportunist crimes where cats are stalking or waiting for an opportunity to strike and hope no one notice them. The thugs are waiting to run up on someone, they standing there scoping out people or they take radical action like smash and grabs or running after snatching something from someone hand. These are patterns we can detect with smart cameras.

The three things that come to mind to track in terms of security is the movement, track the person or object who fit a profile and track a count of people. Those are probably the three things we can focus on with smart security cameras for the hood.

Movement

By tracking movement we can tell if an object is just standing there for a long period of time, we can even tell when one object appear to be following another object on camera. In addition we can also tell if an object is running fast. When these patterns match an algorithm we already defined or even begin to materialize in a few milliseconds, we can use alternative cameras to zoom in and alert others in the area to watch this “suspicious activity”. This is really good for home security because no one should be running towards your home; just even a second of fast movement should trigger some kind of alarm to give you advance warning.

Object Profile

You can track a car but how about tracking a car at night driving with the lights off? Shouldn’t that be a major alarm if the camera detect that and alert people something appears to be going on? In addition and this is from a previous article, I believe anybody who goes into a retail establishment wearing a cap or a hooded jacket should be scrutinized with high definition cameras and security be alerted immediately, especially in the hood.

In addition and I haven’t covered this, but face recognition should be possible. We can load up a known list of criminals and perverts in our community based on public domain arrest mugshots and the video feed can track a person face and look it up against a database. Many people say this is an attack on privacy but this is actually a private business running this to protect themselves – don’t shop with them if you don’t want your privacy but if this makes the hood safer for our people to come up and do for self and uplift the community by reducing the crime element, oh well.

Note: This facial recognition capability is the number one reason why I oppose the Occupy Wall Street movement as ineffective. You bet your ass they used this technology on the Occupy Movement crowd. And those faces can be stored in databases and retrieved on job interviews and security clearances. We in 21st century 2012, dude.

Object Count

Why is three people just standing in the hallway of an stairway entrance to an apartment? Why are 25 people moving towards a city block and we see another 25 objects hiding around cars on that same block? Why are there a few objects still on the school ground when all kids supposed to be in class? These are the type of counts that matter that cameras should be reporting back to us so we can investigate further what is going on in our surroundings.

Use of Triggers

In all of the examples above for suspicious activities, I discussed patterns we can look for and alert us. In order to enable that, we use a system called triggers that alert us once something match a pattern we loaded into our smart camera system. So a smart camera will allow us to add new patterns and algorithms and update like updated GPS maps to a GPS system to detect new trends and patterns like a flash mob.

What happens is all of the patterns are loaded up and the smart camera activity see if the mathematical formulas are being calculated the say we predicted. If the mathematics are being performed and we detect two cats with caps or hood walking in our commercial zone, then a trigger in invoke a command such as start face recognition automatically or alert the beat cop of this “suspicious activity” and observe. This also can be done on neighborhood watch cameras when suspicious cats come on the block.

How to Move Forward on Creating Smart Cameras in the Hood

I noticed this cat on YouTube basically broke down some of the stuff I’m talking about in this video so check it out:

Note: Let me explain the numbers you see next to the guy eyes in this video. the x and y are the coordinates on the screen and help position the red dot overlay. But the last number that is ‘s’ is the scale and this help us determine distance. If he move close to the camera, the object get bigger and smaller if he move away. He will move closer to the screen in the video so watch the ‘s’ number jump up. This is important because this is how we can capture a “thrust movement” that you will learn about later.

The interesting part is the software to create smart cameras is open source and free to distribute even for profit! The two software I’m been messing with is aforge.net and opencv and you can look for these online. Aforge.net is for the Microsoft Windows platform and they even have samples you can run on your computer against your webcam and can get you up and running. I actually found Aforge.net to be easy to use and program against, even for those mediocre Black Web 2.0 techies. OpenCV is a little more complex requiring advanced programming language such as C and Java but I’m going to keep it real – I like Aforge.net because you get straight to business.

In fact, just in case you didn’t realize reading all these Dream and Hustle posts – what do you think I will be using Aforge.net for? Hmmm..haven’t figure it out yet? If you didn’t say we will be using Aforge.net to make touchless interfaces for flat panel digital signage in the hood that mimic Microsoft Kinnect or Sony Playstation Move, then I’m guess I’m still a bunch of steps ahead of other cats, ain’t I?

Yep, our retailing application for the hood will be using Aforge.net and the funny part is I rewritten my QR code processing to use Aforge.net video processing class and only have to use a few lines to get it running right. But enough about us, let’s talk about you and our community and how to get this smart camera security solution going.

Your first step is obviously brush up on your STEM involving xy coordinates as well as read the documentation and existing coding. Let me give you cats a secret and I mentioned this before – no one in America hardly know this stuff and I’m tired of hearing Americans keep talking about they know technology, especially African-Americans, real talk. When I was stumped on Aforge.net, I had to go to the Chinese and other Asian search engines and find the solution there and they got the solution all broken down. That’s why I keep telling you brothas and sistas you have to look global for solutions for our hoods.

You next step is demonstrations – look, the minute you pull of a demonstration of a smart camera where you can detect knucklehead activities, you might as well go pick out your favorite $100,000 plus luxury car you always wanted to drive and put the custom order in. Because the minute you show you can track and detect and predict these “Black thugs” you’ll have every police department, every business, every homeowner, every apartment complex, every industrial worksite around the world calling up your behind asking where can they send you the purchase order. Charge them all at least $500 and a $49/month pattern update subscription and watch the money pile up.

Because like I told you before, stuff like this smart camera technology is the kind of hood-based solutions Silicon Valley want to see us brothas and sistas do, not some simple Angela Benton and her NewMe comedy show trying to assimilate and be accepted. The minute we solve our problems in our hood with technology, we already solved 90% of the global problems and we got a global solution. And when that happens, we don’t need Silicon Valley and can stack paper on our own terms.

Now with that said, it’s really on you. I gave you a briefing, the software library is open source and royalty free, you got a computer with a cheap web cam on it to test, you can download Microsoft Visual Studio Express for free or get a 60-day free trial of the professional version. You really don’t got an excuse except to sit there and just pout. But if you want to solve a serious problem in the Black community and get serious paper, then what is stopping you from implementing this?

The last State of the Union, President Barack Obama acknowledged America current economic position and outlined a plan to improve our economic condition. African-Americans are now on Facebook running around posting up pics as part of a image propaganda campaign and Rev. Al Sharpton who originally was supporting Hillary Clinton are not going into depth about President Obama State of the Union speech. Well, we are about to in this article.

Here is the entire speech you can find on Whitehouse.gov and on YouTube that is “enhanced” with an info-data stream. I don’t expect you to spend the whole hour watching it, but then again, some of you cats love President Obama too much as a follower, maybe you will:

In tandem with the State of the Union address, the White House released a document outlining their “blue print” for a better America which is basically, his campaign theme and talking points. You can also find that document at the Whitehouse.gov site and if you cannot tell by now, Dream and Hustle always advocate you go to official government web sites for first hand facts because your tax dollars paid for this raw information.

Now, let’s discuss some of the points that I read from this document which is what President Barack Obama outlined in his State of the Union and give our perspective. I will only focus on the jobs and economic development portions of the White House proposals while Black Enterprise Magazine promotes another silly top 100 list or slideshow or whatever.

A Nation Where Everyone Gets a Fair Shot, Does Their Fair Share, and Plays by the Same Set of Rules

Manufacturing: Create New Jobs Here In America, Discourage Outsourcing, and Encourage Insourcing

Skills: Give Hard-Working, Responsible Americans a Fair Shot

Energy: Make The Most Of America’s Energy Resources

Values: Ensure Every American Plays By the Same Set Of Rules And Pays Their Fair Share

Now here is my take on the White House proposals..

I appreciate that President Obama fully understand the importance of manufacturing and what is frustrating me is African-Americans especially in the Rust Belt have plenty of opportunity to rebuild economic strongholds through new forms of manufacturing if they wanted to. We got generations of manufacturer brothas and sistas up in Ohio, Michigan and Indiana and Pennsylvania and yall up North cats cannot make a luxury shoe factory to sell to the growing affluent in China, India and Middle East?

I will discuss that one cat Mike Green at BlackInnovation.org who had the nerve to say African-Americans should ignore manufacturing and focus more on technology – no, I’m a real tech expert and this technology is my life but we better focus way more on manufacturing and creating tangible goods with quality. Innovation does not create jobs, demand for products and services create jobs so there is no such thing as an “innovation economy”, okay? I’ll talk about that in a later article but modern manufacturing is way more critical and create more channels of jobs than any other solution, including technology.

In a New York Times article, President Barack Obama asked the late Steve Jobs about how to bring those Apple manufacturing jobs back to America. Steve Jobs told Barack Obama those jobs are not coming back and gone forever. Well, I’m pretty sure President Barack Obama is thinking the only thing gone forever is Steve Jobs and the President is going to do something while he still here to get those jobs back to America.

President Barack Obama is now proposing a protectionist doctrine that punish with higher taxes those companies that outsource and promotes companies that insource. During the State of the Union, he also talked about how the banks hurt middle class Americans. Then he also mentions how tuition is high and programs to make college affordable. If you haven’t picked up the clues – President Barack Obama is pandering to the Occupy movement main talking point.

This is my issue – President Obama should have done all of this protectionist doctrine within the first 180 days he served in office back in 2009. Instead, President Obama know he helped propped up the very same Wall Street banks who were screwing over Americans and throwing them out of homes with no one new to move into these homes at the same value, destroying middle class communities across suburbia. Today, this “protectionist” stuff is nothing more than an empty campaign promise that will never see his desk to sign, just like his Job Bill proposals from last year.

In addition, President Obama signed one of the worst laws I’ve seen since the Bankruptcy Reform Act signed by George Bush that gave banks more power to screw over middle class Americans. President Obama signed a highly flawed Patent Reform Act that change from first-to-invent to first-to-file and quite frankly, this is extremely devastating to African-American entrepreneurs and Mike Green so-called “Innovation Economy” dream. If you have a great invention or a new process and run your mouth about it, then a large patent filing operation like IBM can get a patent filed in less than 24 hours of hearing it and screw that inventor out of any chance of seeing their product or process become theirs without paying the patent owners a royalty for filing first.

Did you also notice President Barack Obama proposed veterans get cop jobs and national parks jobs instead of helping transition veterans to help rebuild this economy? Nobody is more qualified and disciplined to help rebuild America than veterans and any non-veteran can cop any kind of civilian-based attitude they want, but history speaks for itself. That one, I didn’t get because this is one of many of his proposals that are already in existence and paid for by Congress and local governments.

Overall, Barack Obama is not going to get Congress to increase any kind of taxes because the GOP will argue the rich is the one who are employing people and that is correct. Say what you want about the Koch Brothers but the Koch Brothers put food on hundreds of thousands of people table every night. In addition, it is a lot easier and no skin off any corporation teeth to totally move their operations out of America altogether and just be a foreign stakeholder.

But let’s be honest, the only thing keeping these corporations in America is because they taking advantage that America is a stable country. A lot of these other countries have a history of taking over these corporations and freezing their assets and turn the whole operation over to the government. Let me give you a hint – almost every country we went to war with, it was initiated not by some violence but when that country decide to repatriate an American corporation and nationalize it. Let Nigeria nationalize their oil industry and watch how the West start portraying them as the most evil nation the United States have to go to war with next.

Wrapping up, the summary I want cats to understand is President Barack Obama is a politician who is stumping for votes. Everything he said in his State of the Union is not going to happen and this is stuff he just going to talk about as he campaigns for re-election. The truth of the matter is, this should be a wake-up call for me and you that we have to do for ourselves and make it happen for ourselves. If a Black President ain’t going to put in real action to get things done and we seeing nothing but sheep followers posting Obama pics on Facebook, that’s the biggest clue we got that we are on our own.

The things to take away from President Obama speech is manufacturing is important, education is important and many of cats are going to turn poor and to the sidelines real fast if you ain’t got STEM in your mix. Second thing is you saw nothing concrete when it came to doing stuff for African-Americans and our communities. You heard of nothing related to urban developments which are our economic centers in America, not suburbia.

With that said, you and me are on our own to make stuff happen for us. I’ve been saying this same thing for years and to be honest, a lot of cats who ain’t done nothing don’t realize every year, it’s a new group of cats who turned either 18 or 21 and thrown out into the workforce to compete with them for scarce jobs. Okay, let’s be honest – President Obama just selling us hope while we got real world drama going on and I’m tired of the fluff and the followers and cats who not going to put in work to put in the real change for our betterment. I know I written a lot but that’s all I really wanted to say about this hot air bag State of the Union speech.

Whew, glad I got that one out after writing 1500 words and BSing on what I really wanted to say. Yall don’t know how hard it is to be from Chicago and patronizing Obama when deep inside, you know the President ain’t doing sh*t for the real struggling African-Americans who need his help the most and most loyal to him….

V1
Tired of nine to fives in my case two to tens
Refuse to choose methods that others use to win
If my talent ain’t involved. Working got my head hurting
To the point you couldn’t fix it with a quart of Tylenol
No stranger to labor. On the whole, it’s pointless
If in the end I haven’t been working toward my goals
So I stay hunting for green like Lex Luthor
So I can dead any beef I might have in the future with my super
Man rent’s due! We’re on our last roll of toilet tissue
Plus queen and I be having issues when doe’s tight
Suddenly I’m less concerned with getting my flow right
Restless barely caught a wink through the whole night
Running on fumes could blackout in an instant
On “E” with barely enough to finish this very sent…
Tense muscles! Sometime I wonder
Did blacks invent struggle ‘cause we know it well
Rich in many things but I’m still broke as hell
And what’s red and black without some greenbacks
A fund less revolution is money the solution
More money more problem more bills less truth
More lies less you mobilize lets move
And get that cheese for cats get me
But I’m clever as Jerry so never you worry
I’ll provide for fam long after I’m buried

HOOK
3 Months past benefits kick in
6 months past and I feel like quitting
Promotion after 9 a whole new beginning
Made insane by these labor pains
REPEAT HOOK

V2
It’s like morning sickness when I wake up for work filled with ill will
Wanting to murder my boss like Kill Bill
The real feel what I’m saying ‘cause it’s realer talk
Wishing I was still a little kid watching Silver Hawks
Now that’s a distant memory now my days are spent
At the bar during happy hour sipping hennesy
Like it’s a remedy for these growing pains
So insane but I hope for change
Like homeless pan-handlers yall’d rather ignore me
‘Cause hearing this song is like listening to your story
It would be nice to retire at forty
But my mom hasn’t and she’s over age sixty
Probably do better if she wasn’t plagued with me
But they say babies are a gift from God
But they feel like a burden when shit gets hard
Over due utilities I’m knowing you is feeling me
These hard times are meant to be something you learn from
So hard work essentially is something you should earn from
Money don’t grow on trees but it leaves
And even harder to get for underground MC’s
It’s enough to make you hate breathing
Working two or three jobs just to break even
Labor pains is the reason why I ain’t sleeping
Fuck sloppy seconds! Why can’t my people eat like they eating
Even when we ain’t eating we always cooking
Like Ope be telling me I’m hoping felonies
Ain’t in my forecast because lack of my own
Got me looking at your cash but I earn my shit
And try to save something never burn my shit
So we can cop homes a Brooklyn brownstone
And maybe I’ll own land back in MD
For whenever we need to escape the big city
So let’s get busy and start our business
We’ll succeed if our hearts are in it
I’ll work for me and not for another
To provide jobs for all of our brothers and queens ya’nahmeen

HOOK

credits
from Sacrifice, released 08 January 2008
Lyrics by: Substantial
Produced by: Tonedeff

If you look at our high-density commercial zones in our hoods, you should notice there is almost zero accommodation for customers to feel entertained or even feel good about shopping. The feeling I get shopping in the hood is a “get what you came here for and get the hell out!” type of atmosphere and that’s why brothas and sistas run out to the suburban malls. Our generation of brothas and sistas has to think different and focus on making the hood more hospitable to help bring economic activity back into our community and make our commercial zones an attractive place to do business.

Elements of Hospitality

Throughout Europe, Middle East and Asia, the high density urban commercial zones are transforming their shops not only as a place to buy but a place to relax and feel comfortable. We are talking about store designs you would find at high line flagship stores in large cities where they have lounge chairs, large signage and displays and in some cases, resemble an art gallery. Dining areas that look like lounges where you can sit and talk for hours after you paid the bill. Banks and mobile wireless centers with the latest interactive displays and latest technology to play with.

What these retailers are discovering is a dramatic increase in profits and sales as a result of incorporating hospitality in their stores. This is why you hearing about these luxury brands and places like the Apple Store doing unbelievable sales numbers during this economy and why the Lego store is so popular among kids because it allowing people to go in and enjoy themselves as well as shop.

Starbucks and McDonald’s

McDonald’s has been doing hospitality elements for the longest time. Maybe you live somewhere generic but if you live in a big city or a tourist city, then you know there are specialized McDonald’s like the old Rock and Roll McDonald’s in Chicago. The whole indoor playroom in the McDonald’s is the perfect example of hospitality and it works, the little kids love it, taking off their shoes and start playing in those tunnels.

Now you see McDonald’s is looking to compete with Starbucks to attract people to hang out. McDonald’s is really the bigger player than Starbucks in town that understand hospitality and the reason why they are worldwide. No matter where you travel in this world, nothing is like sitting down at a McDonald’s and eating and handling your business.

Starbucks is announcing they are going to start selling beer and wine along with cheese at some of their locations. While this may sound crazy, it is not because Starbucks realized something that we brothas and sistas need to realize about stop being a one-trick pony business in the hood. The funny thing is when I date these super-duper awesome fine Ethiopian and other African sistas, they like going to Starbucks around 8pm – 10pm and have coffee with a brotha.

Now if you think about it, when you just watched a play or a movie with a date and walking downtown Los Angeles or Seattle, yall can go to Starbucks and just have some wine. In addition, that person you met online, yall can hang out at Starbucks in a more casual setting on first meet instead of paying for an expensive dinner and realize you met a jerk and an @$$hole off the Internet who don’t even look good like the pic they posted online.

But the reality is, now Starbucks has a new demographic of customers to serve at late hours and they repurpose their store to accommodate a new revenue channel. And that’s exactly why I’m writing this article and hope brothas and sistas understand why incorporating hospitality in the hood is a must and should be seriously considered.

Hospitality Design Inspiration

There are two places that come in mind if you want to consider incorporating hospitality in your business operation in the hood. I think of the auto dealers and the hotel lobby as places of inspiration as they are both in the business and have decades of experience in this field. Look at their designs and realize how they work to make sure people are comfortable at their place.

These concepts are exactly what we should be looking at doing in our hood where cats can decide to shop in our community and enjoy themselves and feel comfortable and be around their own people. I traveled worldwide and will be traveling more and there are plenty of pictures on the Internet about these types of hospitality models. The funny part is the Apple Store is using this same hospitality design and winning and entrepreneurial cats haven’t picked up a clue.

Security Concerns

Now, the first thing you going to hear naysayers and side haters who ain’t going to do a damn thing but run their mouth say is cats in the hood is going to f*ck the place up like a pack of roving wild baboons. They got our hoods all figured out as if all the hood do is rob and kill and shoot 24/7 in the commercial zone with dead bodies piling up behind the dollar store for daily pickup to the morgue. That’s how these speculators got our hoods all figured out.

First thing first and you need to realize anybody who say anything about how violent our communities are and it don’t work does not have love for our community and been conditioned to think of our community in a negative light. The truth is these are the kind of cats who are talking and many of us held ourselves back from these negative words from these coward punks who won’t make things better.

You guys should automatically know this blog is already working on security technology to help our hoods become safer to shop. In addition and here is a little secret – our hoods have never been designed as a place to go enjoy ourselves and do shopping. All these years, it was just cats telling us what we can’t do and just want to see us fail so they can feel like they right. Don’t let negative cats who ain’t part of your community or ain’t doing anything in your community tell you about your community.

This is something that is know, the more people shopping in our community then the safer that shopping area will be. Cats do not act a fool when everybody is out and know each other – they only do that crap when there is hardly anybody around and it is just strangers. Second, as I stated with the technology tip, we will have high-definition camera that are automatically programmed to detect cats with cats and hood on and automatically focus on their face close up. This is a future article on creating “smart cameras” so I’m not too worried about the security angle because me and the 30 Rotten Dissidents already working on something to deal with that.

How to Design Hospitality

The good part is most designs for hospitality can be designed by cats in the hood for the hood. If you didn’t catch a clue and I keep telling you over and over, this is how someone in the hood can create jobs for dozens of cats, including ex-cons is to start building out this kind of furniture where you can get the materials from Home Depot or Lowes or a fabric store.

Strip Bar. A strip bar is basically a counter that allows people to sit down on a barstool. Cats can check their online account on their mobile phone while they can wait for a take-out order or they can wait for a specialist to bring a product to demonstrate for them if they want one-on-sale sales consultation. The Apple Store Genius Bar is an example of this.

Lounge Sofa. These are basically sitting areas that let people sit down. There is absolutely nothing wrong with people just sitting down in your store. It makes your store safer, believe it or not. But these kind of lounge area should be in areas where there is just an exhibit and you can showcase items. In some countries, they hire attractive people to just lounge out at these locations but I think that is not necessary in the hood – the cute ones will hang out for free if you set it up right.

Interactive Wall. The point of sale project for the hood may have an interactive wall component and it is not hard for an expert like me to build out. The real work is building out a furniture case that can hold the flat panel screen and possibly a web camera or a Kinnect interface to respond to QR codes and gestures.

Summary

I want to make sure all African-Americans who reading this article and visiting Dream and Hustle for the first time have a full understanding of where we at right now. Right now, we got a Black President from the South Side of Chicago handling his business running this country. Right now, you are reading a blog from a technology expert from the West Side of Chicago who handling his business in this tech game. I say this because some of you cornballs are waiting on someone White to tell you how to save yourself and your hood when me and President Obama is telling you that you are the change you been waiting for.

We at Dream and Hustle already been worldwide and trailblazing specifically on innovative solutions for our hood – we talking about stuff here that Fortune and Inc has not picked up a clue about yet. And when there are stories about innovation, I go deep into that story at levels these other journalists cannot go because I’m a real tech expert as well as an entrepreneur and business professional in this game. It may break your heart, but I’m read by and deal with plenty of high ranking executives at many firms worldwide based on post I written on Dream and Hustle, haters can get over it.

You brothas and sistas already have your economic empowerment and your billion dollar empire right in front of your face in your own hood. The problem is you cats have been brainwashed and mentally conditioned not to believe in yourself and believe you cannot make change happen around you to benefit you. Cats been doubting on you and putting doubts in your head all your life because they are scared of the day you finally realize your full potential and realize you got nothing to lose and everything to gain when you get the backbone to go and get yours and what God intended for you to have in this world.

We can turn our hood communities into vibrant retailing and commercial zones that attract thousands and thousands of our own people a day to shop locally and help us create jobs and support our community locally through economic distribution of wealth. If cats decide to create a cluster of small businesses that attract people to travel and hang out in the same fashion the malls were designed as a hangout spot, then we got customers who can put food on out tables and help us stack paper for ourselves.

The one thing we brothas and sistas never done in modern times was create our hood to make it enjoyable place to shop and feel good. We allowed fear of some punk thugs, negative stereotypes by outside suburban middle class not from the hood cats who are cowards and our own mental blockage preventing us from doing things our way and for our own people benefit. It’s time to change that and there will be a focus on making sure our hoods are just as much as an enjoyable place to shop and have fun than any flagship shopping district in a major city.

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal and other outlets had an interesting article and a lively debate about Target desperately worried about “showrooming” practices with mobile technology. Showrooming is when someone goes into a store and scan an item with their mobile phone, check for a lower price online and order online instead of the store and essentially, the store is just a “showroom” for the products instead of a place to buy.

I discussed using “showrooming” where we create an app similar to the Tesco iPhone application where cats in the hood can scan products from suburban malls and large grocery stores and help the hood business form a product list to sell directly to the hood.

However, this practice is scaring the hell out of stores because the truth is, it was showrooming that killed off the large chain book, camera and recorded media stores. But showrooming is now impacting the sale of low-margin electronics and that is what worrying stores. I remember when Best Buy staff treated me like I’m some worthless customer and from that point on, all I do is go to Best Buy, try out a product, snap a pic of it on my mobile phone camera and then order it online when I get back home.

But here is the problem with showrooming when it comes to African-Americans entrepreneurs and that is the issue the big box are scared of. See, showrooming will devastate the profit margin of your business if you sell stuff that others can get online. That is known as white-label products that anybody can get from Alibaba.com or China or from a manufacturer and that is what 99% of these so-called African-Americans specialize in and that’s a serious problem we have yet to address in our community.

Exactly 100% of all that Multi-Level Marketing program stuff these brothas and sistas peddle are white label stuff that others can get cheaper if they knew the right channels. When you see brothas and sistas selling handbags and stuff like that, all of that is white label stuff you can get from online at a cheaper price, including those ghetto clothes they sell in the hood.

Some of you cats want to tell me that you got this new hustle and trying to tell me you are a travel agency when you are doing nothing but using a white label web site that put your cheesy logo on it. Then some of you cats got the most ignorant nerve to come at us talking about you sell coffee as if your simple Black ass personally flew down to Risaralda, Columbia and inspected the coffee beans yourself..STFU with that! You talking about selling coffee when you selling that cheap crap being traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, get an education before coming at me talking about you sell premium coffee, okay?

If you look at the business models we discovered in the hood, you should notice the only business surviving in the hood are those entrepreneurs made unique. Fried foods like fried catfish, fried chicken and hot roast beef submarine sandwiches, you can’t white label that. Funereal homes cannot be duplicated and state laws prevent liquor stores and tobacco shops from being duplicated easily also. Everything in the hood that is up and running is not white label products and that is what we need to be careful about when talking about revitalizing the hood.

With that said and this is extremely important – this is why I argue that we brothas and sistas need to focus on manufacturing in our hoods and produce original products to sell worldwide. We need to produce stuff that cannot be duplicated easily and push those products worldwide the same way LVMH push their products worldwide and cats buying it up. And those are the type of business we need to create more than white label products and white label services.

I’m saying this because on Facebook, I get solicited by cats always trying to sell me some MLM hustle that is basically something you find on Alibaba.com that you can get started yourself. I see sistas selling the same handbags you find from the same cats up in the Bronx who got it made in China and bought wholesale from Chinatown. Come on, we need to be serious about setting up real business operations in the hood that ain’t some crap that will crumble once the hustle been exposed.

Because as soon as a brotha or sistas open up one of these white label retail stores, the brothas and sistas who are smart phone savvy is going to start “showrooming” themselves and tell others where they can find these products cheaper. That is why a lot of these Korean retail outlets in the hood is failing and shutting down fast because a lot of brothas and sistas are buying those products online or from the dollar store. Me and you should not be repeating their mistakes and allow our business to be nothing more than a place for showrooming.

Think about my Liquiditi beverage kiosk stand I ran in downtown Atlanta last summer – all those drinks I was selling were not exclusive and could have been bought elsewhere, couldn’t they? I seen cats look at my Gatorade and then see they walked to CVS at the Underground Atlanta and they would walk right back past me with the same Gatorade I had for sale. See, I didn’t have anything unique to offer these cats and that is definitely a lesson learned.

That is why we have to realize we cannot launch these white-label business that feature products that cats are conditioned to run to Wal-Mart and get or just browse our store, ask to see our product and then go on Amazon.com and order it. If we do open up those kind of business, then we better be ready to sell at a low margin and hope we can make our money from volume instead.

Showrooming has some advantage in the hood where we can at least have them conduct transactions in our community and the more we have cats conducting transactions, the money stays in our community to recycle among our people. The key is to offer drop shipping so hood retailers don’t get stuck buying low-margin inventory upfront and just make a commission off the sale like a $299 flat panel television set, delivered in five days or less.

So with that said, if you think about launching a business, please don’t fall in the same trap as these other African-American entrepreneurs and hustle some white label crap. Cats will pick up on the fact they can find that white label stuff elsewhere and you cannot price compete as a new business, you will always lose if you try to go that route.

Instead, we brothas and sistas should look into making sure we can customize these white label products to the point they are unique or focus on manufacturing. I’m going to talk about this in another article but you brothas and sistas in America are straight 2012 ignorant and dumb as hell when there is a global population of over 2 billion that love and look up to your Black American ass and will buy from you if you setup your hustle to sell globally. But you sitting up here in America still looking for a “good job” and ish.

We brothas and sistas got to start focusing on manufacturing and other entrepreneurial endeavors that make us unique and not sell this white label stuff any cat can get off Alibaba.com as our hustle. I strongly feel we can sell just as much Black-manufactured handbags in China than Gucci if we are serious and setup our own handbag manufacturing plant in Detroit and have super quality assurance and the finest leather and materials and craftwork, even an ex-con can make this kind of ish happen.

In summary, let’s step out in this world being original and not get caught up in white labels because cats will definitely start “showrooming” and the hustle will not become profitable. Focus on customization, original manufactured products and create real business that can reach a global consumer base where we set up economic viability for generations in our community, our hoods and our family.

To create the largest invisible pop-up store campaign in our hoods, we are going to have to combine marketing, technology and logistics to make it work. This is actually a real project you will see start from start to finish and just to show how to launch endeavors. The goal is to make this campaign transparent so maybe some of you can see how this is done and apply it to your endeavor.

I will be putting this entire project in the wiki section so I can keep it updated and revised with the most relevant information. But for now, I need cats to understand the basics of this invisible pop-up store campaign so you cats can be comfortable and realize this is not really that complicated or crazy. Trust me and I’m an expert – all it really boils down to is taking action, learning from setbacks and move forward.

Technology

Let’s get to the main feature of this whole program – the mobile device. We will have to create an application or a process that enables augmented reality on as many mobile devices in the hood. With that said, I know cats are talking out the side of their neck about needing the latest and greatest smart phone to make this augmented reality happen and cats in the hood don’t have these kinds of phone.

First of all, cats in the hood do have the latest and greatest mobile devices or they will get the latest and great mobile devices if necessary. But regardless, we going to have to create an application the hood can use. So that means we are going to create an app for Android and iPhone or we going to find an existing white label augmented reality program. But real talk, we going to build the app, okay?

I’m not interested in using stuff like the magnetometer compass embedded in stuff like the iPhone or Nexus S or Galaxy S2 and stuff. I read a lot of cats talking how to program against this stuff and this is where a seasoned tech expert has to be real world and say none of that is necessary. I want you cats to think common sense – look at the image below of Hasley Street in Newark, New Jersey and tell me what I need to do to make this happen?

I only need to two things here – the first thing I need to do is get the GPS location or if they enter the location such as the hood name or street intersection manually, we got their location. The second thing I need is image processing over a live video feed to create the augmented reality effect. The image will be a live video stream of what the actual camera is seeing in real-time and I will superimpose the product for sale.

Now here is where I’m going to shut cats up because if you didn’t realize, this is exactly how I process QR codes by scanning each frame of a 30fps live feed and decoding any QR code images – I already coded this in a previous Dream and Hustle article for the upcoming point-of-sale system for the hood. Damn, kinda shut up all those naysayers just now, didn’t I?

Now here is the other imaging processing trick – I can turn the image into a two color black/white image and basically position the product for sale to be superimposed like on the horizon, next to a building and so on. That’s how we can create the augmented reality effect and like I said, we just made a lot of side-hating cats mad because they thought this was going to be difficult for us to pull it off.

Now that you figured out the augmented reality part, the rest of the technology is obvious. We will use a cheap $5/month GoDaddy mySQL database to store the images and offers of products and also store the geo-spatial information and the merchant information to be displayed to the mobile device user. That’s your augmented reality experience technology I just broke down to you.

Marketing

We are going to be super aggressive marketing and as you know, it will be done here in Atlanta. The reason it will be done in Atlanta first is because Atlanta is one of the biggest concentration of smart phone users and Atlanta is a majority African-American city. Sorry but the brothas and sistas down here in Atlanta are the best brothas and sistas that actually work together and help each other out and we come from everywhere down here.

The most important marketing will be video demonstration of the technology and that is your YouTube is for. You should practice learning how to make presentations of your hustle on YouTube and even a demonstration of your product. The second level important is the social networks and I’m just being honest, extremely unimpressed with Twitter and find Facebook to be more real-world.

The next step after that is to get influencers in the mix to help spread the word to the sheep out there, the same sheep that ran on Facebook and Twitter talking about Red Tails. How much you want to bet the same cats who hollered that Red Tails ish on Facebook won’t holler anything about this? I know, that’s sad ain’t it? So that’s why you need influencers in the mix to lead those sheep into participation and help them spread the word.

Logistics

I don’t have this figured out yet, to be honest. The issue here is how to sign up merchants, deciding what merchant products should be displayed and where it should be displayed and how the merchant will deliver the product. This is where I’m going to need your help, input, advice and during the trial runs, give your feedback.

See, we can drop invisible pop-up stores everywhere but can the merchants ship their products everywhere? I know something like a e-commerce operation type of merchant can get their products out but what about that small storefront handbag and heel boutique in Charlotte, North Carolina? Those are the type of small shops I’m really doing this for.

So do I just put local products by local merchants only in their local community? Or just have the e-commerce cats advertise nationwide? But even further than that how do I get the order or the transaction to happen after the person click on an image? That’s really a point that need to be figured out.

I do not want to be processing credit cards or selling on that customer behalf. However I could display a coupon for a discount if they visit their store after seeing the augmented reality of the product for sale. Or I could send an order request to the storefront or create a map from the mobile user current location to that store. Honestly, I really don’t know how to handle this after the mobile user see the augmented image and click on it. I need input on that.

Moving Forward

Like I said, the next step will be creating the wiki page for invisible pop-up store so we brothas and sistas can learn along the way. Again, you are reading Dream and Hustle and I’m not one of those fake cats that want to look all important in this tech game – I want this information to be shared among you cats to launch your own hustles.

If you got this information, you can easily launch your own augmented reality invisible pop-up stores to promote your upcoming book, promote other people stuff in any city you want and use the same app that we will be creating and just brand it or reuse the same app for iPhone and Android. In 2012, we got to go for ours and create empowerment for ourselves and our hoods and ain’t no holding back, no letting go and no stopping us now – I’m already in this to win this.

I believe the number one barrier to people becoming an entrepreneur is because they are afraid of being lonely. Only you know your dreams, your ambition, your desire and what you want out of life so when it time for action, it’s only going to be only you. Having faith in yourself and faith that God is with you for the journey has to be understood.

I speak to people all the time and they talk a lot about “doing for self” and all that other stuff about setting up their own business. But here is the thing – none of these cats got what it take to sit down alone and produce something for themselves. Some of these cats can produce schoolwork or advance degree work for others, but cannot sit down and produce for themselves.

I even seen some cats talk for years about doing something big here in Atlanta but when push came to shove, cats veered sideways trying to be social network popular talking about they respect Tyler Perry money making game, straight fake ish there, damn. Because I’m see it over and over again, all these cats are afraid of being alone and sitting there by themselves and put in the work for themselves.

If you want to be an entrepreneur, you have to learn how to be alone. Even if you are a entrepreneur that has a lot of social interaction, you really going to have to learn how to be alone dealing with cats who are so shallow and trying to get over on you. You are going to learn how to stay at home with the phone off and just putting in work for 3-4 hours straight. You are going to have to learn how to deal with situations and realize no one is around who can help you and know the real answer.

The first way to learn to be alone is to just listen and enjoy the silence like Depeche Mode. At home, just turn off the television, turn off the radio and just sit there. At first, you may notice that you may have an addiction to turn on some background noise and if you do, that is a sign you have a problem. If you cannot enjoy the silence, you are not in tune with yourself. You are definitely going to have to start enjoying the silence around you until you hear your life and your true inner voice.

Turn off the television, do not use the dishwasher and wash the dishes with your hands, sit outside and look at the world around you. When you see old people do this, it’s because they are at a point where they are at peace with themselves. This is the state of peace you are going to have to get at where you realize silence is the true peace you are looking for in your life.

When you get in your car, do not turn on the radio and just drive with nothing playing. Again, if you have an urge to listen to a radio show or some music, then that is a sign you are not in tune with yourself. Turn off the music and drive and just listen and observe the world around you. After doing this, you will begin to find your inner self and the noise will not be in the way anymore.

At work, no headphones or internet radio and just listen and observe. You will be surprised at how clear and concise things are when you do this. One of the things I used to do was show up to work on a Saturday morning around 7:00am when no one around and look at my work. I would work in complete peace Saturday morning and realize I may have missed something during all of the noisy workweek and able to make it right.

Many of you cats have opinions about me and my capabilities but you do not have my discipline, plain and simple. Cats of my caliber can be alone and operate in complete silence to get the job done and even multiple jobs done, plain and simple. If there is a 10 hour flight, I can spend that whole 10 hours working on something until completion before crossing the International Date Line. I can go rent a cabin in the mountains just like these authors and spend the whole weekend by myself doing much need work and reflection. This is something many famous and successful people do all of the time.

I can go on a cruise ship alone, I can go to Chicago, New York, Miami, Tokyo or London alone, I can even go to a club alone, go see a movie alone, attend a religious service alone, I can even to the karaoke bar alone, son. I can turn off the radio and drive 11 hours and stay focus on me and my life. This is not hard, it is just I’m not distracted and can tune myself in with living my life right here and right now in complete silence and focus. This is something I hope some of you cats keep in mind before making any other silly comments or assumptions guessing on what I can and cannot do because I’m truly in focused and can operate in loneliness and silence.

One way or another, you are going to find out that you are alone and be in a situation where there is nothing but silence. When you discover all those cats hanging around you are fake, when you discover all that noise you listening too has no substance is when you probably realize you was better off being alone and enjoying the silence with the time you got. So its better you master this technique down now while you still young.

The work I have cut out for the African-American community and our economic empowerment this year is going to require me to be alone and away from the scene because it involves real work that takes real time to get down. I can work independently of what others think or don’t need to have social interaction and that is a discipline I have to obtain in this game. But I want you cats to understand that you will also need to do the same kind of being alone and putting in the work for you and yours to get things done also.

It’s lonely at the top, but it’s also the most peaceful and fulfilling moment you will have in your life.